HHN 23 Discussion

[agalloch]

And while I do agree that maybe it's not as free with the scares as it used to be (I.E you're "risktaking,) to flat out say that the event has no scares at all is bull. Maybe not for you, because apparently you're just impervious to everything. But half the stuff you're saying is opinion, as is what others (including myself.) Opinions are great that way. Everyone is allowed to have them.

Honestly, nearly everything I wrote in that last paragraph is factually gone. I'm open to people calling it out if I am not correct.

The event is honestly not scary anymore. Makeup is hilariously terrible, actors are way too distant from you, the dummiest are extremely fake looking so you know which are real, misdirection and boo doors are obvious from a mile away, mirror tricks are terribly done, when there is SO much loud noise in a house any trigger'd sound is just drowned out (and repetitive), major scares are visible from a mile away, scarezones are non-existent at this point (go to HoS, even with less large sets in their zones they do a magnificent job still scaring people), actors do not have the intensity they used to, etc.

Honest to god, people blindly defend this event. Re-read my last paragraph - the event's peak is passed. Sure, SOME things are more elaborate, but that does NOT mean it makes a better haunt NOR does it make it scarier.

[_Veritas_]

I'm not blindly defending the event. I realize that there are better haunts out there, and as I said before I too believe that a lot of the risk taking has been watered down to non-existent in recent years.

But YOU have to realize that a lot of those things you are saying are hard to refute because they may have actually been your experience, which apparently sucked. Where as someone else could have gotten scared really easily, or not figured out a certain trick, or had actors get super close to them. I for one had multiple times where actors were literally less than a foot from me, and not on accident. Are you going to say that that the actors are "too distant" for my experience then? You can't, because it was my experience not yours. Much like an opinion.

Edited October 15, 2013 by _Veritas_

[agalloch]

I'm not blindly defending the event. I realize that there are better haunts out there, and as I said before I too believe that a lot of the risk taking has been watered down to non-existent in recent years.

But YOU have to realize that a lot of those things you are saying are hard to refute because they may have actually been your experience, which apparently sucked. Where as someone else could have gotten scared really easily, or not figured out a certain trick, or had actors get super close to them.

A fair point. But imagine if those people who find this year scary how they would react to a genuinely more intense event?

Moreover, I still hold firm to my last paragraph in the other post being gospel.

[Cody]

Hours of research? I could have figured out how I wanted everything to look in AWIL within five minutes.

No, you couldn't have. That's an absolute fact, and once again you've betrayed your ignorance by saying something like this. You'd spend five minutes noting down everything you see in a single SHOT. They don't just watch the movie and then throw it all together from memory; they need to look at each scene from every angle provided and take pictures and notes on every piece of it in order to replicate it as well as they can. In 5 minutes you've had probably forgotten what the wallpaper in David's hospital room looked like, let alone everything else.

The pacing of that house is absolutely common sense - I mean, they literally followed each notable part of the movie in order. When I went through CITW and AWIL, a lot of the set pieces / rooms were completely off and took a ton of liberties. So, they aren't creating to follow the original that precisely. So let's see, they have media of each room (pre-made in the movie), have an idea of where things should be (relatively - major pieces are about positioning, everything else is taken with liberty), and then they throw it together. For their original houses, the same process occurs AND there are even more details. Heck, take a look at the wine bottles in La Llorona and look at its label.

The liberties are far more minor than you're suggesting and are necessary due to the difficulty in getting exact copies of each prop and piece of set dressing. The Mickey Mouse statue isn't exactly the same, because said statue likely hasn't been manufactured in decades and would be a collector's item. If we're going to talk about looking at minor details and comparing them to original houses, walk into Evil Dead and look at how many individual, unique photographs and paintings are placed around the cabin. Look at the labels on their beer bottles. Look at how they positioned a copy of Entertainment Weekly with the huge "EVIL NEVER DIES" headline facing the guests.

The cellar was a very nice room, I'll give you that. Side note, for those who did not go on the tour the hanging film strips are those of old movies - Psycho being one of them. However, the same shopping process happens for all their houses. They don't just wing a house from start to finish.

No, but you seem to think that they do by suggesting literally in the previous paragraph that you could have done the research job in 5 minutes and taken as many liberties as you wanted.

Every year this happens, effects stop working. It's not exclusive of IPs.

Not the point. I was pointing out just how much money goes into even minor props in the IP houses.

So they didn't even follow the transformation room that closely at all, as by your admission (fireplace). Look at the movie then the pictures of that room online. Two totally different living rooms. But everything else here is what they do with originals, as well.

You appear to have completely ignored where I pointed out that they HAVE to modify rooms to fit the layout of the house. They didn't have room for a fireplace, let alone a perfect recreation. They also needed to either gradually slope the floor of the house up or place the transformation on an elevated platform (they chose the latter) due to the effect requiring the actor to be in the floor, and they needed to take his safety from guests into account by positioning him behind a guardrail and putting him far from the path (even now, guests regularly almost fall over the rail when getting scared and at least one person has thrown things at him).

But if everything here is what they do with originals, why were you just denying the amount of effort put into IPs compared to originals?

Happens in original houses, too.

You said they could just rip the lighting straight from the source. Don't lie.

So, you rip that clip from the movie (two minutes), get to the precise milisecond to milisecond timing of the audio clip, rip that audio from the movie audio (which, with HD media, sound is clearer than ever), run a few basic filters to clean it up and boom - done. I can do that in ten seconds. This is opposed to actually creating your own sound effects.

No you can't. You literally can't do that, and I know you can't because I've done it myself. Nobody could do that in 10 seconds, no matter how good they were, just because of the time taken to go through the menus and wait for the computer to finish tasks. Again, you're betraying your ignorance.

Also, almost no sound effects are created by the event; the vast majority are taken from existing sound libraries, the same ones used by film and television the world over.

It is easier. Like I repeatedly say, they know exactly where everything goes, what the general flow will be, and the construction process is equal for original houses and non-original. In an original they start from an scratch with an idea, and in a movie house everything is already imagined, they just have to build it.

You still think that it's just a matter of copying and pasting like you're on a computer. You think it's easy because you've never done it. I'm willing to bet that you've never even built a backyard haunt, let alone been part of a professional production. And you're not even trying to understand the difference; you're just saying "It's the same as originals, but they're still easy because you don't need to think about things." You're repeating the same point over and over, and brushing off anyone who's more experienced than you.

Why would they post a video of me saying, "A highly disappointing year - and if the trend continues, the event will continue to fall," ? Selectively choosing for promoting it.

Even beyond not going well with promoting the event, you're objectively wrong with that last part: the event continues to make huge amounts of money and has patently ridiculous guest counts. Your opinion doesn't actually match that of the majority, and HHN is an event that thrives on the opinion of the majority that it's worth going to. The event is doing the exact opposite of falling. You're a whiner who doesn't understand anything beyond the barest surface details of the creation of the event but thinks that he knows better than the people in charge and thinks that he has a right to tell people that have more experience that they're wrong.

You mentioned earlier that you're 25 and just picked a random birth date that makes you seem like a young teenager. Even if that's true, you're mentally still a teen: you're ignorant of reality, haven't realized it, and think that you're entitled to everything that you want and that everything would be better if the world just listened to you.

[PeoriaBJJ]

LOL.... agalloch has everyone is a tizzy!!!!

[Legacy]

I am having such a good time with all of this.

[PeoriaBJJ]

I am having such a good time with all of this.

Now if agalloch can keep this up till next year it will really help make the year go by faster!

[agalloch]

No, you couldn't have. That's an absolute fact, and once again you've betrayed your ignorance by saying something like this. You'd spend five minutes noting down everything you see in a single SHOT. They don't just watch the movie and then throw it all together from memory; they need to look at each scene from every angle provided and take pictures and notes on every piece of it in order to replicate it as well as they can. In 5 minutes you've had probably forgotten what the wallpaper in David's hospital room looked like, let alone everything else.

They took the notable scenes from the movie, literally leaving nothing else relevant out. I watched the movie once and knew exactly what scenes would be included way before the event started. Why write it down? Hell, put the movie in your computer, open it with VLC, and press the hotkey'd button on your keyboard to take screenshots from the movie in each relevant scene. This process takes, what, 2 hours? Come on man, it isn't rocket science. And no, I know exactly how the wall looked in the hospital without having to look back at the movie even off the top of my head.

I did not talk about attendance or profits. And, trust me, it's clear that's the motivating factor. However, as I said originally, at this point people attend because it is the thing to do. I go every year (though, spend less days/money than previously) because I want to continue my streak of going. Its popularity will support its continue good attendance (though, where are we getting numbers of money and attendance for the event? Is it speculation because I've never seen it?). However, realize that the event BOOMED because of its mid-teens years. Back then very few people were commenting about how poor the event is, how it isn't scary, etc. Everyone I know personally that went this year was pretty damn disappointed.

Look at a lot of companies. They do something amazingly well, stop focusing on the product and care about profits, quality diminishes, people leave, then they go, "What happened?" It's going to happen here. Howl-o-Scream does its houses, for what budget it has, 10x better comparatively.

Hope you realize that A&D, from what I've heard, is generally pretty pissed off about the restrictions getting put on them.

[ferox]

I think "raining blood scene was easy to make since they knew blood was red" is my new favorite from agalloch.

Well then I move quicker than you. Heck, want to cut it down even more? Get the werewolf sound from searching YouTube for "American Werewolf in London howl" and use any of those already spaced out slices of the wolf howl. Done. It literally does not take that long.

Please, never stop agalloch.

Edited October 15, 2013 by ferox

[Legacy]

Hope you realize that A&D, from what I've heard, is generally pretty pissed off about the restrictions getting put on them.

Maybe.

Considering they had been planning an American Werewolf in London house since 2008 and that many members of A&D, from what I've been told, were the ones requesting rights to Cabin in the Woods I don't think they're as frustrated by IPs as you may believe. They may not have been thrilled with so many IPs, but they have willingly gone after several themselves.

[agalloch]

Legacy - I agree, I mean HHN does use IPs in the past. But from what I've heard it's not as much IP usage as it is restrictions on how creative / adult it can be.

And ferox - you took what I said and spun it wildly.

[ferox]

You said that A&E had it easy since they knew raining blood would be green. Or wait, is it red? Purple? Not sure. I need to refer to my copy of Evil Dead 2013 to tell me what color blood is.

[agalloch]

My point is that there is no guesswork, it's already done for them. I prefaced that comment by saying how ridiculous it was but it still proves my point.

[ferox]

Unlike original mazes, where they aren't told what color blood is.

[agalloch]

Unlike original mazes, where they aren't told what color blood is.

Yes, exactly right. I've been through plenty of mazes with varying colors of blood. Seriously though, you're making a joke out of what I said, but you get my point.

Last time I will say it. There is no (generally) guesswork involved in an IP house. It's (generally) already pre-created. This means it is generally easier to construct, especially when liberties are taken.

[DiegoDrummer]

The more people that are "sick and tired" of going to HHN, works great for me.

Less wait times for the rest of us

[LV-426]

The more people that are "sick and tired" of going to HHN, works great for me.

Less wait times for the rest of us

never going to happen. for every one person that is sick and tired, there are 100 newbies that just went to HHN for the fist time because of walking dead...

[LV-426]

okay, as someone that goes to HHN, I personally want to say that, With the huge crowds, the not so good street zones, and the long lines... Thank God for Rocky Horror picture show....

Seriously, if They would have given us another shltty magic show this year I would have freaking lost it.

I know not a lot of people love Rocky Horror and some would like to see it go away, (Which it might) But for this year with the way the streets are, I am pretty glad I can at least go see this if the lines get too long.

I know the show probably doesn't mean much to some people, but like I Said i personally am seriously glad they brought it back this year. Such a relieve to have it. The cast is doing an excellent job and I couldn't imagine what it would be like without it....

(I know most people say to check RHPS at City walk, but the production value of HHN Rocky Horror show is really high , the live singing, the dancing, the fireworks, HHN version of Rocky in on itself is pretty amazing to watch)

Edited October 17, 2013 by LV-426

[jetsfreakHHN]

Anyone know the houses stay and scream get? I know one is AWIL, but i heard from one person the other is TWD and from others i heard its RE. Doing it for the first time this Saturday!

[April]

Anyone know the houses stay and scream get? I know one is AWIL, but i heard from one person the other is TWD and from others i heard its RE. Doing it for the first time this Saturday!

For the Finnegan's S&S, it's AWiL. For Kidzone, it's TWD. I heard rumor of a Hollywood S&S as well (but it's small apparently?) and they would get to go to the front/Cabin first. For a bit, Finnegan's was releasing to Resident Evil but they ended up changing it and now Resident opens at 6:30.

[hhnFEARfan]

So Im going to HHN this Sunday and I would like to know what order I should do the houses when the event opens? And does anybody know the show times for Rocky Horror?

[April]

So Im going to HHN this Sunday and I would like to know what order I should do the houses when the event opens? And does anybody know the show times for Rocky Horror?

Rocky for 2am close - 7:45, 8:45, 9:45, 10:45, 12:00, and 1:00.

[hhnFEARfan]

Rocky for 2am close - 7:45, 8:45, 9:45, 10:45, 12:00, and 1:00.

Thank you!!!

[hunnylvr]

I wasn't sure where to put this, but I KNOW you will all laugh your asses off at this.. I laughed so hard, I was crying. What a great plug for HHN, too!

[LV-426]

I wasn't sure where to put this, but I KNOW you will all laugh your asses off at this.. I laughed so hard, I was crying. What a great plug for HHN, too!

thank you