HHNTROGDOR's Halloween Horror Nights 24 Review

[HHNTROGDOR]

So the question everyone wants to know this year is Halloween Horror Nights 24 any good? Well the resounding answer from me is 100% yes. This is the very best year of new Ip lead era of Halloween Horror Nights, and it has been pulled off spectacularly to say the least. From the houses to the streets. Everything has been tweaked and tested to be pulled off bigger and better than ever. So lets rate the content that everyone is really wanting to hear about - The Houses.

My house rankings will be. Bad, Fair, Good, Awesome, Perfect, and Outrageous

1. AvP: Alien Vs. Predator - This house is completely outrageous in the best way possible. From the superb sets to the cast and puppets. This house was built to scare and terrify long time fans of both franchises and new comers alike. Keep an eye out for some familiar looking marines and a certain android while you are inside the house, as well as many references to the blockbuster AvP franchise it's self. Thank God Orlando was allowed to tell it's own story in this franchise because the pay off was absolutely worth the extra work it took to create. Rank - Outrageous

2. Halloween - The franchise we've all been waiting for. But was the source material done justice? Absolutely 100% yes. From the Outside Facade, Michael, Michael's Victims, the set design, and the nods to the other films in the franchise. This attraction becomes an absolute must for any and all classic horror fan - especially if you know about a certain Silver Shamrock. Rank - Perfect

3. Dracula Untold Reign In Blood - Certainly a controversially choice for A&D and Marketing to choose but man oh man was the pay off worth it. This house seems to take place either during the final climax of the brand new film of the same name or shortly after it's ending. Everything you'd expect is here. From the awesome castle facade to the invading turks to Dracula himself. Certainly one of most surprising things that drives this house isn't the beautifully created sets, but is the cast it's self. Everything from Dracula slaughtering the turks right in-front of you to him popping out at you at the very last second of the house. It's all here and should be high on your totem poll to check out this year. Rank - Perfect

4. Giggles and Gore Inc. - Never in my life did I ever expect to be blown away by a Disaster Overflow cue house, but this may have done it for me. The cue over the years has had so many over whelming problems from the venue it's self, to the cue line, to the very material chosen for the venue. But this year i was proven dead wrong. This house was boasted as being the smallest house in quite some time with only seven rooms, but this does not feel to be the case at all once you are inside this evil clown factory. Perhaps it is the long transition hallways or perhaps the pure scare factor of the house but one thing is for sure. Giggles and Gore is gory!! and when i say gore i mean gore. From peoples faces being torn apart to being stuffed with mix match body parts to ultimately being crushed to death in a giant people grinder - it's all there. This house is not to be missed. Especially for long time fans of HHN's own Mr. Jack Schmidt. Those who are familiar with some of the clowns old toys (mainly a certain oversized blender) will truly be over joyed once inside.

Rank - Awesome

5. From Dusk Till Dawn - After witnessing The Walking Dead be such a large mixed bag driving force at Halloween Horror Nights I believe many of us had given up hope on ever seeing a Tv series done to it's max potential at the event. Whelp El Rey's From Dusk Till Dawn has finally changed that. Not only did they change it but they have truly kicked the doors down for what will hopefully will be a excellent future for TV horror at the event. This house has everything in it from the stripper vampires, our favorite brothers and other characters, but especially references to many things from the Tv series and the Film. Nothing gave me more pleasure than seeing The Gecko Brothers, Carlos, Kate, The barker, Santanico, and the band leader all inside the house. My personal favorite part of the house was a now deceased Sex Machine with his favorite fire arm still well in tact. Rank - Awesome

6. DollHouse of the Damned - I'm still a bit on the fence about this house personally. It definitely is far from being average but something about it personally didn't scare me nearly as much as all the other houses this year did - even those i liked less than it. But no matter how little it actually scared me it did have something none of the other houses had at all. Creepiness. This house is completely unnerving. It has twisted baby dolls and evil teddy bears for God's sake. This house has potential to scare me more in the future as i always felt like i was in front of or behind a scare for the most part. But this review is based on my experience in the house and so far it hasn't terrified me yet, but it definitely will deserve multiple visits to truly appreciate. Rank - Good

7. Roanoke Cannibal Colony - I'm not entirely sure what to think about this house yet. Definitely the weakest of all the original content this year but it is still interesting to me. This house is extremely dark and I absolutely love that about this house. But what I didn't like was that almost all the scare actors were either missing their lighting cues or something was miss firing. It seemed every time an actor would jump out at me it would be completely dark and I couldn't see them, than all of a sudden the lighting effect and sound would go off and the actor was in a resting state. Maybe it was just me personally but it ended up making this house pretty messy to me. Hopefully they work out a lot of the bugs because this house has amazing potential to be great and scary if they can fix those few gripes of mine. But overall the scares I did get saved it's ranking for me in the long run. Rank - Good

8. The Walking Dead: The End of the Line - I'm gonna try and keep this one as short as I possibly can because i feel like i'm speaking for most of us who attend HHN are about sick of this franchise's residence - especially after seeing how the show's characters can be effectively used inside a maze like From Dusk Till Dawn. To me last year's effort was literally the strongest Walking Dead we've ever had and probably ever will have. I can not tell you the difference it made to me being able to see Milton and Merle Dixon inside the house. Literally the best part of the house this year is the massive facade that A&D has created outside of this "super" maze. The house to me suffers mainly from two things. Those are messiness and already visited territory. We revisit the prison in the beginning of this house and it isn't that much welcomed back being much smaller and less exciting than that of last years prison scenes. But what's worse after that is we seem to take a trip down to mistake ally with the awkward transition from 22's house making an appearance again. It's miles ahead of that train wreck but honestly just throwing us in a fake wooded area in-between locations like the big spot or the moon shine cabin just seems forced and boring. Also the finale was just a waste of time. Just seemed like they ran out of money to complete the room of the house so they just put 6-8 zombie actors inside a chain link fence and turned a strobe light on and said have at it. Now Mike has said somethings may change in this house once season 5 starts so i'm interested in seeing if that's what he's talking about. Now no matter how much I have listed complaints about this house it does have two things that are vast improvements inside compared to it's brother and sister houses. The first is the increased amount of actors, they are truly felt and the walker hoard scares feel real and scary. The second is the amount of detail and scale of the sets built inside, also personally enjoyed the dark lighting as well. The darker the better. My last thought about the house is that it felt like some actors were missing out of the first half of the house when i went. So i'm wondering if I visited in the middle of a cast change and due to the size of the house was able to encounter a fresh group of actors at the end of the maze. Either way this house is feeling worn out already compared to the other houses at the event to an extent but I am hoping for a better run on my next visit so until than my rank must stay the same. Rank - Fair

Scarezones ranking is the same as the houses

Bad-Fair- Good-Awesome-Perfect-Outrageous

1. The Purge Anarchy - This Scare can be described with two words. Metal and Insanity. There is so much going on all the time inside the zone. Between the purgers, the drill team, the auction, Big daddy and his goons, and lastly the purge slavers. It's all there and it is totally awesome. I honestly feel emerged inside the world of The Purge every second i was inside the zone and i look forward to spending more time in it.

Rank - Outrageous

2. Face/Off: In The Flesh - This zone is definitely different than I thought it was going to be. It's similar to the Seven scare zone from 2011, but it just feels better. There are five platforms displaying one of ten different face/off creations Orlando has chosen for their event this year and each of them has what appears to be at least three minions surrounding them scaring guests. There is a ton of fog in here and a lot of screams could be heard through out so I'm gonna say this zone is an absolute success so far. Rank - Awesome

3. Bayou of Blood - This zone is definitely a mixed bag that could benefit from a lot more fog being pumped into it's wooded environment. The actors seemed a bit tired and not that into it. Which is truly a shame because the zone is decorated beautifully and the costuming feels like a super twisted version of disney's the fog princess. Hopefully they gain some more motivation to get amped up as the event goes on. Now onto my real problem with the zone. Placing the hut in the large open area in front of Mel's and the horror make up show is a mistake. It instantly takes you out of the bayou environment so beautifully crafted in the central park area. To me it would have been better to place this where the Rv was last year for the walking dead - forcing guests to walk through the zone before you could see the Voodoo queens dilapidated shack would have worked better and would have looked way cooler at night in the darker area of the back half of the park. Also i'm not quite sure what the schedule or how often these human sacrifices are supposed to be happening but I have yet to see one and I am personally looking forward to seeing it since it seems that it was this zones giant selling point. As of now the zone is just fun and not to scary yet, but this could absolutely change. Rank - Good

MASKerade: Unstitched - No real review on it as of yet cause the actors were only out for a few minutes but from what I saw it looks pretty cool and creepy. Rank - Good

That's my review of this years houses and scare zones, didn't review the shows cause I was unable to see them yet, but for anyone who has been to Halloween Horror Nights before you know exactly what you are going to get from both of these two shows. Bill and Ted will be funny as always and The Rocky Horror picture show will be a fun musical delight for all those who are looking for a fun break from the scares outside.

That about does it for my review. I hope you all enjoyed it and I hope everyone enjoys this year's Halloween Horror Nights 24 and all that it has to offer this season.

[King_K.]

Very nice review.

One of the few good reviews I've seen for Dracula so far.

[Cody]

Very nice review.

One of the few good reviews I've seen for Dracula so far.

Dracula seems heavily dependent on getting good timing. All of the poor reviews I've seen of it have something in common: people missed the scares. It has a bit of a disadvantage in that the movie hasn't come out yet and hasn't been very big on everyone's radar outside of its event appearance (so you don't get the fanboy pleasure) and it doesn't have massive, awesome sets and unusual/cool effects to sell it.

Edited September 22, 2014 by Cody

[Tooke]

Yay for Dracula!

[HHNTROGDOR]

Thanks all the love guys, and yes I hit almost all the big scares in Dracula. When you see and get all those scares it's quick to see why it is placed so high on my list of houses this year, definitely look for a certain hero saving you from the turks inside. Cause that to me may have been the scare of the night and something I didn't see coming from a mile away.

[4thdegree]

Yes, I got a couple of the big scares and the ones that didn't get me, got my friend behind me, so I I was able to appreciate the scares that didn't quite get me. Dracula was pretty high up for me, 3rd or 4th. All the houses below Dracula were at least partial disappointments for one reason or another.

[HHNTROGDOR]

What house's were disappointments for you?

[4thdegree]

Before I get called crazy, let me point out that I said "PARTIAL disappointments." I stress that because EVERY house looked amazing this year (best ever in my opinion) but the houses that let me down was due to the scares.

First of all, TWD , I knew we would have and I'm not a fan and I've never been excited for a TWD but this one being the longest house EVER and having so many scareactors, I was like a little school girl thinking about it. However, by the time I got through that house, I was in a terrible mood because they had wasted the biggest house ever and all that money on an IP for the same uncreative, monotonous scares as the previous two years (so many walkers that by the time I got to terminus, I was on autopilot and didn't even realize we were surrounded by survivors, temporarily. I didn't get scared once and neither did any one I knew in front of me or behind me so it wasn't just my timing and the house was packed with scareactors so it wasn't a cast change.

From Dusk Til Dawn had great sets and some ok scares, but I didn't get a single one of them, that's why this one disappointed. Just a matter of timing, I think. Not worried, I plan on going through several more times before I give up hope on it.

Halloween, I know this is blasphemy around here, but all the scares seemed kinda predictable (if you know the movie really well) and none of them got me. Whether or not most of them are predictable, if my timing had been better, I'm sure at least a couple of them could've gotten me still because I was busy staring at the amazingly accurate sets. So I will continue going through Halloween until the event is over (whether or not I get a single scare) because of my obsession with the film and everybody else apparently loves the house.

[Cody]

Honestly, I get extremely few scares every time I enter a house. I'm big and smiling and very obviously enjoying myself, which makes me a less appealing target than the wannabe tough guys or the people who are obviously going to have a big reaction to a jump scare. I get, at most, one or two jumps on any night (sometimes I don't get a single scare at all) and a lot of failed attempts simply because it's extremely tough to get a reaction out of me unless you're one of the best at your job.

That's why I never judge a house based on how scary it is for me personally. I judge it based on watching the actors and how they scare other people. You'll often see me turn around after passing a boohole to see if the actor makes a good move after I pass. If I were to judge every house on its ability to personally get a jump out of me, then every house at every HHN ever would get a big fat 2/10.