Jumboshrmp Posted September 28, 2010 Share Posted September 28, 2010 (edited) This is my review of Opening Weekend for HHN 2010. This year was my first year going on opening weekend, and also my first time going with a large group of friends. I had planned to go to the meetup at Bob Marley's but was running late and arrived just as people were leaving. I headed over to the park with most of my group to get into the AP party. Right away we started going through houses. SPOILERS from this point forward. Horror Nights: The Hallowed Past Total walkthroughs for the weekend: 3 I went into this house with super high expectations. I don't think it met my expectations, but it was still a very good house and one of my top favorites after doing it a few more times. I like how the first part of this house has no actors, then you go through the spinning tunnel, and all of the props and icons come to life. Got a few good scares in this house, and a HNN shoutout from the second Dead Exposure zombie. I actually loved the Dead Exposure section of this house, and I really wished I had a chance to go through the original. The booholes in this house were probably the easiest to memorize for me after only a few trips through, because the scenes are so different from one another. The mirror maze was cool, but pointless 99% of the time because you are in a conga line. There was also foam in the Treaks and Foons scene, if you didn't notice it. A few more good scares, and then the finale room. The finale room in this house is incredibly lame in my opinion. You can see Jack pop out from the entrance to the room, he hardly ever pops out, and when he does, you expect him to becuase you could see it all the way from the beginning of the room. Overall though, a great house, and I loved it because it was dark in a lot of areas, which is a GOOD thing to me. Catacombs: Black Death Rising Total walkthroughs for the weekend: 5 Or as I like to call it, CATS N COMBS. This was by far the BEST house of the event for me. Every single time I went through it, that didn't change. In fact, since last year was my first HHN, this was the best house I have ever been in, period. The actors in there are incredible, in your face, and never let up. My only complaint about this house at all was that there was too much light. Even at night, when light from outside isn't leaking in, this house is just too bright. I really want to know why every haunted houe really doesn't have a ceiling above you, just walls. Sure, there are doorways, and things hanging occasionally, but for the most part, the ceiling is not there. It would make the houses much scarier, because light wouldn't leak in from other scenes or reflect off the ceilings. Anyway, just had to get that out, because otherwise, this house is fantastic. I actually loved the facade, especially the loud music. I really hope this house gets HOTY, because these actors were fantastic. The plague doctors as well as the dead people are very scary. At one point I had three doctors gang up on me. The guy on the ceiling above me got me every time. I had high hopes for this house too, and they were surpassed. I walked out of Hallow'd Past feeling kinda meh, and out of Catacombs shouting about how amazing that house was. I could keep going on, but you get the point. I LOVED Cats n' Combs. Havoc: Dogs of War Total walkthroughs for the weekend: 6 This house was also really really good. I wasn't expecting it to be, either. I honestly was not expecting this house to be good. But it ended up being one of my top 3 houses. The actors in here were great. Very agressive. That along with the loud music and noises made this house great. Once again, a bit too much light for my taste, but who cares. While I didn't get nearly as many scares in here as I did in catacombs, I got the best scare EVER in this house. I really wish I remember where it was. All I know was that it was a female (I'm pretty sure) on my left side, in a drop down door (once again not 100% sure on this). I was looking the other way and was somewhat distracted. I turned around and saw someone in my face and it just caught me so off guard that I yelled HOLY SHIT and ran out of the room. I only curse in a house if you got me really good, and that actually happened once or twice this year. I was grinning ear to ear and couldn't stop laughing for the rest of the house, and my heart was still pounding 5 minutes after walking out. After last year I was really worried that houses don't really affect me. Havoc gave me hope. Next, our group was stupid (and it wasn't anyone in particular, we ALL agreed) and decided that instead of waiting for Orfanage to open at 6:30 like we had planned, we should all walk over to Legendary Truth and do that. I was excited for LT so I agreed, and we went over to my most anticipated house. Legendary Truth: The Wyandot Estate Total walkthroughs for the weekend: 4 This was my first soundstage house of the year. It was also my most anticipated, not only because the effects were supposed to be highly sophisticated, but because the paranormal is one of my biggest fears. We waited in our first line of the night for about 20 minutes, and then went in. First impression, wow. I loved this facade. It looked just like a real house, and there was even grass! I loved that we ended up actually walking up the steps too. As soon as I got past the first room and into the hallway though, I was a bit dissapointed. Once again, I really want to know WHY the houses have nothing above you except for the roof of the building way up high. It made too much light and also took away a lot of the feeling of being in a real house. But aside from that, I still didn't like this house too much. It turns out, even though I'm afraid of the paranormal, it's not something that translates very well into a haunted house. I got one or two jumps out of actors, but more of then not I just saw them standing there waiting, then actually scaring people. Also, where were all these cool effects I heard about? Where was the strobe effect that was rumored? Sure, the floating ghost was kinda cool, but that was nothing more than a backlit scrim, nothing special. The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland has been doing effects with backlit scrims for over 40 years. Lasers in the finale room? So what. A moving chair? I saw that in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (plus I never saw this actor scare anyone). Don't get me wrong. I didn't hate this house. It was a great house. Just a let down, and not nearly as good as some of the others this year. PsychoScareapy: Echoes of Shadybrook Total walkthroughs for the weekend: 2 I didn't really have any expectations for this house. I went in completely neutral. And that's about how I left it as well. They should really do something about those strobes at the end. I loved them, but I shouldn't be able to see them from the facade. I really don't have much to say on this house other than it was good, not great, and I had fun seeing Bruce (eyeballs) in this house. I need to do it a few more times to get a good opinion on it though. HADES: The Gates of Ruin Total walkthroughs for the weekend: 4 Easily my favorite soundstage house! The first time I went though, there was this epic techno/rock music playing by the facade. It was AMAZING. The next three times I walked through, something else was playing. They need to only play that one song in that area because we all loved it and want to hear it every time! This was definitely my second favorite house. A close second, but the actors just weren't as agressive as they were in catacombs. At one time I even had the chance to go through this house with a big gap in front of me and I saw a lot of great scares. Right after walking through the facade, something got me to my right. Not sure what it was, but they shoved a hook or something right in my face timed exactly to an e prompt and it not only made me jump, I was really impressed with how well it was timed. I didn't mind all of the hanging stuff, but there was a bit much. The second half of this house seems to be a lot better than the first. There was even a cool labyrinthe at the end, which was pointless because the majority of the time they have a conga line or a stupid annoying op waving their flashlight at you. GTFO and stop ruining houses. I did this house four times and every time it was fantastic. This is the amazing Hades facade music I was talking about: Zombiegeddon Total walkthroughs for the weekend: 2 Waited in line a long time for this house. The queue video is great, but I didn't really enjoy this house as much as everyone else in my group did. It's a great house and I loved it, but just not as good as the others. Once again, the house is too bright, even at night. There were some cool smells during parts of it, and it was pretty exciting, but not one of my top houses. I need to go through more times to get a good enough feeling of the house before I give it my final rating. By the way, Scott was amazing in this house, he has the perfect role. Orfanage: Ashes to Ashes Total walkthroughs for the weekend: 1 I really wish the lines for the Jaws queue weren't so crazy. I only got to do this house once. I actually liked it a lot, and it was nice and dark in there, especially for being 6:30. I didn't get to do this house until the second day because of our dumb planning the first day, but oh well. I liked the amount of fog and the smell of the burning ash, I didn't get too many scares but I feel like I would have rated this house much higher if I did. By the way, I was very dissapointed in the "real fire inside a house". I knew ahead of time that the real fire would in fact be in orfanage. I think it would have actually been a cool surprise if Aiello didn't tell anyone about it beforehand. Especially since the fire wasn't even inside the house, it was outside through the window. So stupid. They really did a good job capturing the feeling of a building burning down though. I really liked it. So how did the houses end up comparing to my expectations? Most Anticipated: 1) Hallow'd Past 2) Legendary Truth 3) Hades 4) Catacombs 5) Psychoscareapy 6) Orfanage 7) Zombiegeddon 8) Havoc Actual Ranking: 1) Cats n Combs 2) Hades 3) Hallow'd past 4) Havoc 5) Legendary Truth 6) Zombiegeddon 7) Orfanage 8) Psychoscareapy Keep in mind my house rankings are based on my own opinions, how good the scares were, and how much i liked the theming. There were no bad houses this year. I loved them all. Just some that I enjoyed more than others. I've been typing for way too long so I'll save my in depth reviews of the scarezones for the individual discussion threads. Soon I will get around to posting these house reviews in each respective thread, with a little bit more info. But overall, the scarezones were fantastic. 20 Years of Fear, Saws n Steam, and Fear Revealed are my favorites. Pictures: Group picture from the first night Even bigger group picture from the second day The chainsaw drill team And this is Kim about to send Eddie after Liz Hope you enjoyed reading this! You can find more pictures from this weekend on my facebook! Edited September 28, 2010 by Jumboshrmp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephanie Posted September 29, 2010 Share Posted September 29, 2010 Nice review Andrew. Reading this made me realize what a stupid decision we made the first night. Haha. It was a fun weekend regardless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BabyFirefly Posted September 29, 2010 Share Posted September 29, 2010 Why was it a bad decision to do LT when you did, or did I miss the reasoning Otherwise, great review--I look forward to attending the event finally on the 9th! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jumboshrmp Posted September 29, 2010 Author Share Posted September 29, 2010 Why was it a bad decision to do LT when you did, or did I miss the reasoning Otherwise, great review--I look forward to attending the event finally on the 9th! Our plan was to start at Hallow'd Past and do the entire park counterclockwise. Orfanage generally has long lines once the park gets crowded because it's in the Jaws queue and it's right by B&T. We should have waited for Orfanage to open at 6:30, but we didn't. Instead, we went over to LT and waited in that line, which was dumb because at that time, the line was at the longest wait that it would be all night, and Orfanage was short at that time but quickly getting longer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raromono0627 Posted September 29, 2010 Share Posted September 29, 2010 wooooooooo love for the cat and combs!!!!! lol like ive said before it makes me proud to be a plague doctor! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LuitaChris Posted September 29, 2010 Share Posted September 29, 2010 Why was it a bad decision to do LT when you did, or did I miss the reasoning Otherwise, great review--I look forward to attending the event finally on the 9th! I'll cya there we'll be going the same night Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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