Zombieman's "Battle of the HHNs" - which was better?

[zombieman]

I just returned from my big October trip, that included Orlando (HHN), Atlanta (Netherworld), and Denver (...nevermind).

To give you an idea of how I experienced HHN Orlando, I went on two days:

Thursday 10/11, armed with TWO Express passes. Each of these let me into the houses one time.

Friday 10/12 - during the daytime for a Lights-on tour of three houses, and during the evening for a VIP tour that was hosted by TJ Mannarino (the director of the event - Orlando's equivalent of John Murdy). The VIP tour included immediate entry into each house, and a one hour Q&A session with TJ. He was always available during the 6 hour tour as well.

The Orlando weather could not have been better - almost identical to Hollywood's this time of year (unusual for Orlando),

I am writing this comparison for the California folks who see Hollywood HHN every year but have never had the chance to see Orlando. You need to understand the scale difference between the two parks. To help you, I posted a SUPER-LONG comparison of the 2011 events in the forums from last years event. They are still there in the review section. I include a Google Map of each park showing how massive Orlando's park is compared to dinky Hollywood.

Last year, Orlando was hands down the winner in every single category (except park food). Orlando's houses were each a home run (well, Thing was a two-base-hit).

This year, each coast had incredibly bright spots and incredibly weak spots.

Let's start with shows -

Orlando offered two shows to Hollywood's one. They both had Bill & Ted, and Orlando included something called 20 Penny Circus, which is essentially a sideshow/magic act. I did not see 20 Penny, and from what I read, I did not miss much. They are a local Orlando troupe that was given a chance this year.

The Bill & Ted shows could not have been more different.

Put simply, Orlando's was the WORST B&T I've seen in my 8 years of visiting that park, and Hollywood's was the BEST B&T I've seen in my 12 years of visiting that HHN. I have actually been to the Hollywood event two times this year and saw B*T each time. I will see it a third time this year. It is really that good, and Orlando's was really that bad. You know what the Hollywood theme is this year; Orlando's is "Bill & Ted battle for high school class president". I am NOT making that up. No, there's no Glee references. It is fairly strongly based on the 2012 presidential election, and manages to evade any and all humor.

Hollywood Shows: A+

Orlando Shows: D-

Scarezones:

Traditionally, Orlando has about 6 scarezones. For the most part, they are extremely elaborate. They are also HUGE - each more than 2x the size of Hollywood's New York zone. This year, Orlando had NO SCAREZONES. Instead, they had "roaming" gangs of monsters. The idea is as follows: The park in real life is undergoing major construction (they are building Transformers). As a result, a decent central part of the park is completely closed off. The story goes that while they were doing demolition of the streets, they disturbed evil forces trapped under the park. Areas of the ground opened up and pieces of the underworld have been unearthed. As you walk around the park, you come across mini-sets (each about the size of a car). They look like they are poking up through the walkway, and you see sarcophagi, coffins, and portals from the underworld.

Leading the packs is something called the Iniquitus. These are demonic figures that lead the packs around the park. In actuality, these guys do NOTHING but act as photo ops. This was amazingly disappointing. In their defense, they cannot do much, as they are mostly stilt characters and do not have a huge range of motion.

The packs are:

Vampires

Beasts (animal predator creatures)

Warriors (ninja like creatures)

Prisoners (all-girl chainsaw gang wearing prison outfits)

Traditionals (smaller characters that wear Halloween masks [think Strangers] and taunt guests)

Walkers (the only characters that DO NOT roam - they are around the Walking Dead house)

Of all those, which sounds the best? Believe it or not, the all-girl chainsaw gang was off the wall! These girls were outstanding and scary as hell. They were FAR MORE menacing than the usual burly guys that wield the saws.

Other than them, the "Street Experience" was a total bust for me. The problem is that as the characters roam, you may or may not even see them. You may see the same group over and over, or you may see NOTHING. How fun is that? Not much, in my opinion. I was to KNOW that I can see a certain group of characters in a certain location.

Also as a result of this dumb idea, there were no elaborate sets that fit the actors. It was always the same tiny sets over and over.

Granted, Hollywood only gave us two new scarezones in Toyz and Silent Hill...

Given that I'm not a big scarezone fan, but DO really like the sets that Orlando typically throws together, I have to rate as follows:

Hollywood: B

Orlando: D (being kind, simply because of the chainsaw girls)

Website/ In-Park games

2012 was a big step backward for Orlando website. There was no decent reveal this year, and no games until only a few weeks ago. For the Hollywood crowd, Orlando has famously had games on their site for years and well as in-park games some years. They have been very elaborate over the years. In 2008, people in the park had to partner with people at home in order to complete tasks.

This year, in addition to games, Orlando created an in-park games called Horror Unearthed. Simply put, it's a LITTLE like the game Disney created in Orlando this summer where you complete tasks at various points. You carry a keycard and battle foes at various points. In HHN, you carry a keycard with an RFID in it and scan it at the exit if houses. You earn point by doing this and beating on line games. You earn badges and advance on a leaderboard.

The game is great...in theory. The problem for me (and others) was that the damn scanners worked about half the time at the house exits. They were also hard to find.

Hollywood Website: D

Orlando Website: D

Orlando Games: A for having them / C in execution.

Now what everyone has been waiting for...Houses:

It's somewhat easy to compare the two parks this year, since they both are presenting much the same event (how I hate that). So let's start with the similar items:

House of Horrors:

As much as I cannot stand the Dubstep stuff Hollywood is doing this year, I have to agree with the other people - this is the least sucky HoH overlay Hollywood has done in quite a few years. It actually kind of grows on you...

Orlando took an entirely different approach. To give you some background - Universal decided to fast-track Transformers very late in the game. The building that was to have housed an HHN house this year was razed so Transformers could go in. The decision was made AFTER the floor had been leveled for the house, and AFTER some initial framing had been done for the maze. When the location disappeared, it meant that HHN Orlando would go from 8 houses down to 6! They had to scramble to find a new location for the 7th house. You cannot just drop a floorplan into a new location. In this case, I think there were height issues. As a result, they had to scrap the planned house and pull out ideas from previously designed but unused houses. The House of Horrors that they put together was dreamed up quite a few years ago, and this was decided to be the time to do it. Back in 2008, the fan favorite house (not mine) was something called Dead Exposure. This house was almost completely black inside. The story was you were a photographer roaming around this dark area. The only way you could see was to flash your camera every so often, but when you did, it revealed zombies that were all around you. They used UV strobes that flashed once in while and used UV paint outlines to "detail" the room. The monsters all wore outfits with UV paint accents. So, every time there was a flash, you were left with an impression of what you saw, fixed in your mind. Every flash, the zombies were closer, or right in your face. AS I said, the fans ate this up. I did not like it because of the lack of any detail.

So, Orlando's House of Horrors brings back the Dead Exposure gimmick. In this case, the camera flash is replaced with flashes of lightning. You enter through a regular (non UV) set, into a movie house. As you pass into the movie you find yourself walking through scenes from the best known Universal monster movies (Frankenstein, Mummy, Wolfman, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Phantom of the Opera, Dracula). These are all supposed to be the classic representation. The music that plays is all from those movies. So it's kind of walking through a black and white set (as the movies were black and white), but the "white" is provided by the flashes of lightning, illuminating the UV paint. I thought this was much better than Dead Exposure, but I'm still not a big fan of the house. The DID have a couple of very good rooms. In the Dracula area, there seemed to be many endless hallways thanks to mirror effects. The Creature section seemed like you were walking underwater (if you looked up, you even saw the bottom of a boat).. The finale room had strips of "film" hanging from the ceiling and was filled with monsters. More mirrors made the room seem cavernous.

Hollywood: C

Orlando: B-

Alice Cooper:

It's a little difficult to compare Orlando's Alice to this year's Hollywood version. Orlando was really presenting their version of LAST YEAR'S Alice house in Hollywood. So I will compare those two.

John Murdy (like me) is an Alice nut. He went so far as to edit the songs that we heard in the house to fit the room better, That house was awesome (in my opinion). I really liked how most of the characters had the Alice eyes, because we are walking through his nightmare, after all.

Orlando was not nearly as good. The rooms had little to do with Alice's nightmare. For some reason, they made the start and end of the house the same - on purpose - but I never understood why. TJ said it was Alice beginning to descend into insanity and then ending up fully insane. Then the rooms should have looked more different... Very few characters had Alice eyes. The music did not fit all of the rooms, and much of it was not from Nightmare. While I don't have a problem with that, the music they chose were Alice's hits - whether they fit the room or not. Speaking with several people behind the scenes, I heard over and over that "people in Hollywood all know Alice Cooper. The people who go to Orlando don't know who he is". It amazes me how the Orlando crew looks at Hollywood as if it's some other country, where we all eat lunch with movie stars and rock gods. I think there's a huge misconception here. In any event, remember all of the ultra-realistic Alice Masks we saw in Hollywood? In Orlando, there is only ONE - at the very end. This house just didn't resonate with me, and it seems to be polling rather low in the surveys.

Hollywood: A (2011 version), B (2012 version)

Orlando: B-

Silent Hill:

Okay, so here's where you may take a completely different feel than me. I did NOT like either Silent Hill house. I LOVED the Brea house a few years ago. These are poopy. In both houses, we see the same few characters over and over. The sets are nothing to write home about.

What was good in Orlando:

They had a Great Knife attack. It was a SMALL attack, but they had one

Their Colin the Janitor used a magic effect so he could turn to face you

Their Pyramid Head was much more realistic (they had exactly one)

What was good in Hollywood:

You walk THROUGH the nurses scene, rather than next to it like in Orlando

The use of scrims

The smells

So here we go with my pet peeve - I HATE IP HOUSES. They bind the hands of creative teams because contracts and designers do not mix. Every inch of these house shad to be approved, and they were devoid of creativity. Instead, it was "see how well we can copy the set you have seen many times before?".

For the record, Orlando was so IP-heavy this year thanks to the buyout by Comcast. The thought being - if you are paying for the IP, use it in both parks. Not everyone on the Orlando design team was happy with this. In fact, many were NOT. I'll leave it at that.

Hollywood: D+

Orlando: D

Walking Dead:

For the record, this is one of my favorite shows. I have read every chapter of the graphic novels, as well as Rise of the Governor. I know the Walking Dead. And Senator, these were not Walkers...

Orlando has done some spectacular Zombie houses in the past. Deadtropolis and Zombiegeddon. The latter was a humorous house that is still a huge fan favorite. In those houses, the zombies did no behave like Walkers. Why should they? We know zombies come in all personalities Some are slow. Others run. Some even show intelligence. Sine there were no preconceived "rules" for the zombies in Deadtropolis or Zombiegeddon, who is to say they are not "behaving properly"? I was immersed i whatever world the creators made and I loved it.

But when you rent the Walking Dead IP, by God, your zombies need to behave in a certain way. That's one thing I hate about IP. Your walkers can only do one thing, or else they are not walkers. So, imagine my utter shock when I walked through each of these houses and heard walkers growl, breathe in my ear, bark, and even cat-call. They lunged out lightning quick just like any other scarector, and then reset in a non-walker fashion. Outside in the streets, I saw a walker carrying a leg slung over his shoulder like a baseball bat. His "walker scare" was to grab the leg and half swing it at you. Can anyone point me to the episode where a walker uses a weapon? I'd really be interested in seeing that one.

I don't want to hear that I'm nitpicking. These scareactors should have immediately been removed from their post and asked to watch a WD marathon or not return. We all know that talent makes or breaks a house. These bozos broke it.

What about the sets?

Orlando's had a hodge-podge of sets from the series. It seemed to be an easter egg hunt for WD fanboys, as there was a lot of hidden things to see. I don't see the purpose of that, really. Whatever. The problem I had is that it took four times through the house to even realize you were, say, supposed to be on the roof, and the easter egg was Merle's hand and a hacksaw.

What was good at Orlando:

SOME of the scares were set up as obstacles blocking walkers. This is the way to do this, people! Walkers can lash out at you continually and there's no need to do a non-walker RESET.

The barn looked and felt like a barn (Hollywood's sucked)

They had a Winnebago.

They had a "scarezone" out front

What was good at Hollywood:

The facade was actually BETTER than Orlando's

They had a TANK!

They had bicycle-girl (Orlando claimed the prop never arrived)

They had the Well-walker (Again, the prop never arrived at Orlando)

They had the Terror Tram tie in

They had survivor camps (none in Orlando)

The smells were more real than Orlando's

Hollywood: C- (because of crappy walkers)

Orlando: D+ (because of crappy walkers)

I won't really go into Terror Tram, except to say ti was VASTLY improved from prior years.

Grade: B

Now for the original stuff:

La Llorona:

We were promised a much scarier ending and by God, he delivered. The ending was truly gruesome and I loved it.

Grade: B- (would have been A+ had this not been a FREAKING REPEAT)

Chainsaw Massacre:

I've heard so many people talk about how intense and wonderful this was. It was still not a hell of a lot different than 2007. I don't understand why this was brought back. Yeah, it looked nice. Yeah, it smelled terrible. Yeah, it was brutal. BUT I SAW IT BACK IN 2007.....again a year or two later. I mean, WHY?

Grade: F (it's bad enough when Hollywood repeats things. It's worse when they bring back the exact same stuff years later) I will NOT change this grade. This should have never had been brought back. Period. It was lazy.

I LOVED most of the Orlando houses I have ever been through. As much as I loved them, I never want to see them again. Give me NEW things.

Now, for Orlando's original stuff:

Penn & Teller Nuke'd Las Vegas in 3D:

So, I'm not a big 3D fan (but Orlando's 3D maze In Between last year was about the best I've ever seen).

I AM a huge Penn & Teller fan, though. As such, this was the house I was most anticipating. It was clearly going to be the humor house for Orlando this year. For the past 5 or so years, the humor house has never failed to deliver.

While this house was technically "IP" the word is that Penn & Teller (like Alice Cooper) did not have strict contractual limitations. Alice was by fat the most laid back, not really overseeing anything. I don' think he even visited the Orlando house, as he was on your out of the country. Penn & Teller likewise had no real contractual limitations, BUT they did want to be involved every step of the design. Unlike other sponsors, who conduct meetings over the phone, P&T would actually fly out to Orlando every time they wanted to discuss an idea. While they came armed with specific ideas, the creative team at Universal explained why or why not something would work, or how it would work better. The process was incredibly smooth and P&T were supposedly a pleasure to work with. THIS is IP I can live with. The creative team gets to be as creative as they want to be. No hands are tied. The goal is to entertain the customers - not protect the IP.

Here's the incredible part - P&T actually attended opening night and did a set in their own house. The day after I left for California, they came back and did the entire night. That's amazing.

The house has the following backstory: P&T perform a "bullet catch" act (this is true). They decided to use nuclear warheads one night instead of bullets. Vegas became a radioactive wasteland. They constructed a tent over the entire city (the maze is housed in a tent). P&T wanted to make the most of it, so they are re-opening the city as a tourist attraction. As they have run out of radiation suits, you are provided with radiation shields (3D glasses) that will protect you.

The house winds its way through all of the regular Vegas-like things. Casino, buffet, wedding chapel, hotel room, etc. You see various oddities along the way, all thanks to the radiation: your BJ dealer has three breasts, the bride-groom have been welded together by radiation. There are many hidden "buttons" that when pushed produce some sort of effect. For instance, as you walk through the buffet, you are assaulted with many sensations - smells, water blasts, vibrating floor, etc. Behind the buffet is a mirror where you see your own reactions. As you round the corner, you see a line of buttons on a control panel....and can see that the mirror was two-way. You can see where you just were - and all of the people who were in your position. As you press various buttons, they trigger the things that happened to you. One of the buttons actually triggers a water spray right back at you, though. A trick within a trick.

It's most definitely a fun house. Throughout, you hear Penn making wise-cracks continually. At the very end, you hear (and see) P&T say that you made it out - at least there were no clowns - at which time clowns burst out of the walls at you. The story behind this is that Teller HATES clowns. His E-mail is even ihateclowns@---.--- Universal insisted that they needed clowns because it's a Vegas house and clowns always work well in houses. P&T agreed to have clowns, but it had to be on their terms. They essentially designed this last scare.

Grade: B+ (not as good as any of the previous 5 humor houses - those were all A)

Dead End:

This is in a sound stage. Absolutely freaking beautiful house.

The backstory is based LOOSELY on "The Appirition". The story there is about a group of researchers who tried to summon a spirit by focusing on it. As they invented details about the spirit, those details became reality. In Dead End, the story centers around a house in which loved a husband and wife. He was a photographer and she was a seamstress. They were wholly unremarkable people and lived a good life. They both died of natural causes in the house. There were no ghosts, no murders, nothing like that. The house was owned by a bank and saw unoccipied and forgotten for many years. It fell into decay and became known by kids as the haunted house on the street. Kids began to make up stoies about the couple who lived there. He became known as the man who lured people into the house, killed them, and took photos of them for his sick pleasure. She became known as the woman who kept girls prisoners, turning them into her own living dolls. As the fale tales grew in complexity, kids in the neighborhood dared each other to go close rto the house. At Halloween, they would dare each other to leave a Jack O Lantern on the doorstep. The dares became more intense - sneak inside, or stay the night inside the house. Eventually, kids started disappearing. The legends grew even more intense. The townspeople, not believing the house could be involved, removed the front door to remove the temptation of breaking in. They invited the public to go into the house, which is why you are there...

In the house you discover that all of the legends that the kids invented have essentially materialized. You discover many of the people who disappeared as a result of entering the house.

Among the amazing effects:

* As you enter the house, you see a ghostly girl ascending the stairs. As you pass the stairs, you hear her falling down them and a sick crack. You see her now hideously twisted neck. This is an amzong costume.

* You enter a plain, long hallway. Halfway throiugh, the lights flicker out and the scrim walls and ceiling disappear, with a Vortex tunnel toirling around you. BEST use of a Vortex in a long time.

* There are two Pepper's ghosts in this house. One is a projection of a ghostly girl dancing.

The other is the same girls dancing - only to pop out at you in person.

* There is a garden room that uses a mirror ro make the room look longer. The mirror hides a scareactor that pops out. This is a HUGELY effective scare, as he appears out of nowhere. The room also has a scareactor camoflauged as a dead vine.

* There is a bathroom scene with a bloated body in a tub. Two drop panels on the walls hide actors - one being a scaractor version of the dead girl. It's a great one-two punch.

* In the attic, there is a mirror at the end of the room. As you approach, a ghostly image appears a'la two-way mirror. As you are trying to make out the image, a scareactor LEAPS up and out - right in your face. Startling as hell. Got me every time. She rocks!

* In the finale room, you have essentially lost your mind and cannot tell reality anymore. This is represented by the room being on its side. You enter the room and the bed is on the wall. A ghostly projection of the wife of the house appears on the white sheets. It morphs into a demon like creature. At that instant, a hand reaches out from "under" the bed.

Geade: A. Original house is what Orlando does better than anyone else. Imagine all of the houses being this good. Welcome to last year....

Gothic:

My God. This soundstage house is the BEST HHN house I have EVER seen any any HHN (either coast). As I told Universal in my survey, it was the moist perfect HHN house ever. Detail was unsurpassed, as were the special effects.

Story is very simple: You are visiting the Catherral de Caementum, which is undergoing a rennovation. The facade is the Catherdral entrance, and scaffolds with tools and partially dismantled fratures. As you are probably aware, Cathedrals typically features gargoyles. - winged creatures fashioned after animals (monkey, bat, lion, etc). During the daytime, the rennovations take place. During the night, the gargoyles are highly protective of their home and they do NOT appreciate what is going on. You are visitng at night, and the gargoyles are here to scare you away. Note I said "scare". They are not here to dismember you - just to scare you off. This is not a gore house (nor was Dead End).

What is so great about this house is the scares. Every single actor wears an incredibly elaborate gargoyle costume. They look exactly like stone until they move. Eachand every costume is different also. They are modeled after different animals.

The effects are outstanding. We have seen Universal pull these off before, but not so many in one house before.

* The "Candle Room". This is the most beautiful HHN room I have ever seen. It was a labor of love. You walk down a hallway of the cathedral and candles line either side. Must be 150 on each side. They all flicker randomly. Above you (about 12 feet) is a gargoyle statue perched at the edge of one of the walls. As you walk down the hall, the candles blow out - from one end of the hall (behind you) toward the front (ahead of you). It's as if a huge gust came into the room from behind you. When the last candle flickers out, the gargoyle above leaps and "flies" overhead from one wall to the other. This is a span of at least 10 feet. He slowly flaps his wings as he flies overhead.

* A 7 foot gargoyle directly ahead of you at the end of a hall comed to life and rises to over 10 feet above you. This is a scareactor.

* Near the end of the house, you find yourself at the top of the catherdral. You know you are at the top, ad you look down through a window and see a huge chapel directly below you. The room is massive and must be 30 feet below. This is done with a set of mirrors (the chapel is actually hanging upside down next to you). You look down into the mirror and see the chapel "below" which is actually far above.

* You wal out into the night air, still on the roof of the cathedral. You see stars in the sky. A gargoyle appears from one side well over 10 feet above you anf flies 30 feet across the night sky. Amazing effect.

* The final scare is that you are looking through an archway and see a gargoyle that must be 50 feet away. He is dimly lit. The light flickers out and a second later the gargoyle is flying directly at you. It actually passes through the window and inch ir so away from you, then recedes back.

Grade: A+++

Overall park grades for 2012

Hollywood: C+ No truly stand out houses other than La Llorona (which is a repeat). IP houses suck hard. Terror Tram and HoH are amazingly better than prior years. Show is best in years. Compared to last year, this is really not good.

Orlando: C- Non IP houses were very good - Original houses were stellar. IP houses sucked hard. Lack of scarezones was AWFUL. Worst shows in years. So, basically, the ONLY "HHN Orlando quality" things this year were the two original houses and the female chainsaw team. The rest was either terrible or just ok. Last year was a home run. This is a foul ball.

[DTH316]

Chainsaw chicks? Orlando wins for that alone. Murdy prides himself on having many half naked chicks dance within bars all night. CHAINSAW CHICKS IS THE BEST IDEA EVER AND IT'S WAY BETTER THAN A GO-GO!

Okay, in all seriousness, that is freakin' awesome lol

The scarezones do sound really bad. The fact that you could miss them, like the Knotts Tricksters, really bugs me.

- "I LOVED the Brea house a few years ago. These are poopy." These - are - poopy. LMFAO. Best zombieman quote ever.

[zombieman]

Chainsaw chicks? Orlando wins for that alone. Murdy prides himself on having many half naked chicks dance within bars all night. CHAINSAW CHICKS IS THE BEST IDEA EVER AND IT'S WAY BETTER THAN A GO-GO!

Okay, in all seriousness, that is freakin' awesome lol

The scarezones do sound really bad. The fact that you could miss them, like the Knotts Tricksters, really bugs me.

- "I LOVED the Brea house a few years ago. These are poopy." These - are - poopy. LMFAO. Best zombieman quote ever.

Yeah, these chainsaw girls are not exactly go-go material. They wore orange prison outfits. The thing Universal was trying to do was ensure that there were NO safe zones. Unlike scarezones that have boundaries that actors never leave, these actors could wander around effectively huge areas. They hung around bathroom entrances and storefronts (but did not enter either). Most memorable is along the looooong walk back from the tent houses. This path has a long elevated row of bushes along it at around head-level. It is normally really loud along this path - you need to practically yell at someone to talk to them. So you are very focused on that person, as you practically need to read lips. Well, chainsaws are even louder and unmistakable, so imagine the surprise when a chainsaw blade comes poking through the bushes, inches above your head, and then half a body pops through the bushes. It is really startling. That area near Men In Black has had chainsaws many times over the years, but they never invaded the "safe" area of those bushes.

So while it SOUNDS like a great idea to truly have no safe areas, there is simply too much ground to cover in Orlando. I spoke to TJ about the fact that I only saw a few of the many groups of performers because of pure dumb luck. He said that the number of street talent was drastically increased from the week before. There were quite a few regulars in the VIP group that had gone that week, and they all commented that there was a lot more talent. That made me wonder just how bad it must have been a week earlier. because in my opinion, they needed to double the number again.

I honestly don't think this was some sort of cost-cutting measure. I think they really thought it would be a good idea. The fact that people had unfavorable reviews at Howl O Scream in Tampa the year before seemed to not matter (they had roaming packs of zombies instead of scarezones in 2011). I was there, and it sucked. The exact same thing happened. I saw the same few zombies all night long, never running into the other groups.

From what I gathered from talking to many people, I don't think that "Hollywood is not in charge of HHN" as we previously thought. Hollywood had been working on snagging the Silent Hill and WD IPs for a while. Orlando was planning on doing their usual all-original content. Comcast swooped in and wanted "synergy" between the parks. If Universal way footing the bill for expensive IP, why not have both coasts use it? So it was mandated that Silent Hill and WD would come to Orlando. Add to that Alice Cooper, that had a very positive reaction in Hollywood.

So what does that mean to the future of Orlando HHN? Personally, I think it all depends on how the Orlando surveys do.

This is the first year I've seen those surveys flat out ask if you prefer original houses or the IP. Three guesses on how I voted, and the first two don't count...

This happened to be a year when the two completely original houses kicked major, major ass. So perhaps people will react very positive to that.

Aside from my dislike for IP content, I truly don't see how people could have possibly preferred Silent Hill or WD this year to the all time great (or even average) original houses Orlando has presented. These two houses were just bland and underwhelming. There was a lack of variety in scenery, talent, and scares. That comment had nothing to do with liking the IP or not. They were just not great or memorable houses.

So, if Orlando customers demand the return of original content, maybe that will happen. We KNOW that John Murdy will continue to mainly go after any IP he can get. The question will be whether Comcast forces that IP to be used in Orlando to get a higher return on the investment.

One really interesting thing TJ mentioned about the houses - the design team often comes up with many more ideas than they use in a year. A lot of ideas are developed each year and are ultimately put on hold or shelved. Those concepts really do go into a file cabinet and may be eventually used (House of Horrors is an example from this year). Gothic was also one of those ideas that had its inception a few years ago.

The survey also flat-out asked if you wanted to see Icons or an overall theme to the event, or did not care. The gist I got from TJ was that we should not expect to see icons anytime soon.... Oddly, the survey repeatedly referred to this year's theme being The Walking Dead. I don't think any of us have ever bought that one.

I was told that Icons tended to be constraining, forcing houses to fit the mold of the icon. I didn't really buy into that philosophy, because we have seen many occasions when some houses had zero to do with the icon, and no one seemed to have a problem. What I'm concerned about is the reason icons would go away is that the intention is to become IP-heavy. Icons would definitely become a problem if they would interfere with your IP contracts. All of the billboards you saw for HHN Orlando this year had either WD, the SH nurses, or Alice on them. Had there been a genuine icon, it would have demoted those "headliners".

[Grindhousehero13]

Although I loved that Hollywood is all about IPs I agree that Orlando's and Hollywood's event should be kept sperate, as far as the Walking Dead being the theme for Orlando and Hollywood in Hollywood it seemed more planed out in a story with the Opening and Terror Tram and it realy makes no sense in rolando with the tribes and what not.

[LV-426]

Although I loved that Hollywood is all about IPs I agree that Orlando's and Hollywood's event should be kept sperate, as far as the Walking Dead being the theme for Orlando and Hollywood in Hollywood it seemed more planed out in a story with the Opening and Terror Tram and it realy makes no sense in rolando with the tribes and what not.

I have only seen videos but it looks to me like Hollywood made much better houses of Walking Dead and Silent Hill. I know maybe a video is not enough to judge but even in a video I could see how the houses over there were much much better.

Walking dead in Hollywood had the bicycle girl zombie and the well zombie. But I also saw in the videos extra rooms we did not have and I saw that you guys had a room with trees, kinda like a "forest" room. That would have been great to have had here but we didn't get that. As well as the Tank. we did get the RV but I would have preferred a forest room. the same thing happened with Silent Hill. we only got one Pyramid Head and when there is a cast change or something happens he is missing. so many people never even saw him once. plus the Nurses room is kind of a mess here. The actresses in this room do a really good job at walking like a nurse but the room itself, the way it is set up is a mess.

the bad thing about Silent Hill is that they said it was "based on the games franchise" yet the whole house feels like it was lifted up from the movie only. Sure they had some characters from the games but it felt like the house was based on the movie, from what I read from some of you guys the Hollywood house feels that way as well. I don't think they did a good job as far as the games go, it could have been better.

I do LOVE the streets in Orlando this year. I have to say I love every legion and I love the actors in each one. I also love their costumes. they are working really hard and you can see it. The Prisoner girls with chainsaws are the most intense of the event. but the others are really good too. Once you figure out where the main streets where they go will be you will be able to see them.

I never really have trouble finding them.

I do agree that the streets feel empty as far as props and decorations go. That is true they don't feel that nice. I still prefer set scarezones as well just because they can decorate according to the theme of that year and they always look good.

Edited October 21, 2012 by Mr. Black

[Tobias]

Thanks for the reviews and comparisons, Zombieman. After looking at the walkthroughs of Orlando's houses, I had a feeling you would see P&T as the strongest of the IP's, the other IP's weaker then Hollywood's, and the originals as the best houses overall.

An' I'm also one who feels that both Hollywood's and Orlando's events should be kept seperate, as we know...Hollywood loves doing IP's, and Orlando loves doing original content and houses which are inspired by films/shows...then the actual IP. Let the parks do what they love to do, don't force this "synergy" BS since that can throw a park's plan out of whack. Case in point, the plans for a American Werewolf in London house was set aside. (As much as I love Silent Hill...AWIL was the first horror film I saw, and werewolf houses are sadly always sparse, nuff said.)

On the topic of Orlando's roaming hordes, while it's fantastic that the scareactors are given more freedom on where they can go to scare (Sidewalks, entrances to bathrooms, stores, some inside stores, banging on the windows to Mel's diner etc.)...however, I feel this is another example that just roaming hordes just don't work.

There have been several parks which have tried this concept of just roaming hordes, BGT's HOS, and recently this year, both HHN Orlando and BGW's HOS. With all three parks, the reviews of the hordes have been consistantly mixed and negative. While there are people who have been lucky to see all the hordes, there's also been plenty of people who have only seen a few or none. Also, a big main complaint with all of them is the sheer lack of theming and atmosphere throughout the park.

I've been noticing people saying that Orlando's themed scare zones made more of a difference then they realized, and no matter how big or small they were...they made sure that section of the park wasn't a dead zone.

Now I do feel to a extent, hordes can work...but not solely on their own. I believe a mix of themed scare zones and hordes can be the best option, and it most certainly worked for Orlando in 2008. On top of the many scare zones they had, they had the chainsaw drill team and the zombie drill team in the area's which didn't have a scare zone. That didn't just work, it made for one of, if not the best park atmosphere the event has had.

[00nightcrawler]

Good review, but quite depressing to me. I dreamed for years of going to Orlando's event, what seemed to be the best halloween event in the country. My dream finally came true in 2010, where I flew out for HHN 20. While it didn't completely blow my mind I much preferred it to Orlando and decided to save up money to go again the second year.

HHN 21 is the greatest halloween event I have ever been to by leaps and bounds. By miles. By lightyears. I can't overstate how impressed I was by their original houses (as zombieman noted, the thing was the only one that was below great). HHN 21 was everything I love about halloween events (hell, I even went on Jaws for what turned out to be the last time at the event- the ride was great at night). I didn't have enough money to go this year, and now it seems very fortunate that I didn't. I really hope they are allowed to make all original houses again and that they get 8 houses again.

I also hope they announce early if it will be another shared IP year with hollywood. If so, I will stay away. But if they are going back to mostly original content I will start saving up now. Unfortunately, I don't see it happening. Sorry if this was a bit incoherent and rambling, I'm quite tired. My point is Universal should stop ballsing with HHN orlando, they do original mazes better than anyone in the business and they just dont have the passion for IP that hollywood does.