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Halloween Horror Nights 23 Wishful Thinking


Mark M.
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OMG, HUSH!! How you doing, Lynn? I was just askin about you.. I've missed you! Ok, now that i'm done with my happy dance, let me state the obvious.. I agree with every single thing you said here. I thought Gothic was more than awesome - it was beautiful and creative and the actors were perfect. I went into that house the most times. TWD, however, was just "ok". I think they had more "walkers' OUTSIDE the house than in. I did enjoy watching the "walkers" outside thought - especially the kid in the wheelchair. While the house had some good props and did a respectable job of recreating parts of the show, it just wasn't scary. At all.

This goes back to what I've said (and what someone else just said a page back - sorry didn't quote it) - it's so much scarier to walk into a house where you have no clue what to expect. All the IP stuff gives you almost complete knowledge of what you'll see WAY before you get there.. thank god, they have great actors every year to mix that up. So, kudos to them for their successes. But why not go for it all?? Have the great actors in houses where people are blindly trying to figure their way through and are already pumped up and nervous and THEN use the actors to put them right over the edge?

I love Halloween - and I agree that there should be parts of this event that really explore the traditional Halloween things. One of my fave street props are the jack-o-lanterns in the trees. I"m glad they do that every year, but let's expand on that.

And for the love of god and everything holy - please no more Alice Cooper. Jeez.

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Read the histories of them, and you may change your mind. The "treatments" that were used in the past, the sanitary conditions, the abuse of patients, and experimentation done on them could change your mind.

The patients were not the "frightening" element of asylums. The staff could be absolutely terrifying though.

An old asylum in my city was on Ghost Hunters last week (I made a thread about it somewhere on here). those places are effed up! Terribly scary.

Im not saying I did any B&E back when I was a kid buuuuut... trust me terrifying! lol!

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OMG, HUSH!! How you doing, Lynn? I was just askin about you.. I've missed you! Ok, now that i'm done with my happy dance, let me state the obvious.. I agree with every single thing you said here. I thought Gothic was more than awesome - it was beautiful and creative and the actors were perfect. I went into that house the most times. TWD, however, was just "ok". I think they had more "walkers' OUTSIDE the house than in. I did enjoy watching the "walkers" outside thought - especially the kid in the wheelchair. While the house had some good props and did a respectable job of recreating parts of the show, it just wasn't scary. At all.

This goes back to what I've said (and what someone else just said a page back - sorry didn't quote it) - it's so much scarier to walk into a house where you have no clue what to expect. All the IP stuff gives you almost complete knowledge of what you'll see WAY before you get there.. thank god, they have great actors every year to mix that up. So, kudos to them for their successes. But why not go for it all?? Have the great actors in houses where people are blindly trying to figure their way through and are already pumped up and nervous and THEN use the actors to put them right over the edge?

I love Halloween - and I agree that there should be parts of this event that really explore the traditional Halloween things. One of my fave street props are the jack-o-lanterns in the trees. I"m glad they do that every year, but let's expand on that.

And for the love of god and everything holy - please no more Alice Cooper. Jeez.

I agree with this post 100%.... especially about AC.

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And for the love of god and everything holy - please no more Alice Cooper. Jeez.

And while I do not share your feelings about AC (although just about everyone but me does), I completely respect both your thoughts on the subject, as well as your right to express those thoughts and feelings.

See - civilized ;)

8447215615_b426193894.jpg

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Please know I mean no disrespect. I am very well aware that things that scare me may not scare you.. and that's why we need 8 houses! Clowns scare the living crap out of me.. but I know that some people find houses with clowns to be cliche. I'm ok with that. We need variety to keep things interesting. Having said that, that's another reason why I am not a fan of repeating. We don't want the things we like to get old.

Two years ago, we did both HHN events - Hollywood and Orlando. We happened to catch Alice Cooper and the Rob Zombie houses in Hollywood, and we hated both of them. When Orlando said they were bringing Alice there for this past event, I thought... NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! So, going forward, if they did more with him, it'd be 3 years in a row for me.. BLECH.

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I wish we could have a killer plant monster house. Think of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors as inspiration. Maybe half human and half plant monsters could be in there as well. That would be kind of cool, me thinks.

Man eating plants would be cool. I don't think its been done. Or could always do my cordceps zombie idea... Call it the fungus Among us or something.

Perhaps a house based on dangerous flora. I actually had an idea of turning my soul Tree into a SCP case file. A discovered plant is brought back and not only takes over but infects people and turns them into a tree... kind of a eco-terrorist plant.

and insanity in '99 which I thought was awesome. Bits and pieces of one of the Norman Bates houses.. and I think another. Of course everyone's favorites PS and PSII.

PSIII one was the worst of them all. I love insane asylums. A big fear of mine is not being able to predict people. So children, drunks, and the mentally handicap disturb me. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

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OMG, HUSH!! How you doing, Lynn? I was just askin about you.. I've missed you! Ok, now that i'm done with my happy dance, let me state the obvious.. I agree with every single thing you said here. I thought Gothic was more than awesome - it was beautiful and creative and the actors were perfect. I went into that house the most times. TWD, however, was just "ok". I think they had more "walkers' OUTSIDE the house than in. I did enjoy watching the "walkers" outside thought - especially the kid in the wheelchair. While the house had some good props and did a respectable job of recreating parts of the show, it just wasn't scary. At all.

This goes back to what I've said (and what someone else just said a page back - sorry didn't quote it) - it's so much scarier to walk into a house where you have no clue what to expect. All the IP stuff gives you almost complete knowledge of what you'll see WAY before you get there.. thank god, they have great actors every year to mix that up. So, kudos to them for their successes. But why not go for it all?? Have the great actors in houses where people are blindly trying to figure their way through and are already pumped up and nervous and THEN use the actors to put them right over the edge?

I love Halloween - and I agree that there should be parts of this event that really explore the traditional Halloween things. One of my fave street props are the jack-o-lanterns in the trees. I"m glad they do that every year, but let's expand on that.

And for the love of god and everything holy - please no more Alice Cooper. Jeez.

Eileen...(((HUGS))) :wub:

You are exactly right, WAY more walkers outside TWD house than inside. I was just very underwhelmed by that house in general, considering it was one of the most hyped of the entire event, I expected so much more.

I have my own personal reasons for disliking the Alice Cooper house, but that's another topic altogether....LOL

This year reminded me exactly how much I love original houses and overdone IP houses are....nothing beats walking into a house and having little to no idea what the hell is going to happen, THAT is what Halloween is all about, those unexpected scares and surprises. Maybe that's why I didn't really enjoy TWD house that much because it was too predictable.

I've been saying it for years, but for me, a traditional Halloween is the way to go. I got my jack-o-laterns a few years back and with the Skoolhouse, that amped things up a bit, but there is still so much more they could do.

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An old asylum in my city was on Ghost Hunters last week (I made a thread about it somewhere on here). those places are effed up! Terribly scary.

Im not saying I did any B&E back when I was a kid buuuuut... trust me terrifying! lol!

the 2010 was the house I did the least. I did that house probably a couple of times, didn't really scared me or amuse me, never really went back,

Like I said, the real places are probably awful, but the HHN houses are pretty tame in that sense, it didn't suck or anything but it was nothing to write home about. Don't see what is scary about a bunch of actors in an asylum acting crazy lol,

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my biggest wishful thinking will always be that they pay as much attention to the scarezones as they did for 2010 (or 2008) My biggest dream every year for HHN is that the streets are as amazing as they were for 2010. (I kinda hope the hordes don't become the norm...)

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my biggest wishful thinking will always be that they pay as much attention to the scarezones as they did for 2010 (or 2008) My biggest dream every year for HHN is that the streets are as amazing as they were for 2010. (I kinda hope the hordes don't become the norm...)
I can understand not liking the hordes, but it seems you not liking them (as well as others on here) stems from that they didn't have set pieces to compliment them. That's not the hordes fault. Or you might just really not like the idea and that's okay. But I like them and this is wishful thinking so: The hordes were far from perfect, but I would still like to see them again. The thing that attracts me to them is the fact they can go anywhere (stores ect). Of course there will always be safe Zones, but I found it really fun to never no exactly where they were. I had fun hunting them down, of course at times it was annoying and you could go a night not seeing a certain legion, but it helped to not make it as bland. Not to see the same thing in the same area for the whole night. I think if there was elaborate sets again, then I think people might be more apt to enjoying the hordes. We couldn't have big sets last year anyways (as far as I'm concerned), so hordes made up for that. So they still haven't been used to their full potential, which I'd really love to see! :)
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Eileen...(((HUGS))) :wub:

You are exactly right, WAY more walkers outside TWD house than inside. I was just very underwhelmed by that house in general, considering it was one of the most hyped of the entire event, I expected so much more.

I have my own personal reasons for disliking the Alice Cooper house, but that's another topic altogether....LOL

This year reminded me exactly how much I love original houses and overdone IP houses are....nothing beats walking into a house and having little to no idea what the hell is going to happen, THAT is what Halloween is all about, those unexpected scares and surprises. Maybe that's why I didn't really enjoy TWD house that much because it was too predictable.

I've been saying it for years, but for me, a traditional Halloween is the way to go. I got my jack-o-laterns a few years back and with the Skoolhouse, that amped things up a bit, but there is still so much more they could do.

I said way back when TWD was first announced that I didn't see how this house would be any different than any other zombie house they've had. And for the most part, I was right. It was a standard zombie house, except that it had even less intense scares than it would have had it been an original concept. Asides from the door and RV, nothing in that house screamed Walking Dead (and really what would, save for having the characters in it). It wasn't scary, and it wasn't even all that interesting of a walkthrough. I only went through it twice, and it was not great. I'm not saying the scare actors weren't good, given what they had. Just that there should have been a lot more of them. Particularly at the end. Why there weren't multiple zombies at every break in the fence reaching out for you as you walked past mystifies me. It would have made a very anti-climactic ending much better.

I fully understand the business side of it, and how much revenue it helped bring in. The massive lines are proof of that. But from a creative side, it was nowhere near the level of inventiveness and excitement that the original houses had. It was a zombie house, and felt like most every other zombie house I've been through, except turned down a notch or two. Hell, even HoH, which was a very last minute house, had better scares to it and was a more enjoyable experience. Not that I'm coming down on HoH (it was my favorite of the year), but even being a very basic, stripped down house, it still delivered a better experience.

A perfect storm for me, as far as hordes go, is splitting the park into respective territories. Put in specific sets and theming for each horde in those territories, and then let them roam around that whole area. There should be some characters that stay with the sets, but otherwise have the rest of them go where they please within their territory, lust like last year. That way, you can maintain the "nowhere is safe" idea, have proper sets, and still know where any particular horde is to go check them out.

If they really wanted to get fancy, depending on what the hordes end up being, they could try for a lagoon show focusing on them, or maybe one for each one of them.

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A perfect storm for me, as far as hordes go, is splitting the park into respective territories. Put in specific sets and theming for each horde in those territories, and then let them roam around that whole area. There should be some characters that stay with the sets, but otherwise have the rest of them go where they please within their territory, lust like last year. That way, you can maintain the "nowhere is safe" idea, have proper sets, and still know where any particular horde is to go check them out.If they really wanted to get fancy, depending on what the hordes end up being, they could try for a lagoon show focusing on them, or maybe one for each one of them.
As I said when this thread first started, zones and hordes together would really be the best of both worlds. And it really does make sense for them to do both. We can have traditional zones with the great sets, and some characters will wonder, thus we will have the things that make both zones and hordes great. Not only should that make most of us more potentially satisfied, the scareactors as well. Most street actors I talked to said they liked the hordes and said it was less boring than zones because they weren't in the same area all the time.
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I can understand not liking the hordes, but it seems you not liking them (as well as others on here) stems from that they didn't have set pieces to compliment them. That's not the hordes fault. Or you might just really not like the idea and that's okay. But I like them and this is wishful thinking so: The hordes were far from perfect, but I would still like to see them again. The thing that attracts me to them is the fact they can go anywhere (stores ect). Of course there will always be safe Zones, but I found it really fun to never no exactly where they were. I had fun hunting them down, of course at times it was annoying and you could go a night not seeing a certain legion, but it helped to not make it as bland. Not to see the same thing in the same area for the whole night. I think if there was elaborate sets again, then I think people might be more apt to enjoying the hordes. We couldn't have big sets last year anyways (as far as I'm concerned), so hordes made up for that. So they still haven't been used to their full potential, which I'd really love to see! :)

you are just thinking about the Traditionals Mr. Fox :P I know you loved them, (I loved them too it is too bad you didn't see 2008)

but since you didn't attend 2008, If I had to choose between the horde in 2012 and the Skoolhouse scarezone in 2008, I Would choose 2008 every time, hands down.

I Loved the traditionals, I Really did, but having that school bus in the street and having them come out of the bus was pretty awesome. Also the house they build outside in the street for this was pretty amazing looking. It was really really beautiful.

the Skoolhouse was probably my favorite scarezone of all the years. I really loved it. Again, I say this, I loved the traditionals but 2008 was so much nicer because of the street stuff :) . (It doesn't even have to do with the actors themselves, 2008 Skoolhouse was just amazing for me, it was the same as the traditionals horde, but just better)

http://verymerryunbirthday.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/skoolhouse1.jpg

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs36/i/2008/278/b/8/The_Skoolhouse_by_fluffygrimace.jpg

As far as the actors going in the stores and restaurants etc. I didn't really see them. I don't recall seeing an actor going in a store or restaurant when I was there. (If I did see them I really do not remember) so the actors going into the stores/restaurants was not a big thing for me, I did see the vampires in front of the MIB store, and it was nice, but It wasn't as cool for me, I know a lot of people got scared from the actors that way and people loved seeing this, but for me it does nothing,

but the actors can still do this and have set scarezones. I don't see a reason why we couldn't have a set zone in one place but allow the actors to go inside the restaurants that are near that zone.

Is not that I hated the hordes because I didn't. I Loved the concepts for each one more than the scarezones in 2011 for example, (the stories and concepts for the Hordes were actually better in 2012) and I loved the actors work in the hordes too

But I didn't like that they moved because if they were in one place I think I Would have enjoyed them better. The Vampires really didn't work in front of MIB, Come to think of it, I don't think any of them really worked in front of MIB, they didn't really fit in there, the only ones that worked there were the prisoners.

and since there was no props it felt odd. There was a couple of times that I didn't even know the vampires were there because they blended with the crowd, and it felt empty With the actors in there. I would have liked it better if the Vampires had a set place with props and proper lighting.

the whole moving from place to place just felt gimmicky, Didn't make my experience better, Specially when some hordes didn't work in some places like MIB store or by the E.T. Ride, When the beasts where in front of the E.T. and Spongebob stores it felt like cluster, it wasn't really organized. That's the thing about scarezones they are more organized too. The hordes got a little messy at times.

Hordes are just scarezones with no props and no proper lighting, felt like a downsize, the fact that they didn't actually "roam" the park made it more obvious. I would have liked it if some hordes moved throughout the park, An actual roaming horde, The Warriors did this with their marching. What we got was the same scarezones we always had pretty much, There was no roaming, just scarezones that moved every hour.

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I think this came up earlier in the thread, but I don't want to review the last 25 pages, and I don't remember seeing a lot of detail on it, so...

Since it seems very likely that SS parade will still be going strong come HHN 23, the issues with the streets vis a vis the parade route will still exist. Do you think they can come up with a more satisfactory solution than they did last year? Such as movable set pieces, but maybe not generic throughout the entire park? I can't envision them being able to set up something as elaborate as 20 years of fear or something like that, but I would hope they can come up with something more intricate this year.

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Besides, I personally have strong doubts that Universal would want half of the houses for the event to be squashed into one corner of the park. I'd say look for another building to possibly become an 8th location or replace the Parade Building. Or not, I'm not privy to such information, if we get the same setup as 22 for 23, adding the crowd-eating TF-3D, I'd be fine. Jaws houses were never very good anyway.

Just to be clear, I never said anything about 2 more houses with the existing SSs locations. I just stated that with TNA gone, could it be possible to use rather than the three/four others over the last few years.

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I think this came up earlier in the thread, but I don't want to review the last 25 pages, and I don't remember seeing a lot of detail on it, so...

Since it seems very likely that SS parade will still be going strong come HHN 23, the issues with the streets vis a vis the parade route will still exist. Do you think they can come up with a more satisfactory solution than they did last year? Such as movable set pieces, but maybe not generic throughout the entire park? I can't envision them being able to set up something as elaborate as 20 years of fear or something like that, but I would hope they can come up with something more intricate this year.

They have done it in years past, so it can be done.... Skip to 8:40 in this video and you will see! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5BHbCk6_Jc

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my biggest wishful thinking will always be that they pay as much attention to the scarezones as they did for 2010 (or 2008) My biggest dream every year for HHN is that the streets are as amazing as they were for 2010. (I kinda hope the hordes don't become the norm...)

This is very true to me as i'm sure it is to others as well. Seeing elaborate scarezones and set pieces like we did in 2008 and 2010 or just scarezones in general from other years is what sets the the atmosFEAR for HHN. Not seeing that last year actually kind of made it feel a little bland. For instance when you were inside a house last year you were at Halloween Horror Nights but when you exited the house you were still there just not as much. If that makes any sense. I mean the streets were cool and all last year but they just didn't stand out as much for me even with the little prop pieces they used here and there. Last year when it rained and the scareactors couldn't be out, Add that with the lack of set pieces to look at and it really made it feel kinda blah. At least if you have some awesome set pieces with a set scarezone like 2008 and 2010 when it rained and there were no scareactors around you could still see the scarezones and that at least gave you something to look at rather then what happened when it poured rain last year. Now this is all just my opinion. Don't get me wrong I love HHN to death and I would still go even if there were only one house and one scarezone. But the point i'm trying to get across is PLEASE JUST DO NORMAL SCAREZONES AGAIN... :D

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you are just thinking about the Traditionals Mr. Fox :P I know you loved them, (I loved them too it is too bad you didn't see 2008)

Ah, you spotted me. Haha. Well I actually enjoyed all the legions at 22. In fact some of my friends who I took on Halloween night wanted to play Unearthed after going, but it had already ended (minus the puzzles). Some of them considered and still are considering joining the fan community, and it was the fun of Unearthed I told them about and the legions they saw on Halloween night that made them want to do it...but they didn't get FF, so the 31st was the only time they went. Oh, well. Maybe next year. :)

I've heard nothing but good things about The Skool scarezone. At least I saw the original house in 2005. :)

And as I said, legions were not perfect and so they did feel weird in front of Men In Black. Also, I frequently saw them going into shops. There are several videos of them on YouTube in stores/restaurants and pictures as well.

Again, this is not the hordes fault. To my knowledge, hordes were the compromise to the SS Parade's route during the day that affected the amount of props able to be in the streets during the night (and I'm sure everyone knows this). If we can do moveable set pieces again as Brandon pointed out, then I would still like them to incorporate some aspects of the hordes. It would be like scarezones but with wondering characters.

Hordes don't necessarily equal no set props, it was the SS Parade that caused this. Can we avert the lack of props next year by using moveable ones, hopefully. :)

Also, they don't even have to be called Street Experiences, they can call them scarezones again and deem them traditional scarezones, I don't care. I just want the roaming aspect, the freedom of the actors, and the no safezones idea (even though that's a gimmick, but it's part of the roaming aspect).

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