Pumpkin

I think you have a good point there, Sarah. I do still believe that we'll get an icon this year. Maybe we won't be getting a house to go directly along with he/she, but, again, I agree with all the rationalizations about the event more than likely having a face, and that face probably being seen somewhere in the park. It'd be neat if they combined the two ideas of a "Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde" psyche and our speculations of an iconic character or demi-iocn for this year.

Not to be a one liner, but that was fantastic. No matter what the actual house name ends up being, I think I'm going to affectionately call by that title and that title alone.

Based on the website update that we got tonight, I've got two new perceptions for speculation. First is about the Rune game, which I'm presuming is related to Sprung Tent #1 and the first picture from the Hints section of the FaceBook page. I think it's possible that this house could begin similarly to how Dead Exposure did, as in you're introduced to the main character of the house's story arc, like Charlie, before you're exposed to the forces that have been unleashed around him. Perhaps this is a professor or college researcher who has been studying some kind of ancient demon or even evil realm? This really reminded me of the doctor in The Evil Dead who translated the text of the Necronomicon and then tape-recorded its incantations. You don't actually get to see him in the movie though. My guess is that a back story along these lines could explain the "Exam Answer Keys" option when trying to begin the house's game. Second, there's the sounds of children playing in the background on the Horizon's aptitude test screen. Even though the words are inaudible, it still doesn't sound like they're speaking English. The track could be jumbled intentionally though. And I'm not sure how this exactly relates to a Utopian society or the seemingly cult like beliefs on that survey. I just found it interesting that of all the noises Universal could have chosen to have playing, they choose one that sounded like a daycare or preschool. The symbols are interesting too: Fire, Water, Wind, Blood or Earth, Death, and People/Flesh?

To kind of piggyback off of Kim, I wish that someday Universal would do a "Theater Gone Wrong" mashup for either a scare zone or a house. There's a lot of musicals, operas, and even Romantic ensemble pieces that they could borrow dark content from, and I'd imagine some of their rights would be easier to obtain than say a film's would be. Don't know how major motion renditions would effect the rights to some musicals though, or even how the American Film Musical genre works as a whole when it comes to licensing. Like we saw Sweeney Todd's barbershop in Body Collectors, and I believe a corpse that looked similar to the character, but that was all. No actual, real life actor. I think musicals in particular might make for a fun scare zone similar to how Horrorwood Die-In was executed. Really random, but I'd LOVE to see Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique turned into a house. That would seriously be hardcore.

We've still got so little information to go on for some of these house themes. There have been 5 clues so far from Our Mutual Friend, and from what we're guessing the locations left to be explained are both the tents and SS23B. I wouldn't put it past Universal to prolong Sprung Tent #2's reveal the longest, just judging form the toss up that's developed over its code names. I think both theories are fair interpenetration, the couplet meeter is a clue in and of itself vs. the couplet meeter is simply a uniform means of divulge clues. Whether it's a casino (and an icon house or not) or a Poe house, the only real scale-tipping factors are going to be either getting a FaceBook "Hint" update or a new website game regarding it, or seeing the set of clues explicitly conclude with 7 instead of 8 stanzas. This house might end up being the strongest mislead of the entire event.

Anyone else getting this red spray paint effect, like in Paint, over Pick a Card, The House, and Leaderboard? It seems to come and go for me depending on what screen I'm viewing.

Charles is obvious, but I've got nothing on the last name. I'm leaning more toward the original names/characters idea.

Once you're on the log in screen, the music changes from sounding like it's being played live to sounding like it's being projected through a phonograph. I wonder if we'll see one used in any of the upcoming games.

A decent strategy for the Channel Surfing game is to treat it like tic-tac-toe: go for the four corners first. In all the times that I played it, I never saw them connect in a row, meaning all three of the "Please Stand By" screens never touched diagonally. If you get two as corners, then that means the one in between them is safe. I also noticed that a lot of the time two of them would be touching in someway and the third would be slightly separated, but never extremely far away. I won the most amount of games using this strategy. Also, keep your choices consistent. If you get down to the last two screens and they're the same two TVs that you had to choose from on your previous fail, choose the "wrong" screen again. It's an old standardized test strategy: you are better off filling in the same letter all the way down the test than you are Christmas tree'ing it. Stick with what you choose (left or right, top or bottom, high, middle, or low). Useless piece of information: C is the most commonly used letter for multiple choice answers. At least it was when I was in high school. lol For the Crypt game, I noticed one pattern, but I don't think it's consistent. I won two or three times by selecting keys using variations on this fashion: Yes, No, Yes, Yes, No. Again, it does seem to be the more random of the two released so far. Always choose line 10 and always choose the tombstone farthest to the right.

Does anyone else think that, "'Tis wise to avoid cemetaries by night, Lest one should encounter the dreaded blue light," goes together with the crypt game on the website? Each crypt's lantern glows blue if you use the proper key to unlock it, and when all three are unlocked they open to reveal a blinding blue light that fills their entrances. The title Lady on Elizabeth Hawthorn's grave fits the vernacular of this clue as well.

The game I played was to choose 1 of 3 graves, then from there you had 5 skeleton keys to unlock 3 crypts. Only 3 of the 5 keys apparently worked. I played twice, lost both times, then choose the dud card. I choose the grave to the far right. It had a woman's name on it: Lady Elizabeth Hawthorn. The title of the screen was "Which Offers Rest and Peace?" After I lost I, I could hear the sounds of a bird crowing and ruffling it's feather's, as well as the wind howling through some trees. Another time I got ragtime-esque music that was different from the main site's. Yet another time, I got a Vivace paced piece of music played on the Harpsichord. It sounded very much like a Baroque minuet.

"There were four ships and left Spain, sailed by the sun, wind and rain. Three ships continued to explore, But what about number four?" Very cool! : ) This was from Google Translator, so forgive me that it's not grammatically correct. I don't know Spanish.

I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to the order in which they're revealing the houses. You do have a logical point that there should be a tangible card for The Thing, but maybe their schedule/pattern is based on having 8 cards to flip over, and only having 7 would throw it off. I could easily be wrong though because there's no suggestions/leads at the moment for how they're going to announce the scare zones. It would have been neat if they had laid down 16 cards (8 for houses, 6 for scare zones, and 2 for shows) and slowly allowed each round to be flipped over, similar to how Black Jack can be played. Maybe there could have been a quick load screen or animation once both cards in a stack were face up, similar to the intro on the main site. My other guess though is that we won't get the zones until the full site update, only getting houses as teasers on FaceBook until then. Who knows, the usual end of August reveal may even occur closer to the start of the event.

I went opening night in 2008 and was able to do all the houses that I wanted to, saw all the scare zones, and saw Rocky Horror. That was the first year I started working the event and was also the first year I attended as a guest. I asked for opening night off and got to actually experienced HHN for myself before officially becoming a scare-actor (not counting employee preview). As long as you get there on time and prioritize what you want to see into a schedule that flows with the layout of the park, you should honestly be fine. The first weekend is always a soft opening, meaning that the crowds are expected to be manageable. Hope this helps!

Personally, I'm annoyed with Universal Orlando. This year has had the least interactive, imaginative, aggressive, and even viral pre-event marketing campaign that I've seen since I became a scare-actor. The spirit of the chase is almost completely missing for me this year, and this should go without saying but that FaceBook pagelet thing is a great disappointment compared to Dr. Mary Agana's journal, the Universal Palace Theater, and the Archive. Without our reliable sources to guide us, I would have honestly assumed that Universal had lost some of it's interest in HHN's reputation or suffered some kind of serious crisis in it's planning of the event. Come what may with the main site, I hope it really does rock my socks with it's full reveal, but I'm annoyed regardless with this lackadaisical schedule. And I just don't want to feel like it's information overload if they're in fact planning something complicated. Adversely, simple yet great would be awesome, but I have some reservations as Fear's lack of online presence was disappointing to me as well.

Unfortunately, I don't have any extra items to trade, but I'm willing to buy somethings outright if anyone has what I'm looking for readily available. Looking For: 2008 Cloissone 2010 Media Gift/Press Kit These are all serious inquiries, although I know most of them are rare to very rare. Feel free to PM me or respond to this post. I'll get some pictures up of my collection after this 2011 run ends, as I'm hoping to accomplish a lot with my displays in the coming months.

The 2011 remake of Fright Night will apparently be distributed by the Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures group. Also, did anyone else think of this movie when we started brainstorming about holidays in the Disaster! queue? http://thankskillingmovie.com/about/the-ultimate-low-budget-experience/

I wonder how wide the thresholds really are for recycled and original content respectively this year. With a S&S house heavily hinted at and most people unhappy about another movie house, let alone one that's being considered a rehash, I'm seriously doubting that we'll get to see some of last year's favorites as experimental franchises: Catacombs and Dogs of War. If S&S went from a street concept to a house, then does anyone think that one of these could do the reverse? So little is know about the streets at this time, and while I do think it'll push our tolerance levels you just never can tell with Universal.

Floating Head - Talking Head - Omniscient Narration? It's a long shot, but maybe a PA attendant or an announcer?

Interesting... http://www.halloweenhorrornights.com/orlando/the_thing.html?__source=vrl.uid000071 We technically got a site update.