Hello All! HHN Review for 10/26

[Don W]

Hello all, long time lurker on the site, been reading for a few years now, didn’t feel like I had much to add. Loved reading all the reviews, news, and speculation about what mazes were going to be featured. So this year I decided to create and account and post a review on my HHN 2013 experience.

First off, a little background on me. My wife and I live in the East Bay area and are huge horror fans. We have made the trek down to Hollywood five years in a row now. My wife has two sisters who live in Santa Monica, so this is a nice kill two birds with one stone vacation for me, as I get an in-laws visit out of the way as well. lol

The first year we went was 2009 and we have gone every year since. 2009 we went into the event pretty much blind. No idea how long the lines would get, no clue that we needed to show up early, no strategy whatsoever to ensure that we would be able to see everything. And as a result we didn’t get to see all of the houses that year. Disappointing, but we learned from our mistakes.

2010, we paid the extra money for Front of the Line passes. It was worth it for us, since we make such a long drive for the event, (we drive down on Saturday morning, go to the event, spent the night in a hotel, then drive home on Sunday) we wanted to make sure we would be able to see everything. Of course, 2010 was the last year that front of the line passes had unlimited uses, and we made those count, went through every maze a least 2-3 times and had a great overall experience.

2011, now we’re starting to feel like old pros. Now that FOL passes are only good for one time through, we planned out our evening in advance, figured out which mazes we wanted to see the most, the got to the park early and went straight for those. Waited in line early on, then used the passes later when it was much busier.

2012, we’ve got this down. Planned everything out and had another great time.

Now it’s 2013, this year we are staying with my wife’s sisters in Santa Monica instead of getting a hotel. We now have an amazing, 4 month old Son and her sisters offered to babysit for us so we could still go to the event. With the money we saved on a hotel, we decided to go all out and get VIP passes for this year. We’ve thought about getting these since 2011, but decided to give it a shot.

So here we go, this is my 2013 VIP experience from Saturday, October 26th.

I will start off with the VIP portion of this, the check in process was very slow and kind of frustrating. After we got through security we had to wait in the check-in line and it took about 40 minutes to get through everything and get into the park with our passes and assigned tour time.

The Insidious Experience:

I really enjoyed this, we took a small tram to the Amity Island area and got to walk through some of the old western sets while the guide told us stories about fatal accidents that had occurred at the park over the years and how some people claim to see their spirits. The lady in black character from Insidious kept appearing behind our group, sort of stalking us, and that helped set the creepy vibe. The interaction with the Spectral Sightings people was fun, the actors seemed to be having a good time with their roles and it came through to us. And the effects they used to show the paranormal activity within the house they were investigating were very cool. Really well done. I kept turning around because I expected to see the woman in black show up again, and when I finally turned to watch the house, she showed up right behind me and gave me easily the best jump scare of the night.

Overall score: 9/10

Had to knock the score a little because it ended pretty suddenly, we were all of a sudden just back at the tram and the scareactors that were pursuing us just kind of stopped and turned around.

Mazes:

The Walking Dead: No Safe Haven

I’m a big fan of the whole Walking Dead universe. I’ve read every issue of the comics, read the novels that Robert Kirkman has written, played the video games, and watched the show. I really liked this maze and thought they did a really good job recreating scenes and sets from the show. The prison was really well done and felt huge when walking through it. The helicopter scene was very cool to see and the scareactors all did a good job. Caught me off guard a few times for sure.

Also, at the entrance of the maze, I liked the way they had an employee watching the cameras to see how far along people were, and space it out so there wasn’t as much of a conga line effect. It actually worked out well when we went through. As there was very little bunching up so we got to see the scares without having to see the actors resetting from the previous group so we didn’t always know where they were coming from.

Overall Score: 9/10

The sets on this one were very well done, and I would say that I liked this years maze better than 2012’s.

Black Sabbath: 13 3D

So, I am a huge Black Sabbath fan, I’ve been playing bass for about 16 years now and Geezer Butler was one of the reasons I wanted to start playing in the first place (Steve Harris from Iron Maiden being the main reason). With that being said I really wasn’t looking forward to this maze for a couple reasons.

First, the 3D mazes from the last few years just don’t do anything for me. I don’t really care for the effect the glasses have and usually don’t bother wearing them. I should note that I wear glasses and my vision is pretty poor without them, so I have to try and wear the 3d glasses over the top of my normal glasses and it’s just awkward to do. So I’m not going to knock this maze too hard over that, because it’s more of a personal preference than anything.

Secondly, I think part of the reason that Alice Cooper’s mazes worked the past two years was because the albums they were based on were concept albums, and there was a story to follow so it helped the maze to be more coherent and tell a story as well. But Black Sabbath doesn’t have a concept album and all the songs were just kind of a greatest hits with scenes based around them, so there wasn’t really anything that tied them together except the color scheme. I like a lot of the character designs, and those radiation demons that were black with the green spots on them did a very good job of blending in to the wall so you didn’t see the scares coming.

All in all though this maze was just ok, and I didn’t feel like it took very good advantage of the sound stage. Maybe this is a bit nit picky, but one thing that really bothered me about this maze was that there was no ceiling. I can understand not wanting to spend the money on a roof when the maze is in indoors, but when you’re walking through these scenes and can look up and see the rafters of the sound stage, there’s just a weird disconnect that made the maze feel unfinished to me.

Overall Score: 7/10

This maze was just ok, there were some cool characters, like the radiation demons, and I liked the Nativity in Black scene a lot, but the re-used Saw props seemed really out of place. And it’s funny, I read in other reviews that people thought the music was too loud, but on our night at least, it wasn’t loud enough.

Evil Dead: Book of the Dead

So, I’m 34 years old, a child of the 80s and there are a few horror movies that are near and dear to my heart. Evil Dead is one of those films and one that I have been wanting to see as a maze at HHN for years now. Even though it was based on the remake, I still wanted to see this because the spirit of the original film was still there and I ended up really liking the 2013 movie. After walking through this maze, all I could say was, “What the hell?” This maze was so bad. From the bad dummies to the bad animatronics, there was almost nothing I liked about this maze. I can understand why they couldn’t dig a hole in the ground for the Mia opening the cellar door scare, but geeze, the end result of that looked like a bad halloween store prop that you put on your front lawn. The tree/vines scene was just kind of there and not scary. And the chainsaw scene at the end was bad, and what made it worse was we walked in to that room as the actor was resetting so all we saw a first was the dummy with the pre-cut chainsaw slit just laying there. And maybe it was just the day we went through it, but the scareactors didn’t seem that into it. The tongue cutting scareactor just kind of stood there when we walked by, and didn’t make any attempt to scare anyone. And a few other times the actors just kind of took a few steps out, stopped, then turned around to go back to their spots.

I like the cabin facade, that’s one thing I can say I liked about this maze, but that’s about it.

Overall Score: 3/10

I think the fact that I had wanted to see this maze for so long made this so bittersweet and ultimately even more disappointing. What a waste of an awesome movie/franchise.

Insidious: Into The Further

I liked both movies, and felt like it would make for a good maze, so I was looking forward to this maze, and it did not disappoint at all. I really enjoyed it. The sets they recreated from the films looked very cool, and I’ll even forgive the dummies in the seance room because the demon that jumped out was busting his ass to scare people. In fact, all of the actors that played the demon worked really hard when we went though. The dummies in the further section of the maze worked well too, since they were in the movie. It made for a good scare and that was one of the scenes I was looking forward to seeing. There was no fog in that room that I saw but the scareactors did a good job of standing still so you couldn’t tell for sure which ones were real, and it was that hesitation which helped the actors catch people off guard. I thought that room was very effective overall.

Overall Rating: 9/10

One of my favorite mazes this year. The atmosphere was really cool and the scenes that were recreated from the movie worked really well in a maze setting. Overall I thought this was very well done.

El Cucuy: The Boogeyman

This maze an Insidious are tied for my favorite mazes of 2013, but I think if I had to choose and overall winner it would be this one. I really like the whole “original take on an urban legend” maze that HHN has had the last few years. It gives Murdy the source material to base the maze on, and also the creative freedom to take the maze as far as his twisted mind can take it. La Llorona worked really well because I didn’t know much about the story other than what I read once it was announced as a maze. So I had an idea of the theme but no clue as to what all would be inside the maze. Which made everything stand out more. And the same goes for El Cucuy. I only heard about this legend once it was announced but could already see the potential for this character in a maze setting. The atmosphere in this maze was really creepy, the different scenes/settings, along with the narration really helped to tell the story of the character. I thought that El Cucuy’s lair was one of the better facades of the event and I liked the look they gave the character.

This maze also gave me the biggest jump scare of the event. Even though I saw the actor resetting from the group in front of us, his timing was dead on and got me good.

Overall Rating: 9/10

I really dig these urban legend mazes from the last few years. I know HHN is more of the big movie maze attraction but I would like to see more of these types of original-ish mazes. John Murdy really seems to shine when he has more of a blank canvas to create mazes around.

Universal Monsters Remixed

You know, when it comes to the house of horrors maze, I tend to take an, “it is what it is” approach to them, because there’s only so much they can do. So this one is sort of graded on a curve.

That being said I enjoyed this maze for what it was. I’m not in to dubstep or that style of music, but this is still a fun maze overall. I feel like horror doesn’t have to be serious all the time, and by having a maze like this to break up the flow, so it’s not just gore gore gore all night, it makes the other mazes have more impact. This maze seems to be done in more of a tongue-in-cheek fashion, and I can appreciate that. There’s just not much you can do with this venue since so many of the props are non-removable, which is why I never cared for the overlays they had tried in the past. Like Vampires from 2010 and Wolfman from 2011, you can only do so much to transform the venue and create an atmosphere and then bam! you walk into Frankenstein’s lab and the whole thing is ruined. Because there is no way for that room to be anything other than Frankenstein’s lab.

My biggest complaint about this maze is the same one I had last year, and that is that it seems to have an identity crisis. Parts of the maze have that dupstep/techno vibe to it, with the music and lighting, but then other parts just seem like the normal house of horrors. I get that they don’t want to spend a ton of money on this maze when they can spend it on other venues, but a little extra window dressing and lighting in parts of the mazes, like the mummy and wolfman sections, would go a long way to creating a more cohesive design.

I have always felt that the house of horror should be about the classic universal monsters every year. Just ramp up the scares and change the theme. Since that’s what they’ve done the last two years I’m ok with that. I would just hope we get something different next year.

Funny thing is I honestly think this venue has the potential to be something really special every year. I would love to see a steampunk theme in the future, imagine how cool Frankenstein’s monster would look with a steampunk design. Or see if there’s a way to play with the character’s color pallets and the lighting to give the maze a sort of black-and-white effect. Pull off something like that and you could have a really cool maze.

Overall score: 7/10

Again, it is what it is, and I can appreciate what they were going for. I liked this maze better this year than 2012. Plus my wife and I are big fans of the Syfy show Face-Off, so we both thought it was cool to see the characters created on the show in person.

Terror Tram: The Walking Dead

We only ended up going through the tram once, and it was with our VIP group, which was a mistake in hindsight. For some reason our guide just led us through the path while holding up a lighted wand so we could see where she was. Because of the crowds it was easy to fall behind and we had to pay as much attention to not losing track of her as we did to the scenes around us. It seemed like it kind of made the scareactors shy away from us a bit too. Maybe because we were clustered in a large group and they couldn’t really single anyone out.

Like the House of Horrors, I also look at the terror tram with an “it is what it is” attitude. I think it’s really cool that we get to walk through the backlot, and through such classic sets as the bates motel and the psycho house, but like HOH, there is only so much they can do to this area. And with the huge war of the world sets, it’s not like you can really transform it into anything.

I thought the tram was just ok, the charred zombie pit was cool. But other than that it didn’t really feel much different from last year.

Overall Score 6/10

I think the terror tram is a cool feature to HHN, and I don’t think it should go away, but I just wish they could find a way to change the path or something. Maybe even reverse it for next year, if we walked through in the opposite direction it would at least feel different, I understand that even as popular as HHN is, Murdy doesn’t have carte blanche to just do whatever he wants with the park. I’m sure the terror tram would have a very different path if he did. So for now, it is what it is, and it was just ok this year.

Scarezones:

Scarecrows:

There were guys on stilts in scarecrow costumes and a projected light that said scarecrows. The costumes were cool but this was not much of a scarezone.

Overall Rating: 4/10

The Walking Dead:

This was a great scarezone and almost had a mini-maze feel to it. The decorations were cool and for the most part the scareactors did a great job. Except for one of them. For whatever reason one of the zombie actors had the idea to crab-walk at people. Not only did it just look dumb, but I almost tripped over the guy. I mean, with all the crowds of people walking around, maybe crawling around at knee-height isn’t a very good idea. Plus like I said, it just looked goofy.

Overall Rating 9/10 - Probably the best scarezone yet, but I had to knock off a point for crab-walker zombie

Toys:

Kind of just passed through this one a few times without anything too memorable, some of the actors looked pretty cool but I can’t say too much more about this zone. Managed to see Chucky a couple times with this mini Insult Emporium, it was ok, pretty hit and miss but I can imagine it’s hard to come up with insults on the spot over and over again. I doubt I could do any better. I did a few good laughs at some of his one-liners. I’ve seen videos of the Insult Emporium in the past and can’t help but wonder if they did this as more of a test to see if people would want to see that show back next year.

Overall Score: 7/10

Cirque Du Klownz:

We get klownz every year, but that’s fine with me, creepy clowns are always gonna be creepy. There was one clown in particular, he had a white outfit on and dreadlocks, that guy was busting his ass to scare people and really looked to be having a good time doing it. I always like to see when the actors are clearly enjoying themselves, it makes the whole thing more fun. And I can say that I’ve seen that pretty consistently with clowns over the years.

Overall Score: 8/10

The Purge:

We missed the opening scaremony by the time we got through check-in, but this zone was just alright. Typical stuff for that area, people with chainsaws and knives running around. Although by the end of the night they were really running out of steam. By midnight when we walked through the zone, there was one woman who was just walking around swinging a knife at no one in particular.

Overall Score: 6/10

Bill & Ted: N/A

No show for us this year, I don’t mind this show even though it’s really hit or miss. It will be interesting to see if it comes back next year with a tamer storyline, or maybe they can play off of this years controversy and have the show be like the Family Guy episode where the FCC censored real life. Bill and Ted could be bleeped every time they said anything that could be deemed offensive. Or maybe the show will take the year off to let the heat die down, which I would be all for if Murdy could manage to cram another maze into that spot. Or at least a different show, anyone remember that Beetlejuice show universal had in the 90s? They may have had it longer than that, but I only remember going to it in the later 90s. I wouldn’t mind seeing that in place of B&T next year.

Overall Score (not an average): 8/10

Not my favorite year, but not the worst by any means. The VIP was definitely worth the extra money in our opinion, especially since the extra attraction made up for no Bill and Ted. For all the compliants and nit picking, I am still a big fan of HHN and look forward to going every year.

Favorite Maze: El Cucuy, followed closely by Insidious

Least Favorite: As much as I hate to say it, Evil Dead

Wishful thinking for next year:

Not that Evil Dead is, for better or worse, off of my wish list. Hellraiser moves into the top spot. I love the first two films in that franchise and think there is a ton of great maze potential. Also on my list, Killer Klowns from Outer Space. I know there isn’t a ton of general public knowledge about that movie, but it has a soft spot in my heart and I know it’s a long shot. But think about, even if you didn’t know it was a movie, if you see a maze called Killer Klowns from Outer Space, you’re gonna want to see what it’s all about. Just think of the circus tent facade, the cotton candy cocoons you could push your way through. The wacky funhouse doors the clowns could pop out of. Ah, wishful thinking I guess.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Michael Myers return next year. The Life and Crimes maze from 2009 is one of my all time favorite mazes and it’s been long enough of a gap.

I’d love to see a 7th maze. I think that Murdy knows once you go bigger you can’t go backward, this year we got access to a new part of the backlot and a soundstage maze, he’s got to know he can’t give us less than that next year. Who knows, maybe next year is our year.

More original mazes, I said it before but I feel like Murdy does really well when he has more free reign over the design of the maze, and these urban legend mazes work really well at HHN.

What I don’t want to see next year:

No 3D mazes, maybe it’s a personal preference, but they just don’t do anything for me.

Either no Walking Dead, or a smaller presence. I get it that it’s such a huge properly, but don’t run it in to the ground. If it has to come back next year, hopefully it will just be for the terror tram, and maybe a scarezone or two, but not a third maze.

Anyway I know speculation is for a different thread so I’ll stop there. Already looking forward to HHN 2014! Let the speculation begin in early November!

[DTH316]

Glad you became a member and contributed! This was a very good review.

Did you utilize your multiple use of fol with your vip?

Also, I felt exactly like you did on Evil Dead. Luckily, my second trip to the maze changed my mind on it.

[Don W]

We did try and go through everything that we liked more than once. This trip is kind of our one big vacation of the year so we like to get as much as we can out of the event. We only did Evil Dead once, maybe I should have given it another shot. Some times you just catch the scareactors at a bad time and it kills a lot of the fun.

We only did the terror tram as well, but that was more of fault of the VIP people at the check in. They told us not to get on any trams except the one for the VIP tour because it would take us to everything in the backlot. We decided to go to Walking Dead and Black Sabbath anyway because our tour wasn't until 10:50 and we had a lot of time before we had to be at the lounge. But by the time the VIP tour was finished (it takes about 90 minutes to do everything) the tram was closed. Lesson learned for next year, if they tell you not to take any trams, ignore them and see as much as you want to see before your tour.

[Kurseddragon]

Awz, yeah. El Cucuy all day. Glad you enjoyed the event.

[Grindhousehero13]

Welcome To HNN and great reveiw!