zombieman Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Hey all, I'm back from Orlando, and I'm working on a looooong comparison review to give you Californians an idea of what the Orlando event is like. Reading the reviews done by Floridians don't really do it justice unless you can compare concrete things. Be patient, because I go into great detail. I'm going to give links to the best videos that will give you a feel for the event, and try to make you feel like you're there. I will give you this tease, though - this was the first year that I attended where Orlando didn't have even a single so-so house. They set out to kick ass and made sure they brought plenty of bubblegum. Lots of surprises ahead. Stay tuned. Oh yeah, and Howl-O-Scream sucked majorly hard (we're talking Fright Fest bad). I posted a short review in the HoS board if anyone cares. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Timeout Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Well if you don't mind me posting, I myself have been to both the Hollywood and Orlando events this year and I must say in short, Orlando is better, Hollywood is lacking the heart and dedication that is brought to the Orlando event and it shows a lot. This was supposed to be there "10th" Anniversary and I felt like they didn't even care to much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freak Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 ^They don't care about their tenth anniversary because they consider 2006 their first year. They just pretend all of the previous years never even happened, unfortunately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Creeper06 Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 (edited) Can't wait for your comparison Zombieman! I'm heading down to Orlando in a week and cannot wait!!! There's no better way to close out haunt season! But, yes, Hollywood's event still pales in comparison to Orlando, even with the improvements that have been made over the past couple years. They're far too reliant on repeating as much as they can out here to offer a truly unique experience every year. Every year, you can see how much Orlando pushes themselves to do something unique and different, for better or worse. They know that their audience demands it so they step up! Out here, it seems like the feeling is "people are going to show up no matter what we do, so let's not go crazy". And yes, Howl-O-Scream has never impressed me. It's something fun to do on a week night if you live out there. But if you're just visiting Central Florida, skip it and do HHN again. Looking forward to the full review Edited October 19, 2011 by Creeper06 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grindhousehero13 Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Can't wait for your comparison Zombieman! I'm heading down to Orlando in a week and cannot wait!!! There's no better way to close out haunt season! But, yes, Hollywood's event still pales in comparison to Orlando, even with the improvements that have been made over the past couple years. They're far too reliant on repeating as much as they can out here to offer a truly unique experience every year. Every year, you can see how much Orlando pushes themselves to do something unique and different, for better or worse. They know that their audience demands it so they step up! Out here, it seems like the feeling is "people are going to show up no matter what we do, so let's not go crazy". as much as we all hate repeats its the difference in the coast, people here in the west coast get excited and even demand repeats if you see the facebook and twitter pages although most of us on the site were drawn by the first 2 years and were expecting each year to be hand in hand with Orlando's themeing thanks to Carnival of Carnage wanted Originality and Fresh Ideas every year but with most of the general public majority Im pretty sure dont even know Orlando's HHN exisit are used to knotts for the past handfull of decades with hardly any cahnges year to year have come to enjoy repeats hell were lucking we got only one repeat maze this year. Also I need to throw out Orlando is a much bigger park then the older sibling here in Hollywood which allows them to work on a grander scale and they dont have the restrictions of being a full fledge studio. Also take into consideration like what Freak said Murdy is basicly starting HHN from scratch since 2006, yes all togather we have had 10 years of the event but the early years might as well of been a different park completly where at six years in reality, we are lucky that a six year old event can head toe to toe with the big dog Knotts with being half its size and a fraction of its age and still make them sweat each year not to mention completely blow Six flag's Fright Fest out of the water in one year Im sure in time we can even attempt to compete with Orlando. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freak Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 as much as we all hate repeats its the difference in the coast, people here in the west coast get excited and even demand repeats if you see the facebook and twitter pages although most of us on the site were drawn by the first 2 years and were expecting each year to be hand in hand with Orlando's themeing thanks to Carnival of Carnage wanted Originality and Fresh Ideas every year but with most of the general public majority Im pretty sure dont even know Orlando's HHN exisit are used to knotts for the past handfull of decades with hardly any cahnges year to year have come to enjoy repeats hell were lucking we got only one repeat maze this year. Also I need to throw out Orlando is a much bigger park then the older sibling here in Hollywood which allows them to work on a grander scale and they dont have the restrictions of being a full fledge studio. Also take into consideration like what Freak said Murdy is basicly starting HHN from scratch since 2006, yes all togather we have had 10 years of the event but the early years might as well of been a different park completly where at six years in reality, we are lucky that a six year old event can head toe to toe with the big dog Knotts with being half its size and a fraction of its age and still make them sweat each year not to mention completely blow Six flag's Fright Fest out of the water in one year Im sure in time we can even attempt to compete with Orlando. Bingo. It's only an issue of time. We may have to go through all of the flaws the event has (Repeats, half-hearted scarezones and Terror Tram, etc.), but it will get there in due time. Just look at how fast our event has grown in comparison to Orlando's event. It took them 16 years to get to where they are now in terms of size. Now take the one out of that number, and that's how long it took for Hollywood to reach one less haunted attraction than them. It's just a matter of patience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Creeper06 Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 as much as we all hate repeats its the difference in the coast, people here in the west coast get excited and even demand repeats if you see the facebook and twitter pages although most of us on the site were drawn by the first 2 years and were expecting each year to be hand in hand with Orlando's themeing thanks to Carnival of Carnage wanted Originality and Fresh Ideas every year but with most of the general public majority Im pretty sure dont even know Orlando's HHN exisit are used to knotts for the past handfull of decades with hardly any cahnges year to year have come to enjoy repeats hell were lucking we got only one repeat maze this year. Also I need to throw out Orlando is a much bigger park then the older sibling here in Hollywood which allows them to work on a grander scale and they dont have the restrictions of being a full fledge studio. Also take into consideration like what Freak said Murdy is basicly starting HHN from scratch since 2006, yes all togather we have had 10 years of the event but the early years might as well of been a different park completly where at six years in reality, we are lucky that a six year old event can head toe to toe with the big dog Knotts with being half its size and a fraction of its age and still make them sweat each year not to mention completely blow Six flag's Fright Fest out of the water in one year Im sure in time we can even attempt to compete with Orlando. I understand all that. And that's the point: people on West Coast are used to repeats (because of Knott's, I suppose) so it doesn't bug them. So they show up no matter what's being offered which has, in turn, then taught Murdy and USH that there's no need to kill themselves by being original every year. I admit that I am absolutely biased because I got spoiled year after year by living in Orlando and going to that event every year. So then moving here and coming to Hollywood's event, it was a huge letdown. I get it. I really do. It's a smaller park, smaller creative team, smaller budget, and an audience that is less... shall we say, picky? So they can get away with it. But all the in account, if you still look at events side by side objectively, Orlando's event just beats the crap out of ours. Maybe that will change. We all hope so. But it looks like it'll be a while. And we can't really say that Hollywood only has "one less haunted attraction" than Orlando. That's counting a Terror Tram that has barely changed since 2007, 5 SZs that don't change, and a year round house. So Hollywood has come up with 4 truly new attractions this year (subtracting our one repeat). Orlando has created 14 (8 mazes and 6 SZs). It's a pretty big difference. I'm not trying to bag on Hollywood too much, because it's still a blast (and far better quality than Knott's despite having a lot less attractions). But them's the facts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grindhousehero13 Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 I understand all that. And that's the point: people on West Coast are used to repeats (because of Knott's, I suppose) so it doesn't bug them. So they show up no matter what's being offered which has, in turn, then taught Murdy and USH that there's no need to kill themselves by being original every year. I admit that I am absolutely biased because I got spoiled year after year by living in Orlando and going to that event every year. So then moving here and coming to Hollywood's event, it was a huge letdown. I get it. I really do. It's a smaller park, smaller creative team, smaller budget, and an audience that is less... shall we say, picky? So they can get away with it. But all the in account, if you still look at events side by side objectively, Orlando's event just beats the crap out of ours. Maybe that will change. We all hope so. But it looks like it'll be a while. And we can't really say that Hollywood only has "one less haunted attraction" than Orlando. That's counting a Terror Tram that has barely changed since 2007, 5 SZs that don't change, and a year round house. So Hollywood has come up with 4 truly new attractions this year (subtracting our one repeat). Orlando has created 14 (8 mazes and 6 SZs). It's a pretty big difference. I'm not trying to bag on Hollywood too much, because it's still a blast (and far better quality than Knott's despite having a lot less attractions). But them's the facts. the thing is though we all know Orlandos is gonna be better in comparisson, but at least its the best of the west. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Creeper06 Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 (edited) the thing is though we all know Orlandos is gonna be better in comparisson, but at least its the best of the west. Oh I definitely agree with that. I only hit Knott's once, my first year here, and was so disappointed in the quality and how it was run that I haven't bothered going back. I would rather get the multi-night pass for HHN and do that multiple times than deal with Knott's at all (or Six Flags for that matter). Of course, they kind screwed us on that one this year But compared to the WEST COAST competition, it wins hands down. The mazes are the best you can get in SoCal. It is unfair to try and stack it up against Orlando. It's like getting a Diet Coke instead of a Coke: it's not as good, not quite the same, and not your first choice, but it's still better than having a Shasta Like I said, I got spoiled. So now, no matter what is going on in my life, I HAVE to go back to HHN Orlando every October. It's a non-negotiable for me. Edited October 19, 2011 by Creeper06 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombieman Posted October 20, 2011 Author Share Posted October 20, 2011 Hey, guys - please wait for me to post the doggone review before we get off topic... ...but I gotta chime in about the repeat stuff. For a mega-haunt, HHN Orlando is a complete anomaly in the industry. Their closest competition (geographically, their ONLY competition) is Howl-O-Scream, and they repeat houses to the same extent that Knott's does. People who love HoS also love to see their favorite houses return year after year, just like the Knotts and HHN Hollywood fans do. I can't explain it. Not that I want to see them do it, but I think that HHN Orlando could repeat a house here and there and not see a major drop-off in customers. I know of only two other haunts in the US that present 100% new material every year (and not because of change in ownership): Sinister Pointe in Brea, CA and Scare for a Cure in Austin, TX. Granted, these each present exactly ONE attraction, but every other single attraction event I know of changes just a few rooms every year. Some of the better places like Netherworld make major changes, but still repeat entire sections. Now let me get the final word in and hold your posts for another day, okay? BTW, Creeper, my review will spoil your time next week. I urge you to read it once you've been one night. Oh, also, definitely buy the UTH tour and ask for David as your tour guide. He is hands down the best. He worked at USH for years, and is great to bounce questions off of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Creeper06 Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 LOL Don't get us started on HHN!!! You started the topic therefore opening it up for discussion. So we did! I do remember going to HOS and always being surprised by repeats (again, spoiled!!!). The closest they ever came at HHN Orlando was the "sequel" houses. Like Scream House in 2002 and then Scream House: Revisited the in 03. Or the 100 versions of PsychoScareapy (I kid... but they ran that one into the ground). It was similar but tweaked and improved. That never bothered me though because it was familiar but still updated. It would have been nice if they had done something similar with HOTC here this year. And I agree. They could get away with one of those a year, since there are 7 other brand new mazes and 6 new SZs to be excited about. When 90% of your content is new, no one's going to take you to task for one repeat. But here in Hollywood, we're getting 66% repeated (4 new mazes out of 12 total attractions) well, that's a little more frustrating. I will now be quiet and wait for your review PS- I think I had David as my guide two years ago! Really nice guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freak Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 Not to rush anything but....is it coming up soon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombieman Posted October 30, 2011 Author Share Posted October 30, 2011 Not to rush anything but....is it coming up soon? I've been working on it for a long time, and it will be soon. Why haven't any of you gone to Delusion yet??? There's only two days left! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Creeper06 Posted November 3, 2011 Share Posted November 3, 2011 Just got back from Orlando last night and I can't wait to compare notes! But wow, another great year down there. Now for my post-Halloween malaise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombieman Posted November 30, 2011 Author Share Posted November 30, 2011 Okay, so it's been a month and still no mega-post. What's up, Zombieman? I'm glad I asked... I've been preoccupied with my Christmas Light Show I put on at my house every year. On Nov 1st, I annually switchover from Halloween into Christmas mode, and spend the month hauling my stuff out to set up. This is a really, really big show set to music like DHS does with the Osbourne Family Lights. Jennings Osbourne used the same hardware I use. My show is up and running now, so I will have some time to put the final touches on the HHN Orlando walkthru for Californians. I really hope to have it posted by Dec 5th (perhaps in its own fresh thread). I know some of you are local to me (Creeper/Freak/GH13), so if you are near the Thousand Oaks area, give me a PM and I will give you directions to my show. I'm about 5 minutes from the Reign of Terror. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsylumSB Posted November 30, 2011 Share Posted November 30, 2011 **ZZZzzz** Picks up head from desk,notices drool on said desk, mumbles "review? ready?", looks at last post, puts head back on desk and back in puddle of drool. **ZZZzzz** Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Creeper06 Posted November 30, 2011 Share Posted November 30, 2011 Haha. I thought you had forgotten about us!!! Well, I guess we'll read it in early 2012 I considered wriitng up a comparison myself but it would just sound like piling on poor Hollywood. Everyone knows I think Orlando's event is better. And I would love to check out your Christmas display!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombieman Posted December 16, 2011 Author Share Posted December 16, 2011 **ZZZzzz** Picks up head from desk,notices drool on said desk, mumbles "review? ready?", looks at last post, puts head back on desk and back in puddle of drool. **ZZZzzz** Okay smart-ass. Here it comes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombieman Posted December 16, 2011 Author Share Posted December 16, 2011 On September 30th I visited HHN Hollywood, taking the $169 VIP tour. For those of you who read my extensive review, you will know that I was very impressed with HHN this year, and called it one of the best since 2006. On October 6th I took my yearly trip to Orlando, and visited HHN Orlando on the 6th, 7th, and 9th. I also took the Unmasking the Horror Tour on the 9th that provided a lights-on walkthrough of three of the HHN houses. This review is a comparison of the two events, and was full of spoilers. I say “was” because my intent was to post this before the events ended for 2011. My goal here is to give the California-based readers a full walkthrough of the Orlando event, giving them a real sense of how it differs from Hollywood’s. I will contrast every aspect of the two events, from tickets to food to shows to scarezones to houses. Brief resume: I became a haunt fanatic in the early 1980’s when I was old enough to be allowed to go to a place in LA called the Nightmare Factory. I was instantly hooked, and my friend at the time introduced me to Knott’s Scary Farm, which I have been attending since 1986. I have been to every HHN Hollywood (1992, 1997-2000, and 2006-present). I have been flying out to Orlando for HHN since 2004, and have visited Howl O Scream out there on every trip. In past years, I’ve used the return leg of my trip to visit haunts all over the country. So I’ve just about seen it all and have done it all – the extreme house, the hour-long house, the four-story house, the interactive house – you name it. Even as good as these haunts have been, I am always drawn to Orlando year after year, and with good reason. HHN does something that no other haunt in the world does – it gives you an entirely new experience every single time. In fact, if you miss a year at HHN Orlando, you will never get to experience those houses again. They don’t just slap a new name on a house and call it “new”. Sure, you see the same props repurposed all the time, but the theme of each house is fully different than anything before. If a house at HHN Orlando was especially a fan favorite, they might present it again, but in an entirely different setting. An example of this is Psychoscerapy, which is Orlando’s take on the asylum theme. Over the years, Psychoscerapy has been presented at least 4 times, but in a completely different way each time . And that brings me to another unique thing about HHN Orlando: Since 2000, they have created their own icons and themes. This just doesn’t happen out here. The only times HHN Hollywood used Icons, they were either borrowed from the already-proven collection invented by the Orlando creative team, or were tried and true horror icons. So let me start this comparison with the Icon and Website: This year’s Orlando Icon is Lady Luck, personified as an alluring woman. In reality, she is the Greek goddess of fortune or fate – Fortuna – who is often depicted with long flowing auburn hair. Fortuna always brings some sort of extreme result – either wildly good luck or tragic bad luck. Early in August, the Orlando website was slowly revealed, showing us a severed hand at a gambling table holding what appears to be a promising poker or blackjack hand. As part of a social media campaign, USH started sending out playing cards with sayings on them relating to luck/fortune/chance. These were sent out to media, people who friended HHN early on, and owners of fansites. Meanwhile, the Hollywood site offered little more than a splashscreen. As we know, John Murdy took up the slack of the pitiful marketing campaign and started giving Twitter followers clues about the houses. The Orlando website then allowed guests into the “backroom”, where they could play games of chance with the odds heavily stacked against them. The games were pure luck, and guests wagered “tokens” that were given to them when they signed up. Many lost their tokens and were banished from the website for up to an hour before they could try their luck once more. Each of the games ended up strongly relating to the eventual themes of this year’s houses. In retrospect, they were painfully obvious clues, but at the time, they seemed far too vague to guess much of anything. Back in Hollywood, we learned that one of the houses would be The Thing. A few weeks before the events were to start, the Orlando site turned into something different after 6pm. During the day, the games of chance are played against the house, but at night, they are played head to head against a live opponent. These games were not rigged; each person had the same chance of winning, and the winner of each game was rewarded with a small backstory of the corresponding house. The Hollywood site finally went fully live and all houses were announced by John Murdy, providing contests and games via Twitter till the very end. So right off the bat, we can see a huge difference between the two coasts. Orlando has been presenting elaborate, teasing websites every year since 2004. That was the year that the HHN website became THE place to visit every day to see if something new was being released. While I believe the idea of actually banishing a potential customer from your website is sheer lunacy, this year’s website did a fair job of building the suspense, but not since 2008’s Bloody Mary theme have I been on the edge of my seat waiting for the site reveal. The Hollywood site, on the other hand, has mostly been a miserable mess over the years. Contrast this to the social media marketing, where John Murdy has singlehandedly done a far better job than all of the suits in Orlando, via Twitter. Orlando’s tweets have a very corporate feel to them, while Murdy seems to say whatever is on his mind. I mentioned that the Orlando site eventually presented the backstories to all of the houses. While this is technically true, they did a very, VERY poor job of tying Lady Luck into the running theme of the event. In fact, if one were to go off the website and TV commercials alone, one would presume that the theme of HHN Orlando was gambling. This turned out to be anything but true. Lady Luck was confined to a single scarezone, and her presence was barely felt around the park. So while HHN Orlando had the potential of using the Icon in a great way, she was pushed far into the background. Tickets HHN Hollywood had a major misstep in this department. In fact, they just couldn’t figure out what they heck they were doing at any turn. First, they proudly made the announcement that there would be no Frequent Fear pass that allowed admission on multiple nights. After the instant outcry, they announced there would be a VERY limited number of special tickets available. These sold out within 10 minutes, leaving people still unhappy. Furthermore, the tickets were only good for several very poor select nights (far fewer than 2010), yet the price was the same. They then started selling the pass to the general public, ruining the promised exclusivity. Finally, the rules of the beloved Front Line pass were changed to that of Orlando – one use per house. The unlimited Front Line pass would cost upwards of $100 more, but would include about $40-$70 of perks. Contrast this to Orlando, where in addition to the general admission, they now offer a plethora of multi-night options: Frequent Fear – Most of the Thursday & Sundays during the runFrequent Fear PLUS – All of the Frequent Fear nights, plus FridaysRush of Fear – The first 10 nights of the event (including peak Fridays and Saturdays) And if this was not enough, for an extra sum of money, you could add “Express” to the ticket, meaning every night you go, you get a Front Line pass good for one use per house. The Orlando options remain far superior to Hollywood’s. In past years, I always purchased the Frequent Fear. As a result, I could only visit HHN Orlando on the Thursday and Sunday of my trip. This year, with Rush of Fear, I could have gone Thu, Fri, Sat and Sun. I purchased the Rush of Fear with Express for $169. I would have gone all four nights, but decided to do Howl O Scream one night. This pass did cause me to pass up Disney’s Halloween event and go to HHN a third night. So at Orlando, for $169, I got three nights admission with Front Line privileges each night. At Hollywood, $169 bought me one non-peak VIP night, with unlimited house entries. I’d call Orlando clearly a better deal. That same $169 could have gotten me 10 admissions with Front Line each night. I can see Hollywood’s actions this year as nothing other than a money grab. HHN Orlando’s clever move redirected my money from their competition directly to Universal. It also made my visit much more enjoyable. Weather Californians know that October brings four types of weather patterns: perfect, clear nights where a jacket is not required; warm nights; cold nights were a jacket is needed; and the occasional wet night. Orlando’s weather is an extreme version of ours. October in Orlando is never, ever cold. The typical night is not just warm – it’s hot and humid. You leave your air conditioned car and are sweating within 1 minute. When it rains, it usually pours. This year, I was fortunate enough to have near perfect California weather every night I attended HHN. It wasn’t even humid in the slightest. This was the first time since 2004 that I experienced it. If this is “climate change”, I’m all for it. Park size/layout The Hollywood park is much, much smaller than Orlando’s. In my estimation, Orlando’s Universal has twice the footprint of Hollywood’s – possibly even larger. Hollywood spans multiple levels and butts up against neighborhoods, forcing sound restrictions. The Orlando park is one flat, long mass. Streets in Hollywood are very narrow, making for small, sometimes congested scarezones. In Orlando, the streets are amazingly wide. The size of the New York scarezone in Hollywood is as large as the smallest scarezone in Orlando. Orlando’s streets are so open, it is not uncommon to have things in the scarezones that are 20 feet tall. At Hollywood, being a small park, the house queues are easy to navigate, and the walk from a house exit to the entrance to the queue is very short. Take, for example. La Llorona. You exit the Shrek queue and are right back at the entrance. The longest walk by far at Hollywood is for the house in the T2 queue. Consider that you need to walk all the way around the soundstage to get back to the entrance. In Orlando, the walk to/from just about every single house is much, much worse than the T2 queue. In fact, only the house that is in the Jaws queue has a short walk from exit to entrance (similar to Hollywood’s The Thing). In Orlando, there are two tents that house mazes side-by side, but the walk from exit to queue entrance is much longer than Hollywood’s T2 walk – about twice as long. Similarly, there are three Soundstage houses in Orlando. Two are in the same building. Yet all three require you to take a very long walk to a common area. To give you an idea of how massive HHN Orlando is, consider that I always wear a pedometer at these parks, and typically circumnavigate the park twice in an evening, doing each house once during each round. Including the walk to/from the parking lot, I put on over 9 miles in one evening. At Hollywood, it’s more like 4. Below, you will see two Google Earth images of the two parks. Strange thing about Google Earth – the altitude it claims represent does not always mesh with reality. Case in point – I zoomed into the Orlando park so that it filled my screen’s view. The altitude according to Google Earth was about ½ mile. I then flew to Universal Hollywood and observed it from the same ½ mile, and lo and behold, they appeared to be pretty much the same size! How could that be? I’ve been to both parks many times and I’m exhausted after circumnavigating the Orlando park one time. Then it occurred to me to look at other reference items in the view. I chose to look at the cars in the parking lots. Not amazingly, the cars in the Hollywood lots looked like Hummers compared to the Smartcar-sized vehicles in the Orlando lot. So clearly, the altitude of one view or the other was bogus. I kept reducing the scale of the Hollywood view until the average size of the cars matched. Finally, the parks appeared to be in perspective. I then added to each of the views the locations of all of the scarezones, shows and houses. More importantly, I added the approximate queue lines for the houses to the views. From this, you can see how nicely organized the queues are in Hollywood. With the exception of the T2 maze, the queue starts very close to where the house exits. You can see that the Orlando queues are completely different. Where you exit typically is nowhere near where you queued up. In addition, the walk from one house to the next in Orlando is sometimes grueling. Imagine if Hollywood’s lower lot and upper lot were on the same elevation, but you still had to walk from the Wolfman queue to the Hostel queue to get from house to house. That is what Orlando is like. [EDIT] - Um....looks like I got some of the Hollywood queue entrance/exits backwards. It was late. I don't know if I'll fix it... The ones for Orlando are 100% correct. Advertising Here is the full-reveal video that was released the night the website went live: Hollywood is using the same television ad theme to “What Fear Fears Most” that was run last year. I find it ironic that Hollywood used the theme of “Fear” yet Orlando’s icon was Fear. The Hollywood commercial also makes less and less sense each time it comes on the tube. Food Hollywood’s food offerings are FAR superior to Orlando’s. The food at our Mel’s Die-in is a billion times better than theirs. We have the outdoor Flintstones BBQ. We have a much better selection of everything. HHN Orlando can’t make a burger to save their lives. If you ever find yourself out there, I highly recommend eating at Finnegan’s – a restaurant/bar on their New York streets. Don’t eat there for the burgers (they suck). Get one of their Irish dishes. Perhaps one reason Orlando lacks better food choices is the fact that the huge streets breed food carts….and endless alcohol vendors. Orlando does offer a wide variety of food stands, selling some standard street fare: turkey legs, corn dogs, sliders, nachos. This year, one stand was rumored to sell the sandwich that Elvis loved so much - deep fried peanut butter and banana. Obviously, I failed to find that stand, or I would be typing this from beyond. I know that Hollywood has it's share of food carts, too, but think the variety and quality of food is better here. Bars are set up seemingly within 100 yards of each other, all across the park. These bars consist of two types – a “full bar” that sells shots and the theme drink for that particular year (this year was a mixture of rum, fruit punch, and Red Bull). The other type of bar sells bottled beers and Smirnoff Ice. I can’t resist the latter, despite the $6 per bottle price and the fact that it’s a girly drink (I don’t care – the stuff is great). And this brings me to the really, really bad part of the Orlando event – drunks. They are simply everywhere. By the end of the night there are more drunks than scareactors. We constantly read about the drunks pushing and hitting scareactors. I hear people claim that Orlando limits alcohol sales, but that’s pure BS. One can buy as much as they like, or find a way to get as much as they like. Hollywood continues to be a dry event, and in contrast, the clientele is much less obnoxious. I know it will never happen, but I dream of dry nights in Orlando someday. Ride offerings during HHN Hollywood: Mummy, Simpsons, Jurassic Park Orlando: Mummy, Simpsons, Rip Ride Rockit, Jaws, Men in Black Orlando’s Mummy is much better than Hollywood’s, but lacks the backward portion of the ride. If I was John Murdy, I’d stop being so proud of creating the Hollywood version… Simpsons is identical. Jaws is a fine standalone boat ride, but can leave you soaked (and, very sadly, will be missing come 2012). Men in Black is Buzz Lightyear for anyone older than 8 – lots of fun and never crowded. Rip Ride Rockit is amazingly painful for a ride that looks like it should be as smooth as glass. It is as punishing as Ghost Rider at Knott’s. No excuse for this. As an engineer, I believe it is the way the seats are attached to the vehicle, placing the rider’s center of gravity far above the track, making for a very shaky ride. Lines for each of these rides can be bypassed with the Express pass (once only) – except for Rip Ride Rockit, which typically sports 60 minute waits on HHN nights. Jaws and Men in Black almost never have a wait. Mummy has sporadic lines all night. Simpsons is almost always between 20 and 40 minutes. Shows No magic shows at either park this year. Hollywood only had Bill & Ted. Orlando offered B&T and something called Death Drums. Death Drums was kind of hard to explain. Picture a 15 foot tall scaffold on wheels. The rig is as big as a car, and really tall. In the rig is three sets of drums, each manned by a drummer. Now imagine two of these rigs, and a dozen dancers (6 men and 6 women). The show lasts about 10 minutes, and starts as the rigs and dancers slowly parade to the show area (usually an open crossroads in the park). As the procession (SLOWLY) walks the route, the opening to Hells bells is played…and played again…and again. What is strange is that this is not played live, even though we all know the drum beat is great. All of the performers are cloaked during the walk. Around the 4th time of the intro, the song is getting a little old. Once they arrive at their spot, the cloaks are thrown off to reveal skimpy outfits and the music begins. Four different shows are done throughout the night, each to different music. I caught the Rock themed show so I knew the songs. I thought the drummers were going to jump from set to set or from scaffold to scaffold, but they stayed at their own set. It wasn’t like a Stomp show, where unusual instruments were played – it was just a soundtrack of the music, but with live drums. The dancers did a very good job, and the numbers were the quality of what you’d see in B&T. The scaffolds also had rope lights on the corners that changed color to the music. Again, a very unusual show for HHN. Certainly not anything spooky or remotely scary. Not as good as a Blue Man number, either. It did not eat enough of a crowd to put a dent on the house waits. I’d recommend one viewing, but that’s about it. Show couldn’t happen in Hollywood simply because there is not enough room for it. For the very first time ever, the Hollywood and Orlando B&T shows were completely different, written by two entirely different groups of people. In the past, the show has been written in Orlando and shipped over to Hollywood. Hollywood: Preshow consists of Youtube movies of people doing stupid tricks and getting hurt. Plot is that Osama is the arch villain and Bill & Ted must save the world. Orlando: Preshow consists of fake ads skewering pop culture from 2011. Plot is that an alien is targeting Bill & Ted because they have poisoned the inhabitants of Earth with their juvenile and idiotic humor. Bill & Ted must save the world. I recall reading complaints from both coasts that B&T hardly appear in the show. I didn’t find that to be the case in either one. I’m going to assume that the reader saw the Hollywood show, so I’ll point out how things really differed. There was a voiceover introduction a’la Glee: “In case you born after 1984, here’s what you missed…”. It managed to tell the story of B&T and totally skewer American Idol all in the same breath. It picks up where the Bill & Ted movies left off – right in the parking lot of the Circle K convenience store (in this case, the set is outside of the store. For the live introduction, they use King George, who has stuttering problems, so Mr. Chow comes out to finish the intro, going over all the language we will hear. After a dance number, Bill & Ted arrive and want to make their own horror movie using a Betamax camera that Bill found in Missy’s (“I mean Ted’s mom’s room”). Ted suggests they make a movie where a space alien comes to earth to destroy it. And that’s exactly what ends up happening. The alien is this short fat green guy that has a high pitched voice and really promises to be a stupid addition to the show. Fortunately, the writers did a good job of not letting that happen. The alien goes through the crimes B&T have committed and sentences the Earth to be eaten by a planet-eating Kirstie Allie. We get a video demonstration of her ability, to which Ted says “Dude, did she just eat Uranus?” The Alien steals the telephone booth and Osama appears briefly, running out on stage yelling “Oh Shit, Oh Shit!”. He stops between B&T to catch his breath and notices his surroundings. This gets a great pop from the audience. Two Special Forces guys run out and Osama runs off to hide in a building. B&T get visits from several heroes, including a cowboy, who offers B&T each a bowl of his special True Grit. When they appear to be enjoying it, he explains how he makes each batch, which he ends by soaking his balls in for 8 hours. Good skit. The SuckerPunch girls appear, selling Girl Scout cookies. One says they are raising money for their sequel, DonkeyPunch. They offer to do sexy dances for B&T but the dances are so awful and unsexy that Bill screams “It’s going inside me!” (best line of the night). The Green Hornet also appears, with Papa Smurf filling in for Kato. All the jokes are about drugs. Papa Smurf gets the munchies and goes into the convenience store to get Funyuns, chips, and Funyuns. Green Hornet sees the Black Beauty as if for the first time and joyrides off. Captain Mexico appears, but not Captain America. No Thor, either, nor any mention of Cowboys Vs Aliens. Smurfette appears looking for Papa. B&T want to smurf her, and a dozen smurf jokes ensue. There is a skit about how terrible Twilight was. A fat Edward appears, trying to find solace from Bella. She comes out and berates him and the friends he hangs out with – cue Bill & Sookie, who come out to sing the story of True Blood, set to Beverly Hillbillies. It ends with “and we all watch True Blood because Twilight sucked” to which the audience goes wild. The alien returns, introducing the villains he will use to stop B&T and the heroes. These include Donald Trump (really out of place – didn’t do anything), Charlie Sheen, Ke$ha, Rebecca Black (who is not killed off like in Hollywood) and Sarah Palin, who is made fun of regarding her knowledge of Paul Revere. Osama appears to say how once in a lilfetime a voice as beautiful as the angels is heard, referring to Rebecca Black. She starts her singing and they both go off to his building. Inexplicably, CoCo the Barbarian appears in the audience and does a really strange set. A dance off: Black Swan edition happens, between Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman. Anthony Weiner comes out and tries to get them to make out. They run off and B&T return and ask if his name is really Weiner. They proceed to do as many Wiener jokes as they can in 60 seconds. Getting close to the finale, Osama appears from a window and talks about all the beautiful things he sees (ending the sentence with “Durka, Durka” to howls from the audience). The special forces guys appear again and toss a bomb into the house and blow Osama away. The crowd cheers. The guys pull their masks off to reveal they are Bush and Obama. They congratulate each other and walk off the stage. For the finale, there is a brief fight between the sides, and the alien decides he doesn’t want to destroy the Earth after all. He just wants to party and dance. The show concludes with lots of really good dance numbers similar to Hollywood’s. My description is anything but complete, and may sound lame in comparison to Hollywood’s, but I preferred the Orlando show a little more, even though the ending was abrupt. The cast of Orlando always has so much more energy, and the pyro is a much larger scale. They had no boat, CG guy, or Captain America. Osama was a background character – not the main villain like in Hollywood. What I enjoyed most was the idea that both shows were completely different, so I didn’t have to compare who did the same thing better. Honestly, both coasts brought it this year. Merchandise Hollywood: Three shirts, Hoodie, Pin, Shot, Shooter, Mug, Hat, Souvenir cup. Orlando: Three shirts, B&T shirt, Hoodie (sold out), 2 pins, Shot, Shooter, Mug, 2 different Hats, Deck of cards For some reason which I cannot figure out, Orlando had NO HHN-based souvenir drink cup. First year this ever happened. Maybe it was added after I visited. Orlando Bill & Ted shirt says “What happens at Bill & Ted’s stays at Bill & Ted’s” and has a picture of them on the back. It is dated 2011. The Orlando merchandise all were centered around the Ace of Spades, implying a gambling theme. The popular deck of cards further promotes this as the theme. One of the pins has a spinning wheel of fortune on it. Yet nothing – nothing – about the event had to do with gambling. Primary scare types Both coasts heavily use Actor-Activated scares. This consists of a button or footswitch controlled by the scareactor. The switch sets off timed lights and sounds so the actor can focus on timing the scare perfectly. I’d say that Orlando uses this much more than Hollywood, but there are simply more houses with more scare opportunities in Orlando. Orlando also uses these extensively in Scarezones. No shaker cans at Orlando – ever. Relative house sizes Even though Orlando has far more space, their houses are not much different in size than Hollywood’s. In linear feet, they are relatively the same length. Orlando houses, though do offer a huge height advantage, and this year we saw some of the tallest interiors ever in an HHN house. The Orlando soundstage houses also have industrial climate control. One soundstage is usually kept a nippy 55 degrees, the other in the low 60’s. While these make for a great relief from the Florida humidity, it also adds that extra “oomph” that immerses you in the house just a little more. From this point on, I’m not going to review any of the HOLLYWOOD HHN houses or scarezones. I’m assuming the reader is intimate with them already. What I want to do is take you on a walkthru of all of the Orlando houses and scarezones. Scarezones Hollywood had five: Scream, Zombieville, The Reapers, Klownz, Freakz Orlando had six: Your Luck has Run Out, Grown Evil, Nightmaze, Canyon of Dark Souls, 7, Acid Assault While Hollywood had three returning scarezones, all of Orlando’s were brand new (no surprise there). Your Luck has Run Out: very small scarezone, located in the tightest area within Universal – a place called Sting Alley, so named because it was used to film an alley scene in the movie The Sting. It is very narrow and forces you to walk down a dark alley. The alley is very realistic, day or night. You see loading docks for buildings, and stairways leading to the 2nd floor of the buildings. Just outside of the alley is a large Wheel of Fortune (the gambling wheel just like one you’d see in Vegas). It spins just like the real thing. The slots have numbers ranging from 1-21 (the years that HHN has been presented). This wheel is more of a photo opp than scare. There is no game to play. This scarezone is 100% staffed by female scareactors. The scares come from the many Lady Lucks you meet here. Those on the 2nd floor ledges are Fortuna in her beautiful form. From up there, she smiles and waves to you. On the ground level you will find Fortuna in her true form – hideous and fanged. There are pop scares of this Fortuna all along the ground floor. Unfortunately, visitors tended to use this scarezone as more of a photo opportunity, having people take pictures with Fortuna. Last year’s scarezone that featured the main Icon was little more than a photo opp as well. Many people didn’t think this year’s Icon scarezone worked well at all. This is what HHN was trying to accomplish: Grown Evil: Located along a path that has a natural canopy of trees overhead, and trees on either side. The scarezone is a straight shot, and is about twice as long as Hollywood’s scarezone in the London area. The canopy created a closed-in feel, and fog is always pumped in heavily in this scarezone. The canopy traps the fog nicely. The scareactors represent various creatures of prey such as bats and owls. Some are on stilts; others are not. Facial appliances are used to create the look of beaks. They do NOT look cheesy. Costumes include “wings” where appropriate, and the actors can use them in a variety was ways to create a scare. They can hide themselves behind the wings and flick them open with a loud noise. They can point them downward and “walk” on them to give the illusion of some hybrid creature. The sounds you hear are purely those you would hear in a haunted forest. Here is a pretty good video of the scarezone: Cavern of Dark Souls: Competes with NightMaze for worst scarezone of the year. Along a very short stretch of concrete, the designers constructed two “walls”. Each wall is black fabric, and is about 15 feet tall. Along the top of the walls are very large skulls (cheesy looking). The wall is supposed to represent these large black-robed skeletons standing side by side, leering down at you. The fabric on the walls are not necessarily secured; they are free to billow toward you aided by fans. It is supposed to (I guess) represent the skeletons reaching toward you. There are several human-sized skeletons (scareactors) as well. The only cool part of the zone is at each end, where a tall, square scaffold wrapped in nicely themed skeletal corpses stands. At the top of the scaffold is a hellfire that shoots flames into the air. In all, this was a very poor scarezone. This is what HHN was trying to accomplish: Here is a video showing it in all its suckiness: NightMaze: Every few years, HHN tries to offer a maze-like scarezone, with varying degrees of success. Rat Run was pretty cool. This is not. The “maze” consists of several fixed walls along with several movable walls. The movable walls are fixed about one end and rotate about that end. Don’t envision a flipping wall like the one you saw in Young Frankenstein. These walls “flap”; they don’t “swivel”. Scareactors don’t really scare. They are in charge of changing the layout of the maze. At regular intervals (set off by cues in the music) the actors (dressed completely in black) all move their wall in unison. I believe each wall can have three positions. At the beginning and end of the zone is a neat scare/effect. A scareactor dressed in black is wrapped in something you’d see in a Cirque show. Envision a tube of stretchy fabric with a hula-hoop sewn into each end. Put the whole thing on the floor and step into the middle. Stand on the bottom hoop and pull the top hoop up around your body and head. Now twist the hoop so the fabric pinches off above your head. If you can somehow hold the top hoop, you can twist and turn to look like some weird object. The actor can make their body appear “pop” out of the disk due to the stretchy fabric. I didn’t describe it very well, but it’s a cool effect. The reason the scarezone doesn’t work is that even though they have strobes and swooping spotlights overhead to disorient you, it’s still very easy to figure out where the walls end. In addition, the zone is located in a very wide street and they don’t have walls at the curbs, so a person can bypass the zone entirely by walking to the curb (possibly on accident). This is one of those zones that become effective when drunk. This is what HHN was trying to accomplish: 7: Personally, one of my favorite zones. This zone takes place on a very long stretch of street. It’s far longer than any street that Hollywood has, outside of the backlot. The theme is simple – the seven deadly sins are represented. Along the street are 7 platforms. To give you an idea about the size of this zone, these platforms are at least 20 feet apart and each is a good 8ft x 8ft. There are 4 platforms on one side of the street and 3 on the other. They are staggered. Each “sin” is represented by a woman who stays on her platform. Each has something to sit on and some objects to play with. For instance, Greed has a throne made of gold and a huge chest of gold. Each sin also has two male scareactors that interact with the crowd. So that’s 21 scareactors for one scarezone! Now, what really makes this scarezone uber-cool is that the scareactors morph two times throughout the evening. The women (except Gluttony) all start out looking seductive. They are all reveling in their particular sin. This goes on for about 30 minutes, during which time a set of music is played. All of the scareactors depart for a short break, then return morphed into an intermediate state where they have some disfigurements, scars, etc. They perform for a second set of different music, then break and return for the final set. At this point, they bear very little resemblance to their original forms. Vanity, as you can imagine has burns all over her body and is truly grotesque. The main music in this set is “The Beautiful People”. On peak nights, the entire cast does the full morph a second (or even third) time. At the end of the evening, the cast is always in the final stage of deformity. The male scareactors are really cool here, each themed perfectly with the sin. The Greed actors have prosthetics of a gaping mouth stuffed with money. Gluttony characters have faces stuffed with food and puke running down their fronts. This location typically is considered to be the “premier” scarezone of the event, due to its size. It is to HHN Orlando what the New York zone is to HHN Hollywood. This is what HHN was trying to accomplish: Acid Assault: HHN Orlando has another massive area used for a scarezone. This is Central Park, located in front of the Mummy. Size-wise, take the relatively square-shaped New York scarezone that HHN Hollywood has and lay out 9 of them in a 3x3 formation. That is Central Park. It’s big. They bring in a schoolbus, taxi, and other vehicles just to squeeze the area and make it seem smaller. Scareactors roam the zone. They are supposed to be victims of years of acid rain. Their faces are scarred and they wear tattered clothing. They look like war refugees. But what makes this zone pop is something new to HHN. Most of you have probably seen what Disneyland and Magic Kingdom are doing with projections on the castle or on the shell of Space Mountain. For Halloween, they also project onto the buildings of Main Street. They can change a building into an animated monster, completely hiding what is really there. In Acid assault, they use projectors on three surrounding buildings to make them look weathered and ready to fall down. In fact, you can watch the building crumble to the ground about every minute. From start to finish, the destruction of one building takes about 45 seconds. After that, the image “fades” back to the standing building again. I wish they made the whole process happen over 10 minutes. Make pieces break off once in a while, so a person questions that they actually saw something happen. As it is, it’s still really cool, but they shoot their wad of special effects way too fast. Here is a good video of the effect: This one is produced by HHN: Houses Historically, every year at HHN Orlando has had “that one house” that just didn’t live up to the hype. Maybe it was that 3D house that was just meh, or the house where you wore a helmet with a light, or the icon house that really disappointed. This year was the first I can remember where every single house delivered in a huge way. Imagine 8 houses at HHN Hollywood that had the intense detail of La Llorona, and the scares that were as good as the scenery. They brought it this year. Each house has an elaborate backstory that is supposed to involve Lady Luck. Some of these are a real stretch, so bear with. Also, if you haven’t done so yet, I urge you to visit (or re-visit) the HHN Orlando website and see how the backstories were presented with respect to what I will describe. The In-Between: I’m not a big fan of 3D houses. Never have been. They all have to have the obligatory dot room, floating head room, stick room, or handprint room. They also all have to have ridiculous pictures of clowns, pirates, monsters, vampires, or skeletons painted on the walls, with little orange eyes that are supposed to scare you. Well, HHN threw all of that out the window this year, and delivered 3D in a FRESH, exciting way. The theme is as follows: Two college students (one smart and cagy, the other a lazy oaf) come up with a scheme to break into their teacher’s office to steal the key for an upcoming exam, with plans to sell the answers. While in her office, the smart one discovers a strange box locked in a cabinet. The box has runes on it, and they decide to take it to see what secrets it may hold (and maybe they can sell it to a museum and get some beer money). The next day, they get a message from their teacher (who is supposed to be Lady Luck) saying that she knows it was them who broke in. She warns them to not play with the box, because it is very dangerous and evil. She gives them the choice to return the key and box and be punished, or ignore her warning. They, of course, decide to do the latter, and end setting free the evil within the box. From the website, we see that the box is kind of a cross between an Ouija board and the cube from Hellraiser. We also learn from the website that the college kids are into comic books. The house is located in a permanent tent. The façade is a gigantic comic book cover. You can see a picture of it here: In-Between facade Cute details to notice. The issue is No. 21 (this is HHN 21). The publisher seal in the upper right hand corner is HHN. When you enter the house, you enter the dorm room of the two kids. The room is a typical mess. You see one of the kid’s bicycles. On a small table is the box. The runes inlayed in the box are glowing reg. They are pulsating. The box is also smoking slightly. As we exit the room, we enter a vortex tunnel, but this vortex WORKS. It spins very fast, and is very disorienting. This tunnel will transport is to an area in between reality and horror. The first room we see on the other side is what would be considered to be a “head room”, but there is no typical pop scare. We can’t really make out the heads we see very clearly, but they are not human. They look more demonic. We round a black hallway and out pop the first scareactors. They are wearing demonic suits with the heads we previously saw. The suits generally gray with accents of white. Under black light, the effect is very creepy. What makes the scares work is that the hallway is black and the lights are off. The scareactor gets a chance to position himself right in front of you without you seeing anything. They then turn on the blacklight which is accompanied by an automated wail, and the effect is truly startling. The scareactors disappears just as quickly as he appeared. The timing is brilliant, and is initiated by the actor pressing a footswitch. It sets off a chain reaction of lights and sound, and he can adjust his timing around the effect. Around another corner we get a second dose of the demons, but now we see that their faces and bodies have on them some of the runes we saw glowing on the box. We walk through hallways with walls of mesh material from which demon hands poke. This distracts us from the demon above us who reaches down. A demon appears from behind a black slam door. Along another hallway, we see the walls now covered with runes. But something strange happens to the wall on our right. A demon appears beyond the wall and floats along side us for the length of the hallway. This done with a plexi wall on which runes are painted. To make the demon appear, they backlight the area where the demon is. He floats alongside us because he is lying on a small platform that rides along a track. This was seen last year in the Legendary Truth house. At the end of the hallway, there are many plexi walls. Some are in front of others. Runes are painted on all of them, but by changing the lights, they can make various layers of runes appear and disappear. Of course, you are so focused on the runes that you fail to see the demons that pop out. The demons are now almost entirely made up of the runes. Into a laser room – pure black, but there are starfields of red and green lasers. The red lasers are always on, but every time the green starfield appears, so do scareactors. Next into the best effect – the string room, where traffic literally stops out of fear. There are no scareactors in this room. Here is the amazing effect: Take a square room. Lay down a mirrored floor. On top of that, lay down a plexiglass floor. Now take a sander and rough up the plexi in a path from the entrance of the room to the exit. In this case, it’s a horseshoe path. The roughed up path is about 18” wide. On either side of the path, run red, yellow, and green string from the floor to the ceiling to create “walls”. The strings don’t need to run straight up and down; they criss cross at various angles. Run these string walls from the entrance to the exit. Now turn on blacklights, pipe in some fog, and wait for the fun! While you are walking along the path, the roughed-up plexi looks like you are walking on a cloud. But as you look at the floor, your eyes are drawn to the reflections on either side of this cloud. It looks like the string walls go down-down-down. Your brain is suddenly tricked into believing you are on this tiny path and can fall off in either direction. You WILL do a double-take and walk very slowly and carefully. You just can’t help it. Once you emerge from this room, you find yourself back in the dorm room. It is duplicate of the first room, and you enter it from the same side you went into the tunnel. Evidently, you made it out alive and all is good….until the demon pops out for the final scare. The Foresaken – Takes place in the “Parade Building”, near the tents. This building has very tall ceilings and tons of room. This house is the only one that lacks a façade of any kind. Projections of blue are on the outside of the building. They shimmer like some sort of underwater effect. The backstory is as follows: We all learned that in 1492, Columbus discovered the New World sailing in a small fleet of three ships. What we did NOT learn was that there was in fact a 4th ship. Columbus did in fact captain the Santa Maria, but that happened by chance, because that 4th captain - Antonio Cabot – wanted to lead the expedition. He was in it for the money and glory. When they couldn’t come to a resolution, they turned to Queen Isabella (Lady Luck) who told them to flip a coin to see who would be the leader. Cabot got to make the CHOICE of heads or tails. He lost. During the voyage, Cabot grew more resentful of the outcome. At some point, he and his crew of this 4th ship decided to break from the fleet and discover the New World first. Bad decision – they ran aground and sunk the ship. Columbus and the remainder of the fleet swore a pact in blood that they would never speak of the lost ship – which they forever referred to as The Forsaken. 100 years later, in 1592, there was a massive storm that lifted the ship from the shallows and washed it into a Spanish Fort. From the wreckage emerge the damned crew, bringing their wrath upon the inhabitants of the fort. The house was born from the John Carpenter movie “The Fog”. In that movie, the monsters all have glowing green eyes. In this house, the crew of the ship all have those same green eyes. You enter the house in the prison block of the fort. Cells line both walls. And again, I have to repeat that this house is uber-rich in detail. Every single room in this house is movie-set quality. The detail is even better than La Llorona. Honest to God. We get a first glimpse of one of the crew in one of the cells. It is a static figure, with green glowing eyes. My personal opinion is that while I understand WHY the green eyes, it spoils all the scares. You can see the monsters even when they are hiding because of the bright glow. The first scare happens in the last cells, where a crew member pops out on our left and “throws” a sword across our path where it lands in a second scareactor (Spanish soldier) on our right. The sword throw is purely an audio effect, but it seems real. Next is the chamber of the captain of the fort. His body (or half of it) hangs near a wall. The lower half is not seen. Blood runs from the bottom of the hanging torso. More hallways with pop scares from the crew. Next is a chapel with a shattered exterior wall beyond. A projection is used to make us see what is “outside” the fort. We see fog, and crew members advancing toward the fort. Those were projections. Inside the chapel, we see actual crew members advancing toward us. We go through a couple of more hallways. In the last one, we see the feet and legs of a hanging soldier above us. The body thrashes in it’s last moments. We emerge from the hallway into a huge courtyard. We are “outside” at this point. The storm continues to rage and we are pelted with mists of water and blasts of wind. There is a stairway to our left that goes to the upper level of the fort. A crew member is coming down the stairway. We see a huge cart in the middle of the courtyard. We also see a gigantic 20’ ship’s mast that has crashed down and taken out part of the fort walls. The mast crushes part of the wagon. The massive tattered sails billow in the wind. This is the effect of the storm tossing the boat at the fort. We make our way around the cart and three crew members pop out to confront us. Past the courtyard, we wind around the fort, still pelted by mist from the storm. We are now on the other side of the wall that the mast took down. It turns out to be another part of the ship – and we walk right through it. The deck is at a severe angle, and so are we. Two crew members pop out at this point. Once again outside of the ship, we head toward the exit of the house, but one final scare awaits. There is a shattered wall and we see a crew member that appears to be at least 20 feet away. All we see is the glowing eyes in the fog. The eyes suddenly appear closer, and the scareactor flies toward us in a matter of seconds, thanks to a bungee cord. He end just a foot from us. Great final scare to a great house. There is a good 20-minute lights-on tour of the house: This is a VERY nice video: Foresaken (beautiful show lights) Nevermore: Located in the other tent. The detail level in this house is incredible. This is supposed to be scenes from Poe’s stories, as seen from his own imagination. If you have read his stories, then you know that they often take place in ornate locations. The designers needed to copy these as best they could, which means some rooms have the look of rich wood walls, with details like crown molding. It posed a great challenge, and parks with a lesser budget (Howl O Scream) end up looking like crap compared to this. That park also did a house called Nevermore this year. Backstory – In real life, Poe left West Point and moved back to Baltimore to marry his 13-year old cousin. She dies soon thereafter, and the belief is that her death led to his dark tales. What we DIDN’T know was that when he bought the ticket to return to Baltimore, he was also given the choice to go to Boston where he could follow in the footsteps of writers he admired. The person who offered him the choice? Lady Luck (I told you some of these were a big stretch). The façade is simple but very nice. It is a collage of pages of Poe’s writings. From a distance, the make up the image of Poe. As we get closer, we see that the pages have writing on them, and some of the writing is bunched up, which makes the darker parts of the image. Really, really cool. We enter the house in Poe’s tiny cramped study. The room is filled with all sorts of odes to his stories. We see Poe himself at his desk. He wanders the room, talking to himself, paying no notice to us. This is not meant to be a scare. Remember, this house is about the madness of Poe, and is not meant to just retell his stories, but make use see what went on in his head. The next room is from the Tell Tale Heart. It is amazing. It recreates the scene from the story where the teller tears up the floorboards to reveal the corpse he had hidden under them. He hold his hands over his ears to drown out the sound of the beating heart he thinks he hears. What is amazing is that this scene is recreated on three of the walls and the ceiling. So the same three-dimensional figures that are on the floor are on the walls and ceiling. Hard to explain. While we are so dumfounded by the beautiful room, we are scared by the old man emerging from a slam door to our right. This is the man that was murdered in the story. He even has the eye that makes the teller go mad. As we round the corner, there is a second possible scare by the old man. Next is The Raven, which is a hallway with translucent material hanging down to block your path. There are three alcoves on your right, each with a pedestal and a large raven on each. The ravens are all scareactors, and they screech at you and toss the material to block your path. All of the screeches are pre-recorded and timed to lights and sounds. At the end of the hallway is a broken window with more ravens seen outside. Thunder and lightning happen, and you are spritzed with water from the storm. Although the scares sound like they would be cheesy, they are really excellent. We then transition to the Pit and Pendulum, but not before we have a quick scare of an executioner slicing off Poe’s head and thrusting it at us. We see a body being sliced nearly in half by the pendulum. The room is sooooo freaking detailed. The entire mechanism of the pendulum is here, represented by weights, ropes, and levers. Even though they are just arranged, it looks like it could actually work. The pendulum in fact just swings; it does not raise and lower. There is a scareactor here that jumps out. Masque of the Red Death is next. It is a horseshoe shaped room that represents the Green Room from the story. From the wall to the center of the room juts a walkway with ornate railing around it. On this walkway is supposed to be the Death. He can reach out at everyone in the room. As you walk around him, you pass several alcoves in which people are dancing. This is all from the story. Some of the couples are both mannequins rotating in dance, but others are a live scareactor and mannequin. Behind the dancers are mirrors to make it look like more people. Next is Poe’s library. It is a very large room – two stories (a first for a tent-based HHN house). Poe is on the 2nd story, with a large portrait behind him. It is a portrait of Virginia (the 13-year old cousin/wife). He has a bottle of booze and is clearly drunk. He pleads to an unseen person to please let him see his dear Virginia again. The lights go out, and two dead Virginias appear from hidden doors. The Black Cat is next. Partial brick walls on either side of us, a scareactor is on our left side attempting to complete the wall. Behind the wall we see the black cat. If you read the story, then you know that the teller goes mad and in an effort to kill the cat with a hatchet, he accidentally beans his wife between the eyes. The scare is that he pretends to throw the axe at us. We hear it swish by our heads, and a woman appears through an opening in the opposite wall. She has a hatchet buried in her head. The final room is very stylistic. At this point, Poe has gone stark raving mad. We see doors and windows, but they are all askew – like something Tim Burton would fashion. We round the corner and see stacks of massive books (not massive stacks of books). The books are huge. Poe is seen and he’s just out of his mind. Strobes are in the room, causing further disorientation. To exit, we need to pass by four stacks of the books. Behind each are characters we saw in the house, each offering a scare on the way out. As we exit the house, we hear the word “Nevermore” echoing. This is a VERY nice video: Nevermore (show lights) The Thing: Hollywood’s version and Orlando’s version could have not been more different. The custom prosthetics were about the only similarities. But first – Lady Luck? Well, the backstory is that Kate Lloyd is on her way to the US outpost in Antarctica via helicopter, when a gas leak occurs and she is running out of gas. She radios for help, and a female voice says that she has to make a CHOICE – keep flying toward the US outpost and ditch the chopper, hopefully not freezing to death before help arrives, OR divert to the Norwegian camp. The voice? Well, you know… While Hollywood chose to bring us into the story after most of the people had been killed, Orlando threw us into the fight. With the exception of the throat-slit room, both coasts offered completely different rooms. The Orlando house takes place in ½ of a gigantic soundstage. Like all soundstage houses, the façade is inside of the soundstage. We see the outside of the Norwegian base, which is quite massive (much taller than Hollywood’s). There is no snowmobile crashed through a wall. Orlando does use a snow machine to simulate some slightly falling snow. We enter the base through a partially destroyed wall. The first room is the rec room with a pool table in the middle. A face-hugger creature leaps through a far wall and a man with a shotgun fires at it. The shots are all timed and very loud. The monsters all react as if hit with a shot. We then see Orlando’s version of the split head creature, and another creature attacks us. Next is the throat slit room – almost identical to Hollywood. Orlando does not have the little crawlies, though, and this is where Hollywood is better. Next is the medical bay. I don’t know what you call the creature here. It’s like a clamshell opening, but there’s a human face in it. Both coasts have a similar room, but there is a real scareactor in the Hollywood version and just a prop in the Orlando version. We enter the kitchen/storage room where Kate is facing a creature with her handgun. From there, we enter a tall room with racks of ice-cores. On top of the racks is a man who leaps from rack to rack (he is hanging by a harnass). He has a shotgun and is shooting at a creature below (on our level). The finale room is another large warehouse where a giant Thing is crashing through the ceiling. It is a massive prop (about the size of a Mini Cooper) and is animated nicely. A man fires at the creature with a shotgun. We exit through one final tunnel that is supposed to be the spaceship itself (Hollywood never let us see the ship). We are attacked by two more creatures on the way out. I know this was not the best description of the house, but it was probably my least favorite, and I don’t know the technical names for the different types of creatures. The creature we see at the beginning of the Hollywood house (the creature with the woman’s face), is seen at the end of the Orlando house. That creature is my favorite. This is one instance where Hollywood’s version topped Orlando’s in terms of the story it told. Orlando was too repetitive with all the gun battles. In terms of set design, Orlando’s was far better. What I really liked was that the rooms had doors and paths that seemed to go off onto other directions from the way we traveled. This made the Orlando house seem even larger. The Hollywood house also suffered from some plain nondescript walls in some of the hallways. Saws & Steam: This house had the highest gore-factor of the event. It is the first-ever HHN house that is based on a scarezone (there have been scarezones based on houses in the past). The scarezone was last year’s Saws & Steam. The backstory is that it takes place in what we assume to be a post-apocalyptic era, where all machines run on steam, as all other sources of fuel have been exhausted. Using water as fuel sounds perfect at first, considering how abundant it is. But when most of the Earth’s supply of water has been used up, well, that’s when bad things start to happen. Famine, pestilence, Jersey Shore reruns – stuff like that. This has led to the desperate attempt to extract water from extreme sources – namely the 60% of the human body that is made up of water. The house is essentially a gigantic water-extraction machine. So why would anyone want to enter? That’s where “The Horizon” comes into play. The Horizon is being sold to people a utopian community, where you will be provided for and all of your hopes and desires will come true (think “Hope and Change”. Sorry, had to throw that in.) You will not feel pain anymore, or feel lonely or sad or hungry (that’s for sure). In the website, you are given a true/false test that determines whether you qualify to become a citizen of The Horizon. No doubt this is to tie the theme into Lady Luck, but I have no idea where she comes into play because there are no females at all in this house. To get a feel for the contents, think Bioshock. The feel is sort of Steampunk, and while you are in the queue, a soundtrack plays continually telling you the benefits of The Horizon. A make voice promises the world to you, similar to what citizens hear in Bioshock or Half Life 2. As you enter the house, you see banner proclaiming the wonderful benefits of The Horizon, followed by a small scale model of the utopian city. But as you round the corner, things turn dark, and you see a wall with the symbol of the Horizon on it. The voice becomes nasty and tells you that it is time to “ENTER THE MACHINE!” At the same time, a backlight on the wall reveals that it was merely a scrim, and we now see three corpses tied together and strung on a machine being dragged back and forth. We next enter a hallway with buzz saw blades on the walls and ceiling. There are rows and rows of them. While they do not actually spin, strobes and sound fools us into believing they do. In addition, the walls retract and contract, threatening to push the blades into us. A scareactor scares us and tells us it will all be over soon. The movement of the walls appears to be due to giant gearworks. The house is filled with all sorts of these geared mechanisms. As we exit the saw room, we see a scene to our left with two scareactors – one is a victim lying on what looks like a conveyer belt. At his feet is what looks like a huge spinning meat tenderizer. The other actor is a processor. The two interact, with the victim begging us to help and the processor asking us if we want to see what will happen to us. At some point, the processor drags the victim under the wheel, where his legs are caught by the spinning death. His whole body is pulled underneath and we get sprayed. The actor is on a small dolly and just rolls underneath the wheel, down a ramp. Great effect. The next room contains another processor. This one is removing flesh from a body with a knife. The flesh has been stripped from one leg and the other is about ¾ of the way done. The rest of the victim is alive. We descend deeper into the machine, into the extraction rooms. These are a series of hallways with many gears that look incredibly real. All of the walls look like rusted metal. We see three water extractors, which are hydraulic machines that squeeze fluid from blocks of flesh. These are behind plexiglass. The flesh blocks are large latex covered foam-blocks that compress a great deal. They look very very real. They are compressed between two metal plates that slam closed them open with very loud noises. To add to the realism, a hidden line pumps water into the blocks when they are uncompressed, so that when the plates slam together, water drips out the bottom. Several scareactors are hidden in these hallways. We then enter an area where the machines are more clearly powered by steam. We hear the hiss of the mechanics and see more windows with flesh being readies for the extractors. Two scareactors with air hoses scare us by shooting “hot steam” at us. We pass through very elaborate geared doors into a hallway with the first of several water storage units. These are actually aquariums filled with water, but pieces of flesh and some random body parts (ear, eyeball, etc) swim in then as if they were fish. These pieces look so damn real, I wish they sold them in the gift shops; I’d love to have them in my aquariums. They do not look cheesy in any way. The strips of flesh bob around the water looking incredibly real. After the aquariums, we see a large alcove in the wall at head-level. There is a metal grate on the floor and ceiling of this alcove, which is lit by a red light. The alcove is easily big enough to hold a person lying down (and was used in prior years to do just that). We hear a loud hiss and the sound of a machine gearing up, and the hear a loud SLAM! Followed by a large amount of water being sprayed from the floor of the alcove. It hits the ceiling and sprays in all directions (and gets people moderately wet). Afterward, the grates drip with the red droplets. Since we’re now in a very wet part of the house, what better than to add electricity? We pass through a dark area lit briefly by scareactors wielding sparkers that flash brightly and give off loud popping noises. They threaten to shock the customers and prod us on. Next we head toward something that looks like a Big Daddy! It is really a scareactor in a full body hazmat suit. The helmet is a cross between a diving helmet and gas mask. Between us and the scaractor is a waterfall – it really seems like a sheet of water. He kicks off a great effect – a high speed strobe makes the water look like it’s hanging in space, and he lurches toward us, swiping his large arm into the water, accompanied by pre-recorded growls. This sprays us with a bit more water. It is probably my favorite visual effect at HHN this year. We turn left toward the exit, and passing through a short metal trapezoidal tunnel where the tops of the walls lean inwards. Scareactors on the outside of the cages use the sparkers against the metal to make wonderful showers of sparks. Lastly, through some sort of boiler room with a final well hidden scareactor. H.R. Bloodngutz: For the past few years HHN Orlando has presented a house with dry humor mixed in. Do not for a second equate this to what Knotts does (or attempts to do). While these houses have had gag-worthy names (“Leave it to Cleaver”, “Zombiegeddon”, or this year’s), they have always been fairly high on the gore factor, and have delivered in spades. They have also been the only place in recent years where fully hashed out queue videos have been presented. Here’s the backstory: Larry Kurtzberg had a great acting career. He starred in some hit Broadway shows, but later made some bad decisions that cost him popularity. Eventually, this once promising actor found himself out of work. His agent (a female agent who is Lady Luck), said she found him a gig and that like it or not, it was the best he was gonna get. That gig was to host a midnight schlockfest where terrible horror movies were presented, and they were hosted by H.R. Bloodngutz. The tapings took place in a crappy little studio in Carey, Ohio. (HHN Orlando fans know Carey well, as it has been the fictional location of many HHN houses. It is to HHN as Derry, Maine is to Stephen King.) This type of midnight show was made famous by Elvira, and your own town probably had one when you were young. H.R. Bloodngutz wears a vampire type of costume and has the slicked back black hair. He would show up before commercial breaks to comment on the terrible film you were watching, and would drop equally terrible jokes. Larry thought the job was beneath him, but he made the best of it. The station manager, John Reynolds, never liked Larry. He treated him like a washed-up actor and had little respect for the man. So it was with delight that John told Larry that his show was being cancelled due to low ratings. The queue video takes the backstory from this point to the present. It is presented in a series of 90 second segments, with cuts to the station logo and “Munsters” music in between. In the first segment, Bloodngutz announces that this will be his final broadcast, as the powers that be have determined that his show was not scary enough to please the viewers. The camera pans backwards to see a man tied up in a chair. Bloodngutz introduces the man as the station manager and then tells the camera that tonight the viewers are in for a real show. Larry pleads to the audience to call the police but he is knocked out by Bloodngutz. I will probably present these out of order or miss some details, but you will get the gist. The segments are presented representing the holidays: Valentine’s Day, President’s Day, Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Fourth of July, and Arbor Day. In each of the segments, Larry tortures John in a different way. For Valentine’s day, he is stabbed with an arrow in the thigh. For Thanksgiving, a turkey drumstick is shoved down John’s throat. For the 4th of July, M-80’s are shoved into John’s ears and then lit. For President’s Day, Bloodngutz signs the Constitution using a quill, and “dots the eye” by poking out John’s eye. For Christmas, John is electrocuted with Christmas lights. Toward the final segments, the police arrive and flashing red and blues are seen through the window. The final segment has Bloodngutz signing off and slashing John’s throat. In each of the segments, Bloodngutz announces the movie that will be shown to accompany the particular holiday. This will make sense once we are in the house. Each film has a ridiculous name (the one for Christmas is “Ho! Ho! Homicide!”) Just outside the studio (complete with call letters running up an antenna on the roof) we pass by the H.R. Bloodngutz-mobile used to drive around town to advertise the show. We enter the studio and are met by Bloodngutz himself. The set looks exactly like the set we have been watching in the queue video. Bloodngutz cracks jokes to the passersby; he is not here to scare. In a chair in this room we see the corpse of John, with all the carnage that has been done to him. This is the last we actually see of Bloodngutz; remainder of the house’s rooms are each supposed to be a scene from the movie that represents the holiday (clever, eh?). prior to each “movie room” is a tiny room with an armchair and TV tuned to the show. Bloodngutz is presenting the movie just before we enter the room. The first holiday is Valentine’s Day, and takes place in a school hallway with lockers and an open door to the Valentine’s Day dance. Two scareactors wear togas and large baby masks. They have bow and arrows. As we round the corner, one triggers an effect where we get a swish of air in our face accompanied by the twang of a bow. Next is Easter, which is really screwed up and trippy. It’s like being in a giant Easter basket. There is Easter grass all around. Colored eggs are nesting in the grass to our right, and they suddenly start to rotate to reveal we were looking at the top of skulls. Ahead is a more grass on the wall – out of which jumps a grass-monster (a scareactor covered in the stuff). That distracts us from the scareactor in the bunny suit who gets us from the left. There’s also an actor that pops out and flails about, pretending to be attacked by Peeps. As I said – trippy. Next is St. Patrick’s Day, where the centerpiece is a pot of gold. There is a really neat effect with continuous fog being pumped straight down onto the pot. It is sucked into the gold, so it looks like a tube of fog. The fog is lit by a rainbow light, so you see all colors of the rainbow in it. As we walk around this cool effect, we are scared by two 6’ tall leprechauns with oversized shillelaghs. Next is Arbor Day, with a mangled corpse on a saw table, and a huge 5’ sawblade spinning and cutting it. A cute girl in a halter and Daisy Dukes is behind the table. She wields an axe and jams the handle into the corpse, setting off a big spray at us. The flirts with us and taunts us. 4th of July is next, as we walk into a fireworks storage room. It smells like spent fireworks. We see gigantic tubes and rockets. As we round the corner, we see a corpse with a roman candle in its mouth and fog/light effects that make it look lit. A door opens up and a crazed Uncle Sam scares us with some sort of popper similar to the sparkers from Saws & Steam. Next is President’s Day. The room is supposed to be in the White House. On the desk is an open briefcase with a bonb and timer showing. The timer looks like something out of 24. There is a large window behind the desk that depicts nighttime. There is a couch with a corpse on it. Scareactors dressed as deranged Lincolns and Washingtons pop out to attack. Every so often, the timer counts down (complete with the sounds from 24), and when it reaches 0:00, the room lights up bright white and the scareactors pop out for an extra scare. Thanksgiving is next, with the smell of cinnamon permeating the room. It looks like Grandma’s house with all the furniture. The dining room table is set for the holiday, and the centerpiece is a life size corpse that has been baked and stuffed. The legs have been arranged like a turkey, and it is stuffed at the groin. It reminds me of the trailer for Eli Roth’s “Thankgsiving”. Scares come from an Indian girl who pops out with a timed scare where she pulls a knife in sync with the knife sound. At the other end of the room is a pilgrim with a blunderbuss. It fires with smoke and loud noise. The finale is Christmas, and it is takes place through two rooms. We see Santa’s workshop and the human-sized elves are hard at work – armed with machine guns. They are trying to take everyone out. These elves are wearing masks that look exactly like Hermey the elf from the animated Rudolph movie. In fact, we hear the song “We are Santa’s Elves” from the movie playing in the background. The elves shoot people and dance with glee. As we round the corner, we meet the jolly man himself – or at least what’s left of him. His body is splayed against the corner, arms spread. His head is a smear on the wall, and bullet holes surround it. As we exit the workshop, we see small toy blocks stacked on the shelves, arranged in cute sayings, such as “Must Kill Santa”. Now THAT’S how you do a lighthearted house! Here is a link to the AUDIO portion of the queue video. It doesn’t do it justice without video: Here is a link to the President’s Day portion of the video: Here is a link to half of the video: Nightengales: The backstory is that the house takes place in the trenches of WWI. Against the pleadings of his girlfriend, Edmond Clarke has made the CHOICE to enlist in the army to fight for his country. While in the service, he receives a telegram, remitted by Lady Luck, from his family. The telegram urges him to return home to take care of his father’s business, where he will receive financial reward. He chooses to stay and fight. He is wounded in battle and is sent to the battlefield hospital. He writes his girlfriend saying that she finally got her wish, and he will be sent home soon. He tells of the great care and comfort that the nurses give the wounded. [These nurses are referred to as the Nightengales. They got their name from the famous nurse Florence Nightengale.] He does mention, though, that some of the men seem to get very nervous when the nurses enter the tents…. A month later, he writes home again, saying that his wounds don’t seem to be healing. He sees the nurses in his dreams, and they have horrific faces. One of his mates disappeared and his bedsheets were covered in blood. A couple of weeks later, a third letter is sent, this one more of a scrawl than fluid writing. There are fewer soldiers left in the hospital. The rest have died. The nurses haunt him more frequently, and only the weak and dying seem to be able to see them... This will not be a scene-by-scene walkthru. There is too much action taking place, and it is hard to describe linearly. This house really requires more than one visit to take it all in. The house takes place in the same soundstage that The Thing takes place in. There really is no façade; rather, you are thrown directly into the trenches. These seem incredibly real. They were modeled exactly after WW1 trenches. They are very deep, with walls reaching about 10’ tall. The walls were reinforced with whatever materials were available. Wood and metal poke out in various places. Much of the action takes place above us, at the top of the trenches. In the first 10’ we see a nurse with a corpse above us. She seems to be eating the corpse. When she looks at us, she has a gaping maw of teeth – long sharp fangs. Not vampire fangs; every tooth is long and sharp. Scareactors are exclusively made up of three types: nurses attacking guests, soldiers that are fighting unseen enemy soldiers, and soldiers that are fighting the nurses. We are in the middle of a battle, and gunfire abounds. Gunfire effects are also visual. While walking through the trenches, you may hear gunfire and also see shots appearing on people in front of you (as if they were getting shot in the head). Sometimes strafing sounds are accompanied by air effects whizzing by your head. There are some very nice special effects in the house. As you walk toward the end of one trench, you see a soldier standing, facing you. He is holding a gun, looking for the enemy. Suddenly, a nurse will appear behind him and wrap her arms around his upper torso. She will yank him backwards, leaving his lower torso standing in front of you. Then you get a spray of water. Unfortunately, this body rip doesn’t happen frequently enough for everyone to see it. I didn’t see it till my 4th time through. The house is not solely trenches. You walk through the hospital also. There are racks of wounded on either side of you, and nurses pop out from between the racks. There is a quarantine room where a body lies on a bed. The body is an animatronic that coughs and convulses. Each time it coughs, a mist sprays out of the mouth several feet into the air. Lighting is used to make it easily visible. People take a WIDE walk around this guy, afraid they will get the germs. Of course, that just pushes them toward the nurse. Another room is littered with corpses. I mean hundreds piled up. A nurse tiptoes on and around them and reaches out to you. Yet another room is some sort of command center. A German plane has crashed into the room, and part of a wing is seen in the rubble. Projections of battle scenes are shown through the hole, with soldiers tangled in barbed wire and impaled on spikes. A Victrola plays a sad song, further showing the incredible detail and attention to the period. Toward the end, you return to the trenches, and more nurses chomping on the freshly dead soldiers. At this point, the soldiers see what is going on and they start to fight the nurses. Nurses pop out and soldiers attack with handguns. The final scene has a soldier manning a large ground-mounted machine gun. He seemingly is aiming it at you, but is really aiming at the nurse that jumps out from behind you. As he fires at her, a nurse at the top of the trench flies across the trench from one side to the other (she is in a harness) and threatens to attack the soldier. Perhaps this great house is why I did not enjoy The Thing as much as I should have. The theme of “scareactor firing at a monster” was in this house, too, but in the thing, it happened way too much for my taste. Here is a link to the lights-on tour of Nevermore: Winter’s Night: Many, many people are calling this the best house of the lot, and the most beautiful. It is really different than anything HHN has done before and immerses you in the story. It is located in the small soundstage, which is kept at a brisk 50 degrees. I mean it is COLD (especially on sweltering Florida evenings). You can see your breath. Some say that HHN piped in actual snow. In fact the snow is all fake, but for it to fool so many people, that says a lot. Backstory: In the early 1800’s, Jonathan Hawthorn bought a sprawling piece of land from a spinster (it was lady Luck, who offered him a CHOICE of two pieces of land). He was all set to build a dream home for his wife, Lady Elizabeth Hawthorn, when she became ill and died a long painful death. During her sickness, he had a small cottage built, putting plans for the large home on hold. As her health worsened, Jonathan turned to a variety of medical treatments in hopes of a cure. These were done at the hands of an alchemist named Trumbull. Sadly, Lady Elizabeth passed, and instead of a mansion, Jonathan commissioned a massive cemetery and memorial garden. He hired Trumbull to tend to the funeral arrangements. From that point on, strange occurrences and sightings happened in the cemetery. Some say they saw a woman roaming about, bathed in a blue aura. On the anniversary of Elizabeth’s death, Jonathan took his own life. Trumbull took over as caretaker of the cemetery, moving into the small cottage. Every anniversary of the death, Trumbull illuminates the graveyard with lights lit by special oils that burn blue. While this is said to be done to keep the spirits away, others believe it attracts them to the light. The façade for this house is the massive entry to the graveyard, with its enormous gothic gates. Standing outside the graveyard is a beautiful carriage. As we pass through the gates, we enter the courtyard, where a there are several statues. In an alcove on either side of a central fountain is the large statue of a Weeping Angel. These are actually modeled after the Weeping Angels from Dr. Who. The idea behind the character in the series is that it cannot move if it is looking at you, but can move if it cannot “see” you. So they sneak up on someone to attack, but cannot see the victim. They must uncover their eyes to see if they are close, but then they cannot move. Hey, it’s British TV. I don’t make this stuff up. So these statues are of a woman with fangs who is covering her eyes. As you pass by, one of the statues is actually a scareactor who is PERFECTLY dressed as a stone statue. She can activate a footswitch that starts a screaming sound so she can attack in sync. She reveals her eyes, lunges at you, and freezes. What is really amazing is that this area is pretty well lit, and the costume is so perfect, you cannot tell which is real and which is a statue. We pass through rows of crypts, where scareactors have endless places to emerge from. If you take the time to read them, every headstone and crypt has a name on it. Many times this is a name of one of the designers. There are so many names that some areas are devoted to the family members or pets of the designers. The next effect takes place in a portion of the graveyard that is at chest level with you. It is behind a wrought iron gate. The effect comes from The Walking Dead. A half-corpse drags itself across the graveyard, just a couple of feet in front of you. What you don’t see is that there is a person-sized slot cut in the floor of that elevated graveyard. There are long bristles like you see on a broom that stick out to mask the opening. A scareactor walks from one end of the slot to the other, with only his head above the bristles. Connected to the back of his neck is the body-half, as he drags is behind him. He disappears behind a headstone, turns around and does it all over again. More crypts. In fact, 9 of them arranged on a tall wall, in a 3x3 pattern. If you read the names? It’s the Bradee family. (Brady family….get it?). There’s Florence Bradee, Cristopher Bradee, etc. taking the first name of the actor and not the character, just to keep it legal. This, like many of the funny things, was done as an inside joke, knowing that 0% of customers would “get it”. I only found out because this house was part of the lights-on tour. I should mention that all along this house, the blue aura appears and disappears. This is actually done with UV LEDs which have a bluish glow to them. When the aura occurs, it reveals slightly creepy things. Maybe it’s just a few splotches or a handprint on a crypt. Sometimes it’s a face. We them come to the cottage, where the blue aura floats around the walls, causing symbols and ghostly images to appear. As we are looking at them, Trumbull appears to scare us. He is the only living creature we ever see in the house. As we emerge from the cottage, we see one of the most beautiful scenes in the house. It is a brick hall with a couple of holes broken through one of the walls. Through the holes, we see what appears to be the main graveyard far off in the distance. It is where we will be visiting in a few minutes. It is in fact a miniature that looks startlingly real. It uses a strong forced perspective to appear to be a football field away. The best part of this is that it is a great opportunity for a scareactor ghost to pop up right in front of our peering faces. Excellent scare. We enter a mausoleum, wither skeletal remains abound. The bones are used as décor, with the unused ones piled in corners. This goes on for room after room. In one corner is a pile of bones that is actually a scareactor in a suit of bones. When he sits in a throne of bones, he is blended in 100%. We finally enter the final room, which is the outdoor graveyard we saw through the wall. In this room stands several cloaked figures, a couple of which are scareactors. Fake snow falls on our heads, and it is especially cold here. Even as I write about Winter’s Night, I’m asking myself “wasn’t there more?” I mean, it seems like a small house without many scares per my description. Honestly, it wasn’t about the scares in this house, but rather the rich detail you saw at every curve. Yeah, they could have added gore or more startle scares, but that doesn’t really go with the story. This is one of those “Trust me, it was great” houses that is hard to back up with a description. One could say the same thing about La Llorona. Can you describe every room and make the scares seem scary? How would you describe the lake scene? I mean, it was more of something to behold, wasn’t it? Here is a link to the lights-on tour of the house: So there you have it. A walkthrough of what I believe to be one of the strongest years at HHN Orlando. I hope it felt like you were there. PLEASE! Do NOT quote reply to this message (it's long enough). I also might make slight changes if people say I got some facts wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Creeper06 Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Wow!!! Incredibly in-depth review/recap. Great read. Thanks for helping keep me occupied at work after lunch A few things: -These are some of the most detailed walk-throughs I've ever read on this site. It was like reliving the houses and helped me remember some details I had forgotten. -Agreed that they really knocked it out of the park in terns of houses in Orlando this year. They all ranged from good (The Thing, In Between) to great (Nightengales, Bloodengutz) to FREAKING AMAZING (Winter's Night, Nevermore, Forsaken). -Amen about ticket differences this year. I love the options in FL and definitely worth the $$$. -I would slightly disagree about a more respectful audience here in CA. I think we have just as many jackasses here as in FL. It's just that they can't blame the booze here. (Btw- I LOVE the specialty drink down there) -I got a souvenir blinking cup when I went at the end of the month. Maybe they were sold out or hadn't come in when you went? That stinks. -I understand your point about the distance between houses and entrances and exits in FL. And if you are going to bounce around to houses, out of order, it can be exhausting. But someone once taught me a great trick for HHN Orlando. Start your night by making the Parade building house your first (The Forsaken this year). Then every house will exit and the entrance of the next house (Forsaken exited at In Between, In Betweem exited at Nevermore, Nevermore exited close to Saws and Steam, etc.). It works great and is a good way to hit them all one after another. -There indeed was a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich at the food carts across from Twister!!! I don't do bananas but my sister survived it. Thanks again for writing this up. Well done! Sigh... I miss Halloween... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombieman Posted December 17, 2011 Author Share Posted December 17, 2011 I wasn't referring to the blinky cup, but rather the bigger one with the screw on lid - for regular drinks. They always do some sort of red or black HHN cup with the icons on it, but this year it was the same Universal Orlando they sell during the day. And, yeah, I was maybe a bit too forgiving of the L.A. Idiot. We do have an undue number of morons over here. But whenever I picture the "stumbling, drunken Orlando girl", it makes me wonder why I don't play for the other team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTH316 Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 CRAP. I'm gonna need to set out an hour of a day sometime soon so I can read all that haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsylumSB Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Okay smart-ass. Here it comes! All in jest, kind sir. Your comparison was both an easy scan-through for topics I was immediately interested and for a thorough read later on. Spent most of my life with a love for horror in all forms, except "haunted houses" or live attractions. They never seemed to live up to expectations and more or less considered "Hokie". That is until recent visits to HHN-CA the past three years. This year we planned a Florida trip but decided for west coast jaunts and other priorities. Reviews/comparisons by Creeper and yourself have kept my interest into getting to Orlando soon. Thanks for taking the time to submit it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombieman Posted December 18, 2011 Author Share Posted December 18, 2011 CRAP. I'm gonna need to set out an hour of a day sometime soon so I can read all that haha Oh, yeah. And this from the guy that wrote a manifesto as to why Alice Cooper will destroy HHN. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTH316 Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 My novel on the topic shall be out next fall to accommodate the "Alice Cooper doesn't belong at HHN.com" website that'll pop up in the summer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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