the giant-less HHN

[giant4203]

Okay decided to wait until the end of the month to do this, so here we go. 

Overall impression: This was a really great year.  Great themes on the houses and each and every one were absolutely beautiful in its own way.

Biggest gripe: What was the point of having Lady Luck if they're not going to utilize her or the theme to the fullest?  If they didn't want to use a central character for marketing, that's fine, but she just felt like an afterthought.

The Forsaken:  Well done house, lots of scare opportunities in here.  The actors did their best with what they could, however I wish they would have been able to turn their eyes off in certain places to not give their location away.  They probably would have gotten a lot more successful scares if they did. 3/5

The In-Between:  In my opinion, best 3-D house Universal has ever put on.  Great scares in here, nice and disorienting which the casts took full advantage of.  Got lots of good jumps in here  4/5

Nevermore: I may have done a little dance when they announced this house.The sets in here were AMAZING.  Several really good scares in here, but I was hoping for more good scares, but there were some areas (like Tell Tale Heart) That were too easy to see coming  4/5

Saws 'n Steam:  Was nice to see they brought my old stomping grounds into a house   Great house, great scare moments.  Some of the casting was a little weird though...they had some boilers that were the body type of machinists and vice versa.  But they were working their scares so it was neither here nor there 5/5

H.R. Bloodngutz: Omg this house was hysterical (especially Thanksgiving with the "turkey") Well designed house and scares in here were pretty good, and the concept for some of the rooms were amazing...Arbor Day hehe 4/5

The Thing:  This house scared me the most.  I will right here admit I almost was crawling out of this one.  Amazing prosthetics in here, and was glad to see some of the non-thing actors actually acting.  There were a couple of people that were just standing there not looking overly concerned that these creatures were coming at them wanting to eat them.  Fortunately this was only a few people.  Looked just like the movie and the scares were good...sometimes a little too good LOL  5/5

Nightingales:  Great sets and great energy from the casts.  Tons of good scares in here, masks/prosthetics were really good and creepy.  These ladies (and gentlemen) brought it!  5/5

Winter's Night:  Probably the most beautiful house I've ever seen at HHN.  The facade with the lanterns and the snow and even snow falling, it was absolutely gorgeous.  There were a few actors in here that were a little lack luster, but for the most part the actors were on.  Some scare points were a little too predictable, so didn't get scared much in this house, but loved walking through it just admiring how amazing it looks hehe 4/5

Okay, so my order of favorites

1.  Nightingales

2.  The Thing

3.  Saws 'n Steam

4.  Nevermore

5.  Winter's Night

6.  H.R. Bloodngutz

7.  The In-Between

8.  The Forsaken

Wow that was a tough list.   I have never given out this many good ratings on houses, because they are all excellent.  All the casts should be proud of the product they delivered this year.

Now, onto the scarezones:

7:  I really love this scarezone, mainly because of the casts.  Great theme but the casts really brought it to life. I loved going through here in the daytime, and then at night it just became insanity.  I loved the music selection here too 5/5

Grown Evil:  Amazing scarezone, absolutely hauntingly beautiful at night.  Actors were great in here and knew how to use the fog to their advantage. Got the first scare I've ever gotten on a street in here! 5/5

Canyon of Dark Souls:  Great actors, but what is that set?  Wish the actors had more to work with in here, because it looked like it was thrown together at the last minute.  3/5

Nightmaze: Same problem as Canyon...was this thrown in at the last minute?  The actors were doing their best with what they had, but once again, seemed like an afterthought  3/5

Your Luck Has Run Out:  Oh THERE'S Lady Luck...I thought they forgot all about her at the event.  Nice little scare zone, but the chainsaws needed to learn how to scare with the saws.  I saw so many missed opportunities that these folks had to really scare the crap outta someone (.....Liz) and they didn't take it.  (Yes I am very critical of saw work...if you get a saw, you need to learn how to scare with it) 3/5

Acid Assault:  Clever use of the 3-D Projections really brought the theme together.  Actors were high energy and intense in here...saw multiple guests running away from an actor only to be scared by more.  GREAT TEAM WORK in here.  5/5

Okay, time for Scare Zone rankings:

1.  Grown Evil

2.  7

3.  Acid Assault

4.  Canyon of Dark Souls

5.  Nightmaze

6.  Your Luck Has Run Out

Once again, actors, you did fantastically for the most part (It took me 15 minutes to figure out how to fill those top 3 spots)

Bill and Ted: YAY!!!! It was actually great this year!  Nice to see new life breathed into it...though I must say Mr. Chow stole the show

Death Drums:  Okay show, good energy and dancing.  The techno show should not exist at all.  I was hoping that this show would have a much rawer, tribal sound with the percussion leading the way; however it got drowned out a lot by the music.  Make this a big tribal type sound (if that makes sense)

[armyofrobots]

I'll fight anybody who says I need to learn how to scare with a saw. ANYBODY. ;)

[LV-426]

I'll fight anybody who says I need to learn how to scare with a saw. ANYBODY. ;)

the minions were pretty much one of the best things of this year, add the chainsaws and they were probably the best thing about this year

[giant4203]

I'll fight anybody who says I need to learn how to scare with a saw. ANYBODY. ;)

Just a thing I noticed that really bugged me...I stood and watched several nights at the end of sting alley and I saw tons of missed opportunities that the actor could have taken the scare to epic levels, but most of the time, it fell short. Sorry, just my observation.

[LostAlice]

Definitely missed your presence in Saws N Steam just saying

[giant4203]

Definitely missed your presence in Saws N Steam just saying

Aye me too ...I was offered the role in that house but had to turn it down because I was cast in a production of Rent which I couldn't turn down

Edited November 3, 2011 by giant4203

[Cinderelly115]

Your Luck Has Run Out:  Oh THERE'S Lady Luck...I thought they forgot all about her at the event.  Nice little scare zone, but the chainsaws needed to learn how to scare with the saws.  I saw so many missed opportunities that these folks had to really scare the crap outta someone (.....Liz) and they didn't take it.  (Yes I am very critical of saw work...if you get a saw, you need to learn how to scare with it) 3/5

Can I just say.. I am glad they didn't take that chance. It was bad enough being stalked down the street. If they had revved that saw.. I would have been gone..

Btw.. Glad I got to see you, and saws would have definitely been better with you

[marchofprogress]

I'm sorry, I really can't help it, I have to ask, since this is like the most pro-chainsaw chain of posts I've ever seen (I chained "chain"s in that sentence, didja see whaddididthere? WIN):

Why does everyone love the saws so much?! It's just a loud noise! It's the equivalent of just shouting at the top of your lungs, or sneaking up on someone and squeezing a duck in their ear. I don't see how the connoisseurs of HHN can be so strongly in favor of something that seems so .. cheap to me.....

I don't get it. I'm serious, please, someone explain to me? : /

[armyofrobots]

Chainsaws don't scare me, but I don't have a strong hate of them like you.

By your rules of "loud and lazy", you should hate a majority of HHN: loud noises in a variety of places followed by a jump scare. It happens in every house. The Forsaken had the knife "snikt" sound, the mighty oak had a giant bellowing roar, the ravens had their crowing, drop windows, screams, men gnashing their teeth, babies crying, women weeping, etc etc.

There's no difference between any of these scares, but for some reason you loathe chainsaws. I don't consider chainsaws lazy or cheap at all. There are so many other roles this year that had a loud noise followed by an actor running out and doing it all over again.

So, sir, I turn it on you: Why do you hate chainsaws so much?

I feel like I should throw a pie to make it not so serious.

[The_Bled]

Really great review Giant. I agree with almost everything in it. I'm really going to miss this year.

I'll fight anybody who says I need to learn how to scare with a saw. ANYBODY. ;)

I can't count how many times you got me this year, and I don't even get scared by saws. You and the rest of the spade gaurds were just badass.

[marchofprogress]

Chainsaws don't scare me, but I don't have a strong hate of them like you.

By your rules of "loud and lazy", you should hate a majority of HHN: loud noises in a variety of places followed by a jump scare. It happens in every house. The Forsaken had the knife "snikt" sound, the mighty oak had a giant bellowing roar, the ravens had their crowing, drop windows, screams, men gnashing their teeth, babies crying, women weeping, etc etc.

There's no difference between any of these scares, but for some reason you loathe chainsaws. I don't consider chainsaws lazy or cheap at all. There are so many other roles this year that had a loud noise followed by an actor running out and doing it all over again.

So, sir, I turn it on you: Why do you hate chainsaws so much?

I feel like I should throw a pie to make it not so serious.

Alright robot. I've come to like you quite a bit so I'm going to share some information with you. There's a lotta words here but if you're a connoisseur of HHN, I assume youre a connoisseur of fear itself. So I'm going to tell you very clearly where I'm coming from and I'm going to scientifically support what I'm saying. And to be quite honest I wish I would've seen a post like this one years ago because learning all this stuff took a lot of time and work. So... Take your protein pills and put your helmet on... This time I'm going to try to be serious as much as I can because I think HHN fans should know this stuff.

AHEM.

So..

.... After a bit of soul searching (putting my otherwise worthless BS in Psych to use), I think I may have an idea why: because my first experience hating the damn chainsaws was really geared toward the scareactor. He could've been holding a regular hacksaw. He just wouldn't go away and we'd lost one of our party and we were obviously worried and dealing with an issue and we didn't want to be bothered trying to hear over this jagoff standing 2 feet away revvving a chainsaw like its scary. I asked him to leave politely about 5 times (nobody ever gets me to do anything polite even 0 times because I'm a THUG and THUG means never having to say you're sorry, but ... .this 'nobody' had a ... chainsaw). .... I finally had to basically yell at this guy and tell him me and my brothers were going to beat the tar out of him unless he left (and my brother was already being held back - was his wife that we lost)..... So he revved his saw and walked off.

HATE THAT GUY.

Also... I've rambled about this elsewhere but I think jumpscares are cheap to begin with, and I have to disagree that most of the scares at HHN are jumpscares. They've been perfecting this artform for 21 years now. Ever see that documentary about their scare tactics? I can't remember the name of it but it's on Youtube. Anyhow, a ton of different tactics come up through the show... And the jumpscare isn't a big focus in and of itself.

Let me back up and define my terms a bit .. I consider a jumpscare a startle response to a loud noise. That startle response is pure brainstem and it's instantaneous (close enough anyway). Without going into nerdy science stuff (anyone curious can find it quickly), the brainstem activation caused by the startle response can very closely mimic fear to an external untrained observer. One geeky science thing I will point out is that the brainstem can cause people to scream but it can also cause them to smile, and the smile triggers pathways to laughter. That's why some people laugh. The internal experience is (both subjectively and objectively, actually) almost purely surprise.

Fear, on the other hand, more closely mimics anger to the external untrained observer. They're controlled by the same part of the brain (amygdala, for the curious) and that part of the brain is not in the brain stem. It is not an automatic response. In fact, the fight or flight response (often incorrectly believed to be a brainstem-based behavior) is often preceded by a moment of paralysis, and subjective experience of time slows down. This presumably evolved as a sort of "bullet time" for the brain to make quick decisions on whether to .... fight or to flight, as it were. People don't laugh in response to this. The internal experience is subjectively and objectively described as fear. It is primal. And it's also visceral - that fight or flight response makes really powerful things happen to people's physiology incredibly quickly; they notice it and recognize it as fear. They sweat, their pupils dilate, their muscles tense up, they shake, and - here's the interesting part - their brain's resources are diverted away from spinal reflexes (e.g. brainstem-based startle response). Actually their brain's resources are almost entirely shifted into "RED ALERT" mode and cognition and perception both slow down (learning, incidentally, becomes nearly impossible).

Another key way to tell them apart is that the fight or flight response causes tunnel vision, while the startle response (in most people) triggers an automatic diversion of attention to the stimulus. In other words, they look in the direction of the loud sound. They literally cannot avoid it because it never enters a part of the brain they have even a bit of control over.

Now, think all this and compare to your experiences at HHN. Ignore your personal experiences - I'm talking about the ones you've seen.

I personally think the best scares I've seen are the ones where the poor guest is bounced down a hallway. Though I didn't actually get to see the house (GRRR, by the way), I hear that the Jason house in 07 did this repeatedly - guest sees one Jason, walks/runs/crawls away into another, walks/crawls/runs away into another, then gets it again from the ceiling.

THAT is a fear response - you can tell by a number of factors. First off, it's obvious that guy (he's a guy in this story; I don't want to keep typing s/he and all that...my story my rules ) should have seen Jason # 2 or 3 or 4 - at least one of them, right? And if he didn't, after #2, he should expect #3 right? Yes, he should, but he has severe tunnel vision because of the fear and his reasoning is limited by his brain's reallocation of resources to the mission of getting him the hell out of there, so he's not thinking 'whats next?'

Another thing: Jason isn't about loud. Jason doesn't have to do anything to scare the bejeebus out of you besides be there. From what I understand those bouncy scares in the Jason house were bouncing between stationary silent Jasons (or relatively so). The startle response - the pure brainstem response - is nearly twice the speed of ordinary human response time, which is a huge difference, but it's faster than perception as well. Think about it as if all the input from the eyes were going through pipes into the brain - all the pipes go into the brainstem and the brainstem responds before you know what you saw. This is one of those weird brain tricks that we never notice : our brains close the gap (largely because a fraction of human response time is not the same order of magnitude as the brain's experiential memory "clock," so to speak).

Think about all the billions of times you've seen little girls surrounded by guys with chainsaws. What do they do? They run around like chickens with their heads cut off, don't they? .... That's actually pretty much dead on. The point is they never stop moving. Human reaction time is very fast, but if you watch someone running in a zigzagging path getting chainsawed at the end of zigs and zags and not stopping, they are responding before perceiving it, so the commands for the legs to zig the other way are already sent.

Back to our guy playing pinball off Jasons .... If you look closely, you'll notice that he stops. It's brief - we're talking fractions of a second - but it's all the difference because of one other big key to Fear: perception. Your startle response is so fast that it doesn't give you time to truly perceive what you're running from. Your brain fills it in but .... You reacted without any chance not to.

I spent a lot of time in 7. One thing I saw a couple times was the minions ganging up on some little girl, and the girl's response is frequently to cower on the ground. That is Fear. It makes no sense as Startle. Think about it - she would be running away from the minions at startle speed, while the minions would be seeing her run at response-time/perception speed. She would never get surrounded and taken down by startle response.

How often do you see groups of chainsaw guys pinning someone like that? Rarely. In fact, sitting in 7 for the twenty billion hours I did, I noticed that Wrath's chainsaw-weilding minions for the most part revved their engine and the person would run and also .... drumroll...

They'd frequently scream.

Automatic screams are startle, not fear. People do scream out of fear but it looks closer to Macauly Culkin putting the aftershave on in Home Alone - there's a delay between stimulus and scream. For the same reason, actually. The stimulus has to be processed. Neural networks are alarmingly fast, but when you compare them to each other ... A Fear scream is a different beast entirely, and a Fear scream is something we respond to on a primal level. Fear screams make us scared too. Have you ever experienced a feeling of fear from a startle screamer? I haven't. In fact, I'm totally insulated from it - I usually laugh and enjoy the show.

If that was a fear scream, I wouldn't. Because I would be involved, and if I wasn't involved already, the scream would make me involved. This is the reason that the chainsaw guys can go after one person and "scare" that one person and not everybody around them.

Think about it - why do you think they need multiple chainsaws?

It's a philosophical issue at play. Specifically, the idea of "spaces"... HHN creates a space (I'm talking about a cognitive idea here, not necessarily the physical space) where there are certain understandings and rules and expectations and mores. One of those is that nothing in the place can hurt you. That is massive.

Need proof?

Suppose you really were walking through the streets in NYC. How many people with a *real* chainsaw would you need running around ? You would need one. One people with a "real" chainsaw. Why? Because that is *horrific* - that is an epicenter of a fear explosion and people will get away, fast. THAT is a fear response to a chainsaw - leave, fast, now.

If that actually happened and you saw the guy with the chainsaw, you would almost certainly develop what's called a "flashbulb memory" - you would remember what he looked like, in varying degrees of correctness and completeness.

Not so with a startle response! Why? Because it's faster than your perception!

If anybody does read this, some of you are probably as intrigued as I was (I did a little homework on this stuff in my time, can you tell?), but some of you are probably saying "WHATS THE POINT ALREADY?? WHY DO YOU HATE CHAINSAWS??"

BECAUSE.THEYRE.CHEAP. You get me to jump with a chainsaw, I'm not going to remember you.

Back to what I was saying about how I don't think jumpscares are the bulk of scares at HHN at all, the environment plays a huge role. Remember the first few times you went through a house ? Specifically, do you remember the second time, after you'd seen what it was about ? You're scared going in. If you're scared enough going in, your startle response is actually overridden.... But that takes something really extreme, like a coulrophobic going into a clown house. It's going to be hard to startle that person. His intense fear of clowns is going to fill him with so much dread and so much anticipation that the resources have already been diverted into the fight or flight / fear response (which, remember, takes a bite out of the impact of direct spinal reactions). You will scare the hell out of him though.

I can keep going on and on pointing out all sorts of things this applies to but I'll use one last example, a personal one: I found Nightengales to be unpleasant because it was too scary. This is because the house ... well... is scary, and people who are experiencing fear shoot it off them in waves - it's contagious. The Fear Scream (which I heard more than a couple times in this house) is the biggest one of these catalysts, but even just looking at a person when they're experiencing pure fear ... It's not something you pick up on from a subconscious level: you can SEE IT. And it rubs off on you. And back onto him. And you. And him. This house wasn't a startle house at all - I can't remember one startle in there.

Let me clarify one point before someone lists the 'startles' - the whole key of getting that jumpscare is that everything about the stimulus has to be quick .. Someone leaning over and whispering BOO at you will provoke a startle response. "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" would not.

To put that idea in real-world terms, one of the good scares I've gotten from HHN was in the latest Body Collectors house (was that last year? year before?). One of the gentlemen came out from a door while the cattle line had stopped for a moment and he dragged a sword or something across the ground. Not like boo door, slam metal against ground, disappear, but like ........... Freddy running his blades along the pipe. A nice long drawn out scrape. That didn't get a startle scare out of anybody (well, maybe the guy next to the door) but it did provoke some fear responses. Uni has one final trick up their sleeve here. And it's a big one.

They trick you philosophically. They create that cognitive space very strongly and leave no room for error: you go through so many different areas and lines and gates and when you're in the park, youre In The Park.

But when you go into a house.... They take that away from you a little bit. It's a different space. It's a subtle change, but the more willing you are to suspend disbelief the scarier it is. If you'd completely suspended disbelief and that Gentleman came out and scraped his sword across the ground like that, you would pee MY pants. People don't go to that level (they were so strongly put into the superspace that they can't ignore that the house is a subspace), but they do flip in that direction. So the sword drag was a great scare. Because it played with stuff in our minds that we didn't even notice: INSIDE the houses, the whole "nothing here can hurt you there is no danger" rule gets turned quite far down.

Think about it. In every house I've ever been in, the environment is similar, and it's always a place that would absolutely *scream* "Danger" in the Real World. You're sucked in right away. So that sword scrape plays on what is really the mother of all fears: fear of danger. The real threat of danger is incredibly strong as a fear provoker, but the imagined threat of danger is still a force to be reckoned with.

So how do the effing chainsaws fit in?

They ruin it, that's how. In the houses, it's too much. It's cartoonish. I think Saws and Steam could have been horrifying if they didn't rely so much on that cheap garbage. They really didn't have to! If they took all the random saw BS out and left it the same, less that one element, the house would've been much scarier! Why?

Well.... Let's play the chainsaw game, shall we? Texas Chainsaw Massacre .... The brilliance of the film is how little you actually see vs how much you think you see and how much your mind imagines and creates.

Let's stick with TCM. What's scarier in the movie, the sound of the chainsaw or the ROOM FULL OF BONES? A room full of bones? Not a jumpscare.

I think it's actually hard to pull off a genuine jump scare in a house. I think chainsaws are cheap 100% of the time but I recognize that most people don't feel that way. However, the point has to be made that if the scare is cheap, it failed. Unless it's in a house like Bloodengutz or something where the whole fun is the cheap thrill.

I'm probably boring everybody to tears and definitely taking up a lot of space here so I'll wrap up with this: think of the best scares you've had at HHN, ever. Think of your responses to them. I don't know about you, but every good scare I've gotten has made me stop in my tracks. Every one of them has made me unaware of my surroundings (ever wonder why sometimes you don't remember a room at all?). Not one of them has made me laugh (til later of course). Every time it is a halt, a reassessment, and a continuation - it's all business. There's no room there for laughter, or for running all over the place screaming.

Just remember, your brain is an incredible organ. It has specialized parts developed over an incomprehensibly long period of time, and those parts work together to do amazing things. But really all it is is a collection of wires. That's it. And the circuits that get accessed control everything about you from your behavior to your perception. So, while your forebrain and higher cerebral functions know full well at HHN that you are not in danger and none of it is real, the parts of your brain that control fear (and startle) do not care what your higher cerebral functions think. In fact, those parts of the brain aren't in the circuit at all. If they were, HHN wouldn't be able to keep the lights on, because nobody would get ANY kind of rush out of it.

To me, the chainsaws are tacky and unnecessary and they lead to laziness on the part of the designers (if you're satisfied with getting jumpscares, one guy in a room with a chainsaw is a legitimate and complete concept), and on the part of the scareactors (I know lots of you work hard and you're very good at what you do, but in my experience the bulk of the scareactors using the chainsaw are actually chansaws using the scareactor). It's pandering. It's ... scare prostitution. Cheap.

I wouldn't mind it at all if I didn't know full-the-eff well that Uni could do better. The one thing I can legitimately say I was disappointed about this year without any tongue-in-cheek comment, sarcasm or joke is that they just kept adding chainsaws to make up for weakness. They have a team of professionals who are VERY good at their craft. Come on. Chainsaws? Get real. I think the Spade gang were much more intimidating with those medieval weapons, as fake and inaccurate as they looked.

Create the illusion and stick to it. Don't remind me about it constantly. Every time you rev your chainsaw, you know what it sounds like to me? It sounds like somebody screaming "REMEMBER - ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THIS IS REAL!!!!!!" right in my face. And that kills my rush faster than the ops in the houses saying "MOVE IT ALONG." ...... Impossible to suspend disbelief when somebody's revving a stupid fake chainsaw. Impossible for me, anyway, and I might be alone in this category, but .. I don't know. I know the difference between fear and startle. Uni does one of them very very VERY well, and the other can't really be done very well (assuming we're talking about the same saturation level where every 10 feet it's another damn chainsaw).

I'll close with an analogy.

Friggin' Chainsaws Everywhere : startle response :: scaractor grabbing you and holding a gun to your head : fear response

[Michala]

Hey March, I found that really interesting. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I thought you might want to know about a SCARE I got from a chainsaw this year?

It was my third time through Saws and Steam, but very early in the night, just after the holding area had opened.

The whole cast were really into it. I had three big guys ganging up on my at one time, people not letting me past etc. So when I got to the end, there was no one in the final room. I was a bit disappointed, but there you go. I looked outside where the guy with the chainsaw was and he wasn't there. I'm thinking 'where's everyone gone?'

So I stroll out all relaxed and then BAM!!! He's coming straight for me! He was hiding off to the right when I looking for him on the left. Silly me. When he came at me I completely froze, then tried to get away, but there was a wall behind me and a big bloke with a chainsaw in front of me! My brain's reaction was to make me jump about three feet in the air. Twice! I have no idea why, it just happened. My heart was pounding after I finally got away.

From reading your post, I'm guessing that was a proper scare, not just your typical chainsaw startle. Way to go Saws and Steam! And I bet the chainsaw SA had a good laugh about my ridiculous jumping on his break!!

[marchofprogress]

Hey March, I found that really interesting. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I thought you might want to know about a SCARE I got from a chainsaw this year?

It was my third time through Saws and Steam, but very early in the night, just after the holding area had opened.

The whole cast were really into it. I had three big guys ganging up on my at one time, people not letting me past etc. So when I got to the end, there was no one in the final room. I was a bit disappointed, but there you go. I looked outside where the guy with the chainsaw was and he wasn't there. I'm thinking 'where's everyone gone?'

So I stroll out all relaxed and then BAM!!! He's coming straight for me! He was hiding off to the right when I looking for him on the left. Silly me. When he came at me I completely froze, then tried to get away, but there was a wall behind me and a big bloke with a chainsaw in front of me! My brain's reaction was to make me jump about three feet in the air. Twice! I have no idea why, it just happened. My heart was pounding after I finally got away.

From reading your post, I'm guessing that was a proper scare, not just your typical chainsaw startle. Way to go Saws and Steam! And I bet the chainsaw SA had a good laugh about my ridiculous jumping on his break!!

Thanks for being interested If I taught one person something new it was worth the time.That research helped me enjoy HHN on a whole new level.

As far as your scare, I would definitely put that above a jumpscare, you are correct. The chainsaws, though, didn't make that scare at all - the scareactors did. My biggest problem is that some scareactors take the chainsaw as a license to just be lazy bums ... which is lame. I mean, cmon, how can anyone argue against the idea that a loud chainsaw sound is a lazy way to scare someone?

In your case, there was TERROR!

Yay, terror!!!

Id be willing to bet that the scareactors here talking about their chainsaw skills probably do have them.. It's just that the ones who don't have any skill are the very vocal majority, and they make themselves impossible to ignore. Let's clone the good ones, what say ye?

[giant4203]

@March, Interesting read,

Scaring with a chainsaw is an interesting thing. Honestly it's either hit or miss with them, some people are absolutely terrified and will run around screaming away, leaving the actor and people around laughing uncontrollably, or they aren't very scared of them, if at all. The trick is teamwork and the ability to improvise and read people. Approaching someone with a chainsaw, you can tell what kind of a reaction you may get, and if they don't look scared you gotta get creative. Can be as simple as setting up a distraction for a fellow actor to using them as distraction for you to go after someone else. Several of my favorite things to do...grab a fellow saw and play a game with the guest called "lets turn you into a torso" which usually resulted in the group scattering like roaches, or the entire party laughing hysterically...another one, very simple, wait behind a guest who's completely stopped paying attention to turn around rev the saw and charge...that little move put people on the floor repeatedly and caused many pissers/criers...granted I do have an advantage of my size, but it's more than just walking around revving it at people...it's a delicate art form These two are only examples, but you never know how inspiration will hit The incident you described, kinda lazy scaring...no reaction gets me moving on to the next group

[JDW]

I'm probably boring everybody to tears and definitely taking up a lot of space here so I'll wrap up with this:I'll close with an analogy.

Funny how you say that and then write another essay.... Most of the time I look at your posts and I say: "tl:dr". Does every single post have to have a 300 word minimum? Regardless you made some valid points.

Friggin' Chainsaws Everywhere : startle response :: scaractor grabbing you and holding a gun to your head : fear response

That will never happen. They would be too close to real danger an they would sue. Universal can only push so hard before the general public complains. Everyone screams its not scary enough and then compalins when they even so much as point a fake gun at them. That is why the extreme house was built and never seen by a single customer.

As you said yourself many people disagree and indeed think chainsaws are, not only scary, but apparently REQUIRED after they were absent, everyone complained, and they added them back in. I think with an event as big as HHN, they do pretty well with balancing "scary" and good time. But in pleaseing everyone, there are elements that an individual will not find scary. In fact, I feel a sucessful event is when there isn't a clear-cut favorite... That means there is something for everybody.

For giant:

Great review man... It was a shame to not see you towering over me this year

[marchofprogress]

@March, Interesting read,

Scaring with a chainsaw is an interesting thing. Honestly it's either hit or miss with them, some people are absolutely terrified and will run around screaming away, leaving the actor and people around laughing uncontrollably, or they aren't very scared of them, if at all. The trick is teamwork and the ability to improvise and read people. Approaching someone with a chainsaw, you can tell what kind of a reaction you may get, and if they don't look scared you gotta get creative. Can be as simple as setting up a distraction for a fellow actor to using them as distraction for you to go after someone else. Several of my favorite things to do...grab a fellow saw and play a game with the guest called "lets turn you into a torso" which usually resulted in the group scattering like roaches, or the entire party laughing hysterically...another one, very simple, wait behind a guest who's completely stopped paying attention to turn around rev the saw and charge...that little move put people on the floor repeatedly and caused many pissers/criers...granted I do have an advantage of my size, but it's more than just walking around revving it at people...it's a delicate art form These two are only examples, but you never know how inspiration will hit The incident you described, kinda lazy scaring...no reaction gets me moving on to the next group

I do have to say, those 'scatter like roaches' scares where they scatter into other people holding chainsaws are definitely good for a ton of laughs and definitely *not* lazy... so... Okay. Point.

That's got to take a lot of practice - or at least a lot of working together. Are the chainsaw team folks usually the same people? Like are these guys you've worked with for years?

Funny how you say that and then write another essay.... Most of the time I look at your posts and I say: "tl:dr". Does every single post have to have a 300 word minimum? Regardless you made some valid points.

That will never happen. They would be too close to real danger an they would sue. Universal can only push so hard before the general public complains. Everyone screams its not scary enough and then compalins when they even so much as point a fake gun at them. That is why the extreme house was built and never seen by a single customer.

As you said yourself many people disagree and indeed think chainsaws are, not only scary, but apparently REQUIRED after they were absent, everyone complained, and they added them back in. I think with an event as big as HHN, they do pretty well with balancing "scary" and good time. But in pleaseing everyone, there are elements that an individual will not find scary. In fact, I feel a sucessful event is when there isn't a clear-cut favorite... That means there is something for everybody.

For giant:

Great review man... It was a shame to not see you towering over me this year

Did you read the post?

You say I made some valid points so ... I kinda think you did.

All due respect, but "tldr"-ing somebody, then reading what they wrote, enjoying it, then telling them it was tldr and that you enjoyed it... Is kind of bittersweet.

And if you *didn't* read it.... Again, all due respect, but it's just rude to tldr someone and comment on their post without reading it. Or to say something about my word minimum in the first place. ........Especially if you're a moderator. Come on. You should be *encouraging* people like me who have a passion for this stuff and try to strike up conversations about unconventional topics, or try to teach people something they might not know. I bet at least one person learned how to tell the difference between startle and fear by reading what I wrote. Maybe I even taught you something.

Thanks for reading anyway... Some other people enjoyed what I wrote and that's good enough for me. That's a treasure-trove of research that took me years to amass, actually, and I was freely spreading it for anybody who wished to read something that I found interesting enough to A- wonder about, B- research thoroughly from many angles and C- write about for others. If you don't find it interesting, that's fine. I just figured that of all the people who would find it interesting, this is the Target Audience and this post happens to touch on it directly.

I wish I would've seen something like that years ago before I started researching this stuff on my own - woulda saved the trouble!

As far as my verbosity .... Well, Fearman, I defy you to explain everything I explained there in 20 words or less.

Basically, I get positive responses from people who take the time to read what I take the time to write, so I'm going to keep taking the time to write it. If you're officially admonishing me for saying too much as an admin..... .Put it in my permanent record. Or just actually "tldr" it and skip over it. . . . To paraphrase Rocky Horror, if you think it's too many Words, "I ... DIDN'T... WRITE IT... FOR YOU!!"

So.... No need to insult.

Re: My analogy - of *course* that would never happen. It's absurd. Just illustrative of the difference between startle and fear in a practical (...sorta) example.

Re: the part about chainsaws being required .. So are you saying that the chainsaws aren't necessarily there for the scares at all? Just sort of tradition? Because I do have to say if there were *no* chainsaws I would've felt something was missing. I just thought it was a little overdone this year. Especially since as the event went on they just added more and more. I half expected to have chainsaws in the bathrooms by Halloween ..... And I readily admit that my perspective on the chainsawmen is tainted forever by the guy who wouldn't go away when we lost our friend.

So that's all I have to say about that. I hope it wasn't too long

[JDW]

Did you read the post?

If you're officially admonishing me for saying too much as an admin..... .Put it in my permanent record. Or just actually "tldr" it and skip over it.

So.... No need to insult.

the part about chainsaws being required .. So are you saying that the chainsaws aren't necessarily there for the scares at all?

I read it. Not admonishing or trying to insult... just my observation and thought process.

I don't think they are "necessary" in the sense that the event isn't good without them. In fact I did not miss them opening night. But it seems the people who visit require them as a tradition and probably many are truly scared. They don't bother me either way but I do enjoy them (when they make sense) and it is always fun to see people scared by them.

[marchofprogress]

I read it. Not admonishing or trying to insult... just my observation and thought process.

I don't think they are "necessary" in the sense that the event isn't good without them. In fact I did not miss them opening night. But it seems the people who visit require them as a tradition and probably many are truly scared. They don't bother me either way but I do enjoy them (when they make sense) and it is always fun to see people scared by them.

That sort of gets at what I was saying about it being established tradition... To many, I suppose, that's the stable - that's their go to the mall and sit on sana. NO santa = kids like "WTF!" and rioting, throwing pies.

ITD BE CHAOS!

... And you know Fearman, you insightful bastard.... you made me remember I didn't miss them opening day....