HHN 2010: Vampyre: Castle of the Undead (HOH)

[Trevler]

What do you think? (Hint: House of Horrors was Van Helsing before it was HoH.)

[Freak]

What do you think? (Hint: House of Horrors was Van Helsing before it was HoH.)

That answers my question then. I went through the Van Helsing maze before it was HoH, but there was just a small glimmer of hope thinking that there would be last-second props after preview night. Guess not.

[Freak]

Here's part 2 of the comic book video. Pretty sucky. (Pun intended.)

[DTH316]

Decided to watch the walkthrough.

It looks like a maaaaaajor snooze fest. The vampire make up looked good but there was nothing else astonishing about it. I'd prefer it to be the normal HOH instead after watching that.

Definitely going to skip this if I'm crunched for time. I really did expect a bit more.

Chucky's Playhouse is still the best overlay they've done because that was at least fun.

[electro_killer]

Didnt do this as we were crunched for time. I'm not upset that I missed it. I'll get around to it, maybe.

[HorrorNights93]

Chuckys Funhouse still remains the best HoH layover. It basically was HoH with added vampires. The mummy room and chuckys doll factory were not changed up decorations wise. I did get a few scares in though, like 1 or 2. The wolfman scene walking down the stairs has not been changed and also the frankenstein video before you walk across the bridge.

[Halloween Blues]

Alright, here's my review from my blog:

One of the smallest, but most important mazes of the event, Vampyre had a chip on its shoulder for being a testing ground for original properties. The maze was situated in the park's House of Horror attraction, which serves as the Haunted attraction for the day crowd. There were concerns about it being an overlay to an existing attraction, did this factor hinder it?

Thanks to a comic book back-story, the House of Horrors is transformed from a house of blended horror movies to a Romanian Castle, housing an ancient Vampire clan. However, without the comic, would you know this? Probably not, but then again, while a story may be helpful in setting up a house, it's not absolutely crucial to it's effectiveness.

The challenge, I imagine, with this house is that you can't really change it's appearance too drastically because it still has a day-time purpose to fulfill and yet you have to be able to make it look different enough to the nighttime crowd so that they're not thinking "Oh, here's the Chucky room inside of this Vampyre maze..." Some of the fixes were simple dressings to help give it a more lived in castle look, while others (like the mentioned Chucky room) were as simplistic as dimming the lights so you couldn't see the details in the room. Considering the limitation they were working around, it was a good effort and in some areas of the house, it was pulled off quite well, but I was left wondering what it would have been like to have given this idea it's own maze set up to grow and develop in.

What this maze really relies on though, more so than any other, is the talent of it's scare-actors and in this one not only do you find quality, but you'll certainly find quantity. The Vampyre's in this maze were aggressive and plentiful, not to mention well placed. The look of the Vampyres may remind you of the ones in Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, but that isn't a knock against them considering the directions Vampire designs have gone since then (sorry, Twilight reference). It also doesn't affect their ability to scare the shit out of you.

My fear is that this maze will be dismissed by the general public simply because it's an original property and an overlay of the House of Horrors maze, but it should not be missed because while it may not be the best, it's still a terrifying experience and it certainly makes a strong argument for the inclusion of original mazes.

[zombieman]

Well, I got to hand it to Mr. Murdy, for the first time, he successfully toned down the "Universal Monsters" part of HoH and managed to stick to one specific theme.

While HoH is still nothing special, it does differ enough from the daytime version. Gone are Mother, Frankenstein, Wolfman, and Chucky (although his Good Guy boxes are still lit for some reason). Instead we get a bunch of vamp girls. It had more of a feel of Knott's Lore of the Vampyre - not that it was as good as Lore.

Good effort.

I do have to post one HUGE gripe - most of you know that Universal made a graphic comic around the Vampyre house (actually it had nothing to do with the maze, aside from the name...) Well, John Murdy said he was going to be giving copies to the first 500 people at the Sat 9/25 event. He later tweeted that he would be signing 500 copies at 10PM "next to the Vampyre maze". Not knowing how those two tweets were related, as they seemed to conflict, I showed up bright and early and got in the gates at 7pm on the nose. I went to the Vampyre maze....and no Murdy. I showed the tweet to several employees who said "Who is John Murdy?" After wandering around for 30 minutes, I decided to do stuff and come back at 10pm. So...10pm shows up and so do I at Vempyre. No John. I asked around again, and was told that "John finished the signing about an hour ago". WTF? What the hell time zone is John Murdy living in? He didn't have the decency to tweet that plans had changed (he could have used that opportunity to swear that all the houses were "totally new" again). I went over to Guest Relations to ask where John was....and they replied "who is John Murdy?" Isn't it great when none of cast knows who the director is? Anyhow, GR had a stack of comics lying around, so I took one and decided to call it a night.

That was really, really, bad form, John.

Edited September 26, 2010 by zombieman

[DTH316]

Well if you were to ask me the president of the company I'm working for now, I'd be SOL.

Heck, I couldn't even tell you the DM's name, lol

But that is pretty bad but understandably since it's opening weekend and celebrities are abound, he probably had something to do.

Tweet him about it and I'm sure he'll give you a decent reason.

[Halloween Blues]

To be honest, the only reason I know who my bosses boss is is because we make fun of him. XD

[zombieman]

Well if you were to ask me the president of the company I'm working for now, I'd be SOL.

Heck, I couldn't even tell you the DM's name, lol

But that is pretty bad but understandably since it's opening weekend and celebrities are abound, he probably had something to do.

Tweet him about it and I'm sure he'll give you a decent reason.

I did....at 7:15 (start of the event), and at 10:15. Still no answer. And he's not the president of the company. He's the director of the HHN event for Hollywood. It's wierd, since you go to Orlando HHN and most of the employees know who TJ Mariano is.

[HorrorNights93]

I saw john murdy in front of the (display board where it shows sll the wait times) near the Vampyre maze around 10:15-10:30 approximately yesterday. Also this maze went from having a line to a 5min basically NO wait as it grew later. It wasn't soaking up that many people.

[Grindhousehero13]

So would you guys say it broke the HOH curse or no?

[zombieman]

So would you guys say it broke the HOH curse or no?

Yes, definitely. And all it took really was turning off the lights in some sections, and unifying costuming throughout

[horrorfreak100]

So would you guys say it broke the HOH curse or no?

NOPE!!!!! The only thing i think that scared people in the maze were the lighting/sound effects they have. The audio for the screams were loud so of course it made people jump. I think the only people that will like this maze are the people that keep complaing about wanting original mazes. Seriously, they just need to get over it and realize that HHN Hollywood is movie based. Thats what makes this event different from all the others. If people want original mazes then go to knotts. Im not trying to sound like a dick but just saying how it is. But back to the topic, this was the worst maze of the night, It doesnt surprise me.

Edited September 26, 2010 by horrorfreak100

[zombieman]

NOPE!!!!! The only thing i think that scared people in the maze were the lighting/sound effects they have. The audio for the screams were loud so of course it made people jump. I think the only people that will like this maze are the people that keep complaing about wanting original mazes. Seriously, they just need to get over it and realize that HHN Hollywood is movie based. Thats what makes this event different from all the others. If people want original mazes then go to knotts. Im not trying to sound like a dick but just saying how it is. But back to the topic, this was the worst maze of the night, It doesnt surprise me.

I think the "curse" was broken as far as creating a maze that was not just HoH with a barely-there overlay.

Only in the past couple of years has Knott's gotten off it's butt and given us new mazes every year. It's my contention that the retur of HHN Hollywood was very much responsible for this. Prior to that, you were lucky if Knott's offered one new thing a year. Even now, the average lifespan of a Knott's maze is 3-4 years - down from a rediculous 5.

HHN Hollywood is an interesting creature - the two most recent times it started up (1997 and 2006), it was not movie-based. As time went on, they started adding movie mazes, until all the mazes were movie-based (HoH being the exception this year). To me, the difference is that in the 1997-2000 years, they did not repeat houses year after year. This year, they are not only repeating houses - they are repeating themes. Personally, I'd prefer original Universal idea, but I have nothing against movie-based mazes - as long as they present it one and then something different the next year. Look, at this point, I don't think anyone on this board wants to see Jason, Freddy, Leatherface, Chucky, or Jigsaw anytime soon. If they decide to bring in, oh, say, Jeepers Creepers then fine. Promise to do it one year only. As much as I absolutely LOVED House of 1000 Corpses, I don't want to see it back next year.

It's kinda like Knott's doing The Grudge three years in a row - exactly the same each year. Even after Grudge 2 came out, they were still doing Grudge. Was it a good maze? It was great - the first year.

HHN Hollywood should do what Orlando did - make the customers NEED to show up this year or they will never get a chance to see a maze. Heck, Orlando has created their own franchises (Psychoscarapy, Scary Tales, All Nite Die In) and they bring each back every few years with a different twist. That's pure gold, and there's no reason why Hollywood can't do it.

[Grindhousehero13]

Zombieman I realy agree with you

[electro_killer]

I second that Zombieman. (or third that) BUT I have a really strong feeling that because HOTC did amazing this year, we'll see it again next year.

[DTH316]

Halloween did great last year and that wasn't here this year, was it?

Don't even bother crossing your fingers for HOTC next year, love it or hate it, haha

As for Vampyre, I mean, c'mon. I am a Universal and HHNH -FAN-. You can not fool me with throwing in some new characters into the HOH and pass it off as an original maze.

I at least appreciated before with Chucky and the Strangers that they were just being inserted. It kinda insults our intelligence to say it's anything else.

If it were called House of Vampyres or something, that would make me much happier and know what to expect.

Edited September 27, 2010 by DTH316

[Halloween Blues]

How would House of Vampyre be different than Vampyre: Castle of the Undead?

[Havoc]

I got a chance to walk through Vampyre saturday. I was a little surprised that the talent was doing such a good job. I expected all the hot girls they hired to end up hissing and clawing all night looking sexy. However I saw scantily clad vamps running down the path after guests. That is a major problem with HOH, the guest and scareactor are separated. My first year in Lore of the Vampire at Knotts had the same issue. They put me behind a railing (which I promptly jumped over) That said, I was disappointed at all the chucky's still sitting behind glass. It did look a bit like they may be still working in that area. Also I would like to be able to see some of the character. Coming from someone who spent the entire night in the dark in a mask with blacked out eyes, It means something when I say it was too dark in there. The characters had some wonderful makeup, bring a flashlight if you want to see it.

[Trevler]

Really, Havoc? You're gonna advocate guests bringing flashlights into a dark maze? Hahaha.

[00nightcrawler]

I'm not a fan of the House of Horrors. Well, maybe thats not fair. I was the first 15 times I went through it, but I will be damned if I couldn't draw a detailed map of the entire thing. So there was really little hope of me liking this maze whatsoever. Especially with me generally hating Vampires nowadays, I mean I love traditional vampires and watch True Blood (often begrudgingly and due to me being a teenager) but they really aren't scary anymore. Ask 9 out of 10 people what they would do if they saw a Vampire nowadays and you would likely receive "fuck its brains out" as an answer. OK, thats a bit of an exaggeration but hopefully you get my point. The age of Twilight and True Blood has ruined Vampires scare factor. So yeah... pretty apparent I didn't care for this one.

Not that It's the scareactors fault. They all did a good job, from what I could tell (more on that later). And I didn't go through Chucky's Funhouse but the theming was obviously better than Meets the Strangers and I appreciate they tried to theme it unlike in 2007. But once again it simply wasn't enough. The scareactors were given little to work with, they pulled it off as much as they could, but all this is is House of Horrors with vampires. Its not a Vampire maze in the house of horrors venue. The house of horrors has undoubtedly become a one and done or even none and done for me and I don't know if I will even go through it more than one more time. If you haven't been through House of Horrors or like Vampires this is probably a C or even a B, but for me it was sadly one of the low points of the night

D

Now keep in mind this score is subject to change as I encountered the biggest trolls of the night and one of my biggest annoyances of all times. There were 3 girls in front of me. Screaming bloody murder. At every. Fucking. Scare. And not just screaming. Completely losing their shit and refusing to move forward. Yelling at me to go ahead of them and then fucking running into me full force 3 seconds later, trying to get past the scareactor I had just passed. I'm not a big guy. I'm pretty damn diminutive at 5'6 and thin as hell. So I don't appreciate being fucking run over 3 times in a maze. When I came out I was just glad to get away from their screaming. And yes, I said they were trolls. There is no way they were that scared. It's not that you can't have fun and act scared, but please act like you are over 10 years old.

[electro_killer]

^^ OMG I fucking hate people like that. I ran into those type of people @ KSF, and they completely ruined Quarantine for me. While this maze is still getting horrible reviews I'm still going to hit it when I return.

[Freak]

Here's an idea that I think would be well-suited for House of Horrors and wouldn't require a MAJOR overlay to make it fresh: In the past, Orlando has done a couple of maze that use the helmet technique (People Under the Stairs: Under Construction and Terror Mines). In a "helmet maze", there would no light, period. Pitch dark. The only source of light would be the small flashlight coming from the mining helmet that every fifth guest get placed on his head. At a point where a scareactor would pop out, the helmet person would pass a sensor causing the helmet to go out a couple of seconds to have the crap scared out of you. I think this would be very cool and well-fitting for House of Horrors. On top of that, it wouldn't require an extensive overlay to make us happy. Just put that feature alone in there and you've already got a pretty kick-butt overlay.