Bat's HHN Review (from 2 weeks ago)

[Batwithtusks]

So I went Friday, Sept 26th but was on vacation from my new location and didn't have time to review so here I am doing it late. Doesn't matter, let's get to it. In order. (Note. I had front of the line passes so I'm only reviewing the mazes and not mentioning the wait times).

1. American Werewolf in London: Going to have to admit that I wasn't amazed by this one. The facade was great. The Bar was Great. But lots of it felt really lacking. The moors were kind of sad and there were a lot of dark areas between rooms where nothing happened. Sometimes a lot of that is forgivable at HHN, but the killer for me was the puppets. They looked SUPER cool. But when you're stuck standing in front of them for ten seconds it's a really weak effect. On top of that, you turn a corner and you see a wolf in front of a blanket and you know exactly what is coming...I just felt the 2nd half of the maze had too many wolf puppets and not enough character actors. I LOVE the movie but wasn't the biggest fan of the maze. 6.5/10 for the night.

2. From Dusk Till Dawn: I wasn't a huge fan of the show but didn't mind this maze. Sure, I would've preferred a different property, but I'll be honest, this maze was great at having multiple scareactors in many rooms to keep you fooled where the scares were coming from. The cast did an outstanding job and even though it ended abruptly I thoroughly enjoyed my walk through. 8/10.

3. AVP: This is the frustrating part of HHN. Knowing that some walk throughs will be great while others wont. In this specific case it wasn't very good at all. Might have been a crew change (probably) or something else, but for the first four rooms or so NO ONE jumped out at us. My cousin thought they were trying to 'ramp it up' for later by not having anything early, but I knew that the scares simply weren't there. With that said, the sets were really fun to look at and the middle to 2nd half of the maze were great, so I just wish I had a chance to go through again to experience it one more time (but didn't since the line was over an hour). The final scene was pretty awesome, I was tempted to take a picture and kind of regret not doing so now. My walk through wasn't amazing but I still give it 8.5/10.

4. Walking Dead: I enjoyed the facade and maze in general, but I guess you can clump me into the group that is a bit sick of zombies at this point. I did very much enjoy the tunnel scene towards the end though, and the scareactors did an outstanding job there. The horde thing being the final scare was a bit of a letdown. 7/10.

5. Clowns 3D: Not going to lie. I really really liked this one. It was the most messed up, goriest, grossest, scariest maze of the night for me. There were more than 1 room with 3+actors which is a HUGE plus since by now I'm usually prepared for where the scareactors are coming from. The biggest downside was the mirrors with zero scares for the first 2 full minutes of walkthrough....I didn't get that at all. Never been a maze that started as slowly in the history of HHN in my opinion. But after the slowness it was outstanding. Yes, some of the props were incredibly reused such as the Evil Dead chainsaw through the mouth chick, but I had the best walk through in this one than any other. 9/10.

6. Face Off: Best overlay of HoH so far....by far. I thoroughly enjoyed it the whole time, and it was a nice change of pace to have a house that took a good long time to walk through. I had my hands in front of me most of the time to guard myself from dudes that would jump out, and it seriously seemed like this maze had more actors to scare you than maybe any other. Good job, crew. You did HoH justice. 8/10.

7. Dracula: Well...I had no idea what to expect, and this maze was way weirder than the others but I enjoyed it. The long hallway is back from El Cucuy, but this time someone poked my ankles with a broomstick or something in the total darkness there so that was different. To be fair, I had my biggest scare of the night in this maze when two robot horde things attacked me from each side and then a second later something jumped at me directly in front of me. I wasn't the biggest fan of the obvious rubber masks on most of the scareactors and the horrible TV screens of fire, but still was scared pretty well in this one 7.5/10.

Terror Tram: I personally felt like this was the best tram overlay and experience that I've received from HHN in the 5 years I've gone. Outstanding job by the crew, especially the teams that would team up and wait for a group and come at them all at once and get in their face, etc. The people I was on the tram with were screaming like crazy, and it was a lot of fun. Good job crew, best overlay I've seen. Not going to rate it since TT is kind of it's own thing. Also, props to the chainsaw crew at the very end. We were all basically standing there waiting to be told to get on the next train and there was one guy who was great at scaring someone nearby and made it a hilarious experience.

Overall I had a lot of fun at HHN. I wish I had another chance to go through a few of the mazes because I know that sometimes you simply get a bad walk through and need to do it again. Unfortunately on this trip I only have my one to judge it by, but I still had a blast at the event. The sets were pretty amazing and I know I'll be back in Hollywood for it again next year. Cheers

Edited October 11, 2014 by Batwithtusks