Here is my two cents, or four.

[DMB Warehouser]

Okay. To preface this review, I have been attending HHN solid since Sweet 16. I went like two other times in years before then, but I have gone many times each year since Sweet 16. I love the event so to me there is no such thing as a bad year, there just are areas that are worse or better than previous attempts. I love the sights, sounds, smells, and the overall atmosphere each and every year. I will never say that I won't be going back, or that I considered it a waste of money. I feel that the experience that you have is determined by a few factors. 1. Did you plan? and 2. What were your expectations? and 3. Who did you go with? If you got to the park at 8 pm thinking you were going to just waltz through all the houses and see the shows in 2 hrs., I'm going to say you are going to have a negative review of the event. If you are one of those that are going to expect everything to go as you want without a plan, save your money. You will only be

disappointed, trust me.

With that said, Wife and I just finished our 7th trip on the 17th so I decided to go ahead and give a review of MY thoughts on the event this year. I will say the crowds are getting much bigger and this was the first night we didn't make it through all the houses due to line waits. We probably could have done all of them if we would have wanted, but you look at a 75 min. wait and just say, "Ugh" if you have already been through the house several times. We made it through five houses that night. So I won't complain about the crowds at all in this review because to me, that's good news for Universal because it means the event is strong.

House Reviews

Legendary Truth - I will go on record as saying that this is one of the most incredible facades that I have ever seen them do for a house. When you walk into that sound stage, you swear you have just walked onto the front lawn of the bed and bath. Impressive is the only word I can use for the decor and feel of the house. However, with all that being said, I did find that this house was a house that had a lot of potential, but never seemed to deliver on it. I am in the camp that the costumes are NOT good. I swear on Sunday night, I looked at one ghost, and he looked just like Robin Williams. I even told my wife that and she agreed and had thought the same thing. The floor ghost is cool the first time you get to see it, but you soon realize that you are only going to see it for a second or not at all. I only wonder what that ghost gets to look at all night with some of the skirts I see the girls wearing. I wonder if there is a fight over who gets

that role. I think the biggest complaint I have with this house is that they just seemed to focus more on the decor rather then the scares. The ghost on the bed has to be the stupidest scare that I have ever seen in any house I've been through past and present. Why they didn't have a lift platform underneath the person to let the rise up is beyond me. That would have added so much more instead of them just sitting there wiggling a sheet. I just HATED that part of the house. The saving grace of this house was the Chair. That is a great costume and I loved the way they did it. I just wish they would have re-thought the costumes and focused on more of the scares instead of trying too many new things that just didn't work IMO. 10/10 for the decor. 5/10 for the scares

Psychoscareapy EoS - Another great facade even though it has been done before. I liked they way they "aged" it to give it the feel of being closed and forgotten. There were two main disappointments for me with this house, the first being the main song wasn't being played and second, the Poop room didn't come back. Those that remember the poop room will probably agree with me on that one. It was truly a memory burned in for a lifetime. They did a great job on the decor once again and I felt that overall the ghosts were doing the best they could. Like every house, it is always an issue of timing. Where you are in the line determines what you are going to experience. The hands on the bars was a clever scare and I loved the first self-initiated scare button. I am hoping these come back strong in the following years. The electric chair scene was intense if you were lucky enough to get it and we swore that it was a live actor the first night we went

through until we found out different on the UMTH tour. 8/10 for the decor. 7/10 for the scares

Hades GoR - To me, the facade of this house left something to be desired. I get the look, but didn't get how hokey it really looked upon further examination. After seeing LT and PEoS, it was a bit of a let down. I liked the entering in the mouth, but it just felt lacking at to what I'm used to the sound stage houses looking like. The scares though make up for the decor quickly. My wife had some real scares in this house due to some real hard working scareactors. The costumes and the size of them, really make you feel as though you just entered into Hades. The body room was one of the grossest I have seen and every mythological creature looked awesome and imposing. The use of the mirrors with the minotaurs was by far the coolest effect in this house. It got my wife just about every time. I will agree with most that not having anyone on the throne was confusing and they really dropped the boat on that one. Just didn't get the concept of having

something that cool looking without a massive creature sitting on it. Great house in spite of that. 6/10 for the decor. 8/10 for the scares.

Zombiegeddon - Typical facade for this house. Reminded me a little of Doomsday. Zombie house are not really my favorite because you usually get the slow moving grunting zombies over the 28 weeks later fast streamlined types. The concept of this house was pretty good though. I liked the whole, "We have them under control" then "Ooops". I will say that you really HAVE to go through this house when it's dark. As with the case with this house most years, if you go when it's daylight, you will see everything too well to really get the feel for this house. A couple of stand out scenes for me was the zombie baby, the steel bar body squish room, and the nail gun guy. I swear the baby was popping up much harder the first weekend and that added to the surprise of it. I liked the smell in the steel bar room for if I couldn't have my poop room from PE0S, I at least had smooshed body smell. The nail gun guy really put on a show and got into the part most

times we went through. Enjoyable house, but zombies is just not my thing. Sorry. 5/10 for the decor. 7/10 for the scares.

Orfanage AtA - The facade is pretty much the same every year for this house but I think they could have just added a couple of things to make it a little better. I liked the ashes as you enter, but felt that they could have easily added some live fire on the roof area above you to make it look like the building was actually on fire as you enter it. I did smell some burnt wood, but lost the smell pretty much right away so I didn't focus on it. Wish they would have made the smell more prevalent. I have read others state the lack of real scares in this house and I tend to agree with them. The first Cindy you see is just standing there inside her area and is very hard to see anyways whether she comes up to scare or not. The pens of the children were a good scare and the floating girl effect was pretty awesome. I think they dropped the ball in the nursery area and maybe they should have added the popping up baby/babies in this area rather then in

Zombiegeddon. I just know that area was creepy but they never delivered on a good scare in there. The use of live fire was okay at best, you just never really felt "in danger" from it. It was a great concept that needs to be worked on. I'm not a fan of kids yelling "Trick or Treat" for a scare, but my wife got startled a couple of times from it so to each there own. Strong possibilities but missed the mark for me. 6/10 for the decor. 6/10 for the scares.

Havoc DoW - Here is my favorite overall house of the event. I am going to start off by thanking the scareactors in this house for going the extra mile in making this house a very intense experience. I did have a couple of wrong timing trips through the house, but that is going to happen. When we did hit it right, my wife freaked out. In fact, If you have ever seen the fainting goats, I swear my wife was going to do that when the chainsaw guy came out behind her at the end of the hallway. She locked up and didn't know what to do. It was awesome. There were so many good spots in this house that I will say that this was close to perfection to me as to how a house is supposed to be. The bald girl in the hallway with the drop wall and the strobe light, you are intense and add such a great look to the house. There were one or two things I might complain about but I really don't thing they were strong enough to mention. This house had the intense feel

that you would expect from the theme write up. Very well done scareactors and if you don't get the house of the year, you were robbed. 8/10 for the decor. 10/10 for the scares.

Catacombs BDR - I'm kind of torn on this one. I really liked the feel of the house, but I had a bad run through a couple of times due to timing and cast change. The decor is simple and not overdone on purpose but the inside of the house kind of just looks the same over and over. Don't get me wrong, I liked this house but this house was stronger the first couple of times I went through it, but had gotten weaker and weaker as the event goes on. The complaint I got from some people that have gone with me was that all you really noticed was the Bird men. I liked the way they coughed and such but I would have liked some smells to go with this house. I mean, you are surrounded by death, shouldn't that stink at least a little? The grave scene where the ghoul comes out of it is a cool scene, but I've been though this house at least 9 times and I have only seen it once that I can remember. Timing is an issue here. The end scene with the strobes and the

air hoses is really great. I think they should have expanded that scene a bit longer and added more corpses and more plastic sheets. That would have helped that house a lot to make it kind of like the scene in Leave it to Clever last year with the meat cutters behind the plastic. Good house, just needed something more to it. 7/10 for the decor. 7/10 for the scares.

Horror Nights The Hallowed Past - I think this was my most anticipated house and in some ways I wasn't disappointed and in others I was very disappointed. The "prop warehouse" area at the beginning and the end was incredible. I really wish they would have had the queue wrap around the opening prop area, because there weren't any scares there, a couple of times just so you could stop to look at all of it. Having the ops rushing you through this area really sucked because there was so much to look at. Just adding one extra queue in this area would have made many people happy. The choice of the scenes in this house is what everyone seems to be putting into question. I think my main disappointment with this house was the length of it. Pulling off a 20 year history of HHN would have taken a much larger house to really do it justice. I really think they could have broke tradition and made this a larger house. Something that really gave you a feel for

where the event started and where it's evolved to today. If anything, each main Icon should have had their own scene in this house and they should have represented farther back years stronger. It's all my personal complaints but I still liked the house. Like everyone else though, I was expecting so much more then what they gave us. Too much from the past three years and not enough "history". The icons being at the end were okay, but way to sporadic. If you looked ahead at all, you were going to see them coming. Man did I have high expectations for this house though, so I can only blame myself for the disappointment. For the scenes they gave us, the scareactors did great however. The only one that was weak was the Tweeks and Foons, I went through this scene so many times without any live scareactor coming out. 10/10 for the decor. (I have to do it because the prop area) 8/10 for the scares.

Like I said at the beginning, I will never say I hated the event or will never go back. I just love everything about the event and will go every year as long as I am able. It's an event for my wife and me to enjoy and not matter what they throw at us, we will always enjoy it. Did the 20th anniversary live up to what I expected? In most ways, Yes. I liked that they didn't just focus and rehash old houses because by the scenes in Horror Nights, we would have gotten some houses that were to recent to redo already. Did I want more? Yes. I think all of us want more but we have to be real in our expectations. I really enjoyed every night I went and have to say that I hope to go back three more times before it's over. To me, there really is no such thing as a bad time at HHN. Thank you once again Universal for putting the work and effort in.

I will do a scarezone and show review in a couple of days due to lack of time and I didn't want to make this God awful long.