Grind Lives!!!! Haunt Season 2021 Retrospective

[Grindhousehero13]

Que Tales from the krypt intro…… Grind comes out of coffin

 

50,000 years will give you such a creak in the neck 

 

Hey guys if your still around good to see the forums at least somewhat alive-ish on the Hollywood side. Sorry for the extremely long hiatus life happens and I needed a break to be honest from the forums but I’m back and I feel like speculating and discussing my favorite event once again! I started on this forum as a teen and now a man busting into his 30s and a father no less but I’m always there waiting on any info on the next Haunt season.

But enough about this old timer let talk Haunt

 

First off man has the California Haunt fan crowd grown and I’m happy to see where it is, it went from just us 5 to 9 dudes on the internet and a hand full of annoying kids breaking into closed areas (remember the saw twins?) in the shadow of the amazing Orlando community and now man so many talented people making videos about news and speculations and construction updates and even interviews with Murdy himself. I remember when we had to wait for freak to make out to park to take pictures cuz he was the only one with a annual pass now these guys are there day 1 it’s crazy wish I would of thought about doing this back In the day. So as a community especially outside these forums it’s cool to see the growth from 9 dudes complaining about Zs in scare zone names besides Sharpproductions who’s always been a mainstay I also recommend FiveFires and TLV Media.

 

Ok Let’s start by saying in 2019 I returned to Knotts and DAMN  in my honest opinion they are the kings once again of haunt they’re set designs are on an amazing level that I don’t think I ever remember them being from my child hood, Mesmer this year and Origins last year were top tier mazes and man I love how aggressive street actors are like old school HHN scare Actors you know before they kept getting sued. Besides Scary Farm haunts are popping up all over so cal we even have a Howl-o-scream. This year of our lord 2021 I was able to make it out to Orlando HHN the holy land for the first time (I’ll do a trip report soon if anybody is interested) and as someone followed the even t since sweet 16 but has never went this was a life changing experience and I nerded out big time I was my  groups tour guide pointing out Easter eggs and lore my GF even joked that she heard the RIP tour guid telling the group exactly same theme I told my group but for free. Anyways this year Halloween was back, and everyone stepped it up even Disneyland‘s Oogie Bash hit spooky with a zombie cap (besides Horror I’m also a huge comic and MCU nerd and also loved Marvel Zombies so this made me giddy) and then there was HHN Hollywood….

 

I'm gonna get this out before hand any criticism I have is out of love of the event and creative team and talent and universal themselves. Also while I will share my opinions I’ll try to stay unbiased and realistic as much as I can. On one more prerequisite note I want to acknowledge  this year was and uphill battle for the HHN team, No one knew if the event was gonna happen to begin with (I don’t want get to much into covid but it is the elephant in the room), and just Orlando it did seem like they had a concrete plan in place but unlike Orlando things seem to fall apart in Hollywood. There was to be a Billie Eillish colab (not themed) Maze but she found Jesus (joke) so she pulled out understandably she wanted to change her dark and broody image since this was supposed to be both coast I’m 99.9% sure this became the TCM maze at both events. This isn’t new to us in Hollywood as TCM has been  replacement maze before (it’s easy sets and easy scares) . My theory is for some unknown reason we were also to have a Beetlejuice maze in the soundstage I know in 2020 Orlando merch pop up advertising Beetlejuice at both HHN if I’m not mistaken while I don’t think this has anything to do with WB as they do have a good relationship with HHN and we have had the most ip mazes from them plus since it didn’t get pulled from Orlando the only other reason I can see WB putting the kabosh on the ghost with the most would of been Horror Made Here but considering they didn’t do it this year I doubt it my guess it was budget it is kinda an effects heavy property to do. The. There is the biggest mystery why Halloween 3 turned into Halloween 4 which is bizarre considering Halloween 3 is a Universal movie my only theory is maybe they wanted to save it for a better year. So as for the repeating stuff it is what it is I don’t blame them its a weird time but let talk about stuff that is in their control.

 

I want to start off by acknowledging the good and improvement the event has made,. Merch! Omg the merch game was at its peak this year they even offered pull over hoodies this year I’m a sucker for hoodies the variety of shirts it’s cool to see them do maze specific shirts and not just a generic ip shirt that you could get at Hot Topic example the haunting of Hill house was for the maze specifically not just the show also the larger variety of event shirts is great… words can’t describe how bummed I am I missed out on that spirit jersey hope it comes back next year. Food choices I’m glad they have more HHN specific foods and one huge thing is I’m glad they are embracing the “Adult Event” aspect again with the lounges, im not a hey kid get off my lawn guy but it does feel good to have a place to go after paying about $100 bucks and not have to deal with teens not that I hate kids being there but after spending 40 mins in line behind a group of them you do need a mental break and a drink but that’s true if some adults at HHN too. 
 

 

end of part 1 part 2 coming soon