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Halloween Horror Nights 26 Discussion


Mark M.
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2 hours ago, hunnylvr said:

 

We were told this directly from security at the metal detector at valet.  One of our group had to remove his baseball hat going thru the metal detector so the guard could check it for fish hooks.  That's exactly what he said.. so, of course, we said, "WHAT?"  He went on to explain that there have been people "smuggling in fish hooks", and they literally use them to attack the scareactors - my assumption is, they are literally hooking them with these and running.  We were stunned into complete silence when he told us that.  

I hope they were charged with "attempted assault with a weapon". Seriously what is wrong with people?!?

 

As for the enthusiasm. It does die down afterwards but... usually there is an influx of pictures and videos on the forum. I personally have little reason to come back (except the occasional random curiosity) . The event is a distant memory to me now. Onward to different things.

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On October 18, 2016 at 3:34 PM, criticalanalysis said:

 

Pandry - same man, now I feel overwhelmed, less excited, etc than before. It's like I can see the flaws. Also, the people who are going now are...undesirable to be around.

 

I agree here. I've never had a problem with the people the previous years but I've already been around several groups of drunk people this year that were really annoying. I even saw some girl go pee behind some fence while a little boy was watching her. I was like wow. Really? 

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, Hhnsophmore said:

I personally think that the oversell atmosphere and scare zones were better last year but the houses are MUCH better this year. 

 

 

last year had a couple of disappointments like purge and RUN but this year all the houses are solid 

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7 minutes ago, clash said:

 

 

last year had a couple of disappointments like purge and RUN but this year all the houses are solid 

 

Last year I felt RUN and AWIL were duds. Purge technically was via certain standpoints.

 

This year the houses I don't like, I still see value in....more for Ghost Town.

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On 10/18/2016 at 1:09 PM, Pandry said:

 

What about HHN 18's houses?  They had some great originals, I thought.  Loved Body Collectors that year, Scary Tales and Dead Exposure.  That was my favorite year.  And yes, the zones were great, too!  It was also much less crowded that year, maybe due to the recession.

 

The event is definitely not what it was or doesn't have the same feel.  I have a FFP but it's mainly used now where HHN is the one time of the year that it breaks up the monotony of my work year for six weeks.  The only time when I venture out after work during mid-week.  But I'm not racing into the park like I have to see some house or zone again and again.  I still have fun attending.  It's just not like I used to feel when I couldn't wait for the event to start and was sad when it ended.

 

Was that picture from the dining experience?

indeed 

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7 hours ago, clash said:

 

 

last year had a couple of disappointments like purge and RUN but this year all the houses are solid 

How was Run a disappointment? I agree with Purge, and I have been told 2013 AWIL was better(although having only been through 2015, I thought it was pretty good) one of my biggest disappointments from last year was 25 years.

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23 minutes ago, Jediwhit82 said:

How was Run a disappointment? I agree with Purge, and I have been told 2013 AWIL was better(although having only been through 2015, I thought it was pretty good) one of my biggest disappointments from last year was 25 years.

 

I felt RUN took a cool concept ("Around The World Hunger Games") and besides the queue video, was executed very boringly and non scary.

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6 hours ago, Jediwhit82 said:

How was Run a disappointment? I agree with Purge, and I have been told 2013 AWIL was better(although having only been through 2015, I thought it was pretty good) one of my biggest disappointments from last year was 25 years.

 

the rooms were kinda lame. the scenes didnt flow too well. it was clunky. the location has never been great either. 

this year besides Lunatics none of the houses feel like that. none of the houses feel lame or awkward. i dont know, run was just disappointing 

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As someone watching from home, I would definitely say that I feel like this year's house lineup is stronger than 25. There's some really knock out IPs and the original content is all interesting.

That being said, I feel like we have two standout scarezones in Dead Man's and Vamp and the rest are kind eh. I also felt last year's shows really elevated the event too. I love Academy, and think it's creatively very well done, I just have trouble matching it to the HHN spirit and all. (Again, not there personally this year, this is all  based on what footage I can get my hands on). Jack's show was so standout that it would be hard to follow up any way that you slice it tho. Not a huge Bill and Ted fan, so I can't really comment on drops in quality and such, but fan reaction definitely has been mostly negative. Not to mention all the various things happening with Chance as the icon, dropping the ball and picking it back up again. I feel like they're definitely waffling on having an icon again, and don't quite know what to do with her.

It's hard to live up to a really stand out year like 25, and 26 definitely feels a little uneven in that regard. If this year had taken place right after 22-24 tho? We'd be praising it to high heavens as a return to form.

And again, I'm not actually there this year, so feel free to let me know if any of this seems a little off.

'

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On 10/19/2016 at 11:26 AM, hunnylvr said:

 

We were told this directly from security at the metal detector at valet.  One of our group had to remove his baseball hat going thru the metal detector so the guard could check it for fish hooks.  That's exactly what he said.. so, of course, we said, "WHAT?"  He went on to explain that there have been people "smuggling in fish hooks", and they literally use them to attack the scareactors - my assumption is, they are literally hooking them with these and running.  We were stunned into complete silence when he told us that.  

The fishhooks are typically hung on the hanging moss, curtains, and other crap in houses. A friend of mine who does the RIP and UTH tours was hooked a few years ago.

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I've heard of folks who hang hooks just to injure someone else, and then I've heard of litigious folks who work in pairs, one to hang the hook then one to walk through later and get caught by it and try to sue the owner of the house. Real nasty people out there. Fortunately I know every house has a metal detection wand and security walks through at least every day when opening the houses

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20 hours ago, ForeverEvil1 said:

HHN26 has been officially extended to the weekend of November 4th and 5th.

I saw that yesterday.  Pretty cool.  So Friday 11/4 is open to FFPs and both 11/4 & 11/5 to FFP+.  With the Hurricane, I got to go that Saturday night following it as it was an FFP add.  I'll go next Friday the 4th.  Usually opening weekend is the only time I get to go on a non-work night.  With the 4th added, it'll be 3 weekend nights I'll have attended during a single season.  Go mother nature!  Of course, I know that didn't work out for those with single day passes over that time.

On ‎10‎/‎18‎/‎2016 at 4:39 PM, hunnylvr said:

Ok, I'll toss in my two cents.. may actually add up to a nickel

 

The scarezone I'm always excited to see is the same scarezone that had all the pumpkins in the trees for Evil's Roots last year, the same place that had Grown Evil (one of my faves of all time).  As a result, this is one of the first spots we go to when we get to the event.  When we rushed over to see what they did with Banshee's Lair, I literally almost cried.  It's crap.  It feels DEAD and not a good kind of dead.  I friggin HATE IT.  I've tried to go through back and forth and see if I could pick up any good vibe, but the more I do it, the more I hate it.  The lighting sucks (and yes, I know we can't have pumpkins every year, but GOD I MISS THEM!!), the costumes and/or the actors are off in some way I can't put my finger on, they didn't even put any of the scarecrows in the grass to help extend it a bit like last year.  I realize I just did a whole paragraph on a single scarezone, but this really crushed me.

 

I'm with you.  I loved those damn pumpkins.  Especially in 2008 when they were synched to the Bloody Mary soundtrack and would fade out after her name was said 3 times, then slowly illuminate back up afterwards.  That zone and having the full pumpkins out made it really feel like Halloween.  It didn't even need actors.  The event doesn't feel like that anymore.  Though fun, it's not the same immersion.  That's what I feel the zones don't have anymore.  I wasn't even too thrilled last year when they just had partial pumpkins back.

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I wonder if there will be characters missing from some of the houses or the streets. I've heard that not all the actors are able to come that last added weekend. I wonder if there will be significant difference if  Uni couldn't fill all the positions. Just wondering. 

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3 hours ago, criticalanalysis said:

I went to 13th Gate in Baton Rouge, LA - yeah, HHN's "detail" and "scares" are abysmal compared to that place.

We get it. You don't like the event anymore. You are critical and your opinion is wiser than all of ours 

Edited by Hhnsophmore
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7 hours ago, Hhnsophmore said:

We get it. You don't like the event anymore. You are critical and your opinion is wiser than all of ours 

Sometimes the truth is the truth.  Hell, even Howl O Scream in Tampa is better at creating atmosphere and scares with a hell of a lot less budget.  I went to a "house" here in Orlando called Catharsis and the whole thing was unique and entertaining.  HHN has become a corporate sell out event, and there's nothing that can change that now.  After going fro 19 of the 26 years, I can honestly say this was probably my last time of buying the most expensive passes, hundreds of dollars in merch and food.  I think it's time to support local and more creative events.

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5 hours ago, blueoktober said:

Sometimes the truth is the truth.  Hell, even Howl O Scream in Tampa is better at creating atmosphere and scares with a hell of a lot less budget.  I went to a "house" here in Orlando called Catharsis and the whole thing was unique and entertaining.  HHN has become a corporate sell out event, and there's nothing that can change that now.  After going fro 19 of the 26 years, I can honestly say this was probably my last time of buying the most expensive passes, hundreds of dollars in merch and food.  I think it's time to support local and more creative events.

 

Agreed. Next year I might skip HHN entirely. For the same amount of money I can go to a few local haunts and enjoy it way more. The "scale" doesn't impress me anymore. In fact, I see it as a bandaid to cover up for the lack of creativity. 

 

Face it, any of us on this forum can come up with what they do. And now as other haunts caught up in scale, atmosphere, detail, sound, etc why bother?

 

Even the "guest activated triggers" that I thought were uniquely used at HHN is now used in many other events.

 

It is a corporate sell out now. It's synergy for them to market their properties - whatever, I get why they do it. The event is not going to go anywhere. 

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5 hours ago, blueoktober said:

Sometimes the truth is the truth.  Hell, even Howl O Scream in Tampa is better at creating atmosphere and scares with a hell of a lot less budget.  I went to a "house" here in Orlando called Catharsis and the whole thing was unique and entertaining.  HHN has become a corporate sell out event, and there's nothing that can change that now.  After going fro 19 of the 26 years, I can honestly say this was probably my last time of buying the most expensive passes, hundreds of dollars in merch and food.  I think it's time to support local and more creative events.

 

Funny, I went to Catharsis and found it such a pile of dog squeeze I actually softened my criticism of this year's HHN a bit. Even at it's worst I find HHN miles ahead of that in terms of design, effects and scares. Ditto that raved about haunt in Winter Haven I went to 3 years ago.

 

I do think HHN Creative seems to max out at about 4 or 5 houses. Usually easy to pick them out (this year, every soundstage but TWD, Krampus, Tomb). You can tell a lot of work and thought went into them, even if an individual house doesn't work for you, like AHS for me this year.  The rest are pretty much thrown together rehashes of existing elements, tho a strong cast like in Havoc 1 or Halloween 2 can still make one a crowd-pleaser.

 

The problem is as crowds increase, the natural inclination seems to be up the number of houses with long queues to keep people off the streets. I know the fanbois would love a 12-house event across two parks, but I fear we'd get 4 good houses, 8 mediocre at best. You can already see it in the scare-zones; all the effort went into Vamp and Dead Man's Wharf, leaving 3 or 4 cheerleaders and geishas to walk around a completely undecorated street. (The roaming hordes that don't roam and aren't very populous.)

 

Ultimately it means Universal needs to find a better way to handle crowds, the #1 complaint about the event for decades. Need to jack up the criminally low prices of their multi-day tickets, maybe phase those out all together. Raise the 1-day price, too, and cap attendance like MNSSHP. More outside shows, too. I think they've stretched content as far as they can. But ultimately I'd rather pay more for 6 good houses that I can actually see in a night than the cluster the event has been allowed to devolve into.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, SeventyOne said:

Ultimately it means Universal needs to find a better way to handle crowds, the #1 complaint about the event for decades. Need to jack up the criminally low prices of their multi-day tickets, maybe phase those out all together. Raise the 1-day price, too, and cap attendance like MNSSHP. More outside shows, too. I think they've stretched content as far as they can. But ultimately I'd rather pay more for 6 good houses that I can actually see in a night than the cluster the event has been allowed to devolve into.

 

 

I was with you until right about here. If they do six houses then I suspect that maybe three of them will be genuinely worth the increases. The other three still may be average, even if they are more elaborate than before. It wouldn't be worth the already expensive cost of the event to dwindle the number of content just to increase quality.

 

How about a compromise, where the tickets go up, one less house, one less scare zone, and much better quality/theming?

 

PS - I do agree with you that it is about 4 to 5 houses a year that are notable, the rest are off the list.

 

Also, y'all should take a look at this:

 

 

That's the first set you go through in the 13th Gate attraction. It's absolutely jaw-dropping.

 

Edited by criticalanalysis
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