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HHN 2017 Discussion


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Just now, StraightEdge said:

Is anyone going to post a routine or a plan to get on all the mazes with just a general admission ticket? I'm going opening night with VIP with family but I think I'm going the 23rd as well with a Day N Night ticket with friends and that's on a Saturday 

Pretty easy to guess;

 

Use early entry and just go AHS first, Ash vs Evil Dead, then Saw. Work up to Shining, do Insidious, and then Blumhouse, ToT, and maybe Walking Dead. Usually the best plan is backlot, lower lot, then upper Lot. It worked last year but ToT might throw it off this year

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Yeah, I've posted the game plan every year for the last 2-3 years, but it's pretty much the same. Go back to those threads and apply the same strategy. But as wow said, it's pretty simply backlot, lower lot, then upper lot.

However, I've started doing something a bit different.

I do the backlot all in Early Entry, do one maze on the lower lot, go up and do the upper lot and TT, then go back down to the lower lot to finish the last remaining maze right before closing. But also keep in mind, I do most of the rides and have dinner there, as well as see the Jabbawockeez, plus I'm usually with about a dozen people who get hungry, are drunk and have to pee, and have other miscellaneous annoying needs every 20 minutes. But that method has worked pretty good for me the last 2 years.

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Some general observations via twitter/instagram etc.

 

Scarezones

Urban Inferno - This is probably going to be the best of the three by default.

Toxic Tunnel - It's exactly the same as the Purge Tunnel from last year, so it's a instant whiff right there.

Hell O Ween - The costumes are nice, but this zone looks to be hampered by construction. I'm not a fan of the props they put in for it either.

 

Opening Scaramonies - For anyone that's doing VIP/Early Entry, you can afford to miss this. Just watch a YT video of it since it's really subdued compared to previous years, you're not missing anything to be honest.

 

The Shining - Thankfully the masks for Jack are WAY better then the masks used in the Exorcist last year, I was legit worried they would look like the Priests but thankfully that's not the case.

 

Finally, is it just me, or are the facades this year on the small/lackluster side? They're lacking a wow factor that Freddy vs. Jason, Krampus and Exorcist had.

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15 hours ago, zombieman said:

I don't know why you all think that the theme will dictate the wait times of the houses.  Locations have consistently been the drivers of wait times.  Look at the backlot - the first tent you hit when you get there has always had the highest wait time of the backlot houses, regardless of what's in it.  Same for the Mummy queue houses (when the entrance is on the Transformers side).  Lots of people make the decision to hit it vs make the long walk to the backlot.  I mean, how else do you explain consistent huge waits for This is the End?

This is the end had long wait times? I only went once that year and did it at the busiest part of the night because it had like a 50 minute wait. 

 

4 minutes ago, Tobias said:

Finally, is it just me, or are the facades this year on the small/lackluster side? They're lacking a wow factor that Freddy vs. Jason, Krampus and Exorcist had.

To add to general observations, I agree the facades look a bit small and unimpressive, at least from the Instagram and twitter posts I've seen. 

Also the scarezones as a whole are not as fantastic and detailed as I hoped so maybe they will tweak some things to make them a bit more impressive?

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35 minutes ago, dereksdominance said:

Also the scarezones as a whole are not as fantastic and detailed as I hoped so maybe they will tweak some things to make them a bit more impressive?

 

To be honest I really don't know how they could tweak either Hell O Ween or Toxic Tunnel. TT is essentially a giant line, and they probably need the lights in their due to safety reasons. It's really hard making that a scare zone at all. As for HoW, maybe if they replaced the current props with better ones, but once again they're legit hampered by construction.

 

An' thanks to someone putting up a walkthrough of Blumhouse, I got a couple observations of that. From what I could see, it's a mixed bag. Purge is alright since it's a mini version of last years gauntlet, Happy Death Day is...there. It looks to have a nice little end room, but most of it is pretty generic. As for Sinister, I'm on the dissapointed side. Since it looks like the biggest setpiece for that part of the maze is from Sinister 2 (Which I hated), and the scene they choose didn't work for me in the movie, and it sure as hell doesn't work in a maze setting either.

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I went to Employee Preview and most of the scares were weak. Only good scares I got were from Toxic Tunnel, Urban Inferno, Ash VS Evil Dead, and Terror Tram. I hated, hated, hated Saw. That maze smelled so badly in there to the point where the guests behind me were pushing me and then I pushed them back.

Edited by XNaut
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I was just at will call at the main entrance getting my tickets while on lunch.  For anyone going tonight, there is absolutely nothing up on the main entrance/archway.  Didn't see much looking down Avenue of the Starts towards NY.  You'd never know HHN was two days away.  I'm sure everything will be back by Friday.  Not sure how long it takes to hang the few signs at the archway, at least for this evening.  FYI.

Sorry, wrong thread.

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Okay... so after watching the footage from last nights EP, here are my thoughts on what I saw. Not going to be very detailed since it is just dress rehearsal. My judgements are just based on first look. I'm not as nice due to the fact that I know they could do better.

SCAREZONES:
HELL-O-WEEN - Terrible. Underwhelmingly lackluster. Scareactors look like I've seen them before (and not in a good way). Epic fail. Upper Lot construction (Shrek/ASS) or not, there is no excuse for not putting effort into this SZ as far as scenic goes. Especially if you put your "opening ceremony" so far back into the park. Flame bar is severely missed.

TOXIC TUNNEL - Deja vu. Exact same thing as last year's tunnel. Its a nice banner. But seriously though, they could've found a way to have some form of themeing. Toxic barrels anyone? Even 2014's TWD tunnel ended up with themeing!

URBAN INFERNO - Cluster-f**k conga-line layout. Great themeing. Too many spurts of nothing but walls. Could've & should've just been an outdoor maze like last year's "Purge: Gauntlet of Fear" maze. It'd just need to be reworked a bit. Sadly the best SZ out of the three.

MAZES:
TITANS OF TERROR - Good details. Interesting. Not terrible. Could've been better. Has potential.
BLUMHOUSE - Terrible execution. Underwhelming. Purge is the only part done well.
INSIDIOUS - Meh... Underwhelming. Should've been part of Blumhouse. Waste of maze location.
SHINING - Has potential. Interesting. Not terrible. Looks better than expected. Hedge maze looks awful.
AHS - Very bloody. Lots of pigs. Yay blair witch stick people. Meh.
ASHvsED - Has potential. Could be scary.
SAW - Has potential. Possibly intense. Very bloody. Gross. A lot of "show scene" traps.

TITANS OF TERROR TRAM: HOSTED BY CHUCKY
Whoville - Nice set up. Needs more. Chainsaw minions need different masks, look stupid
Bates Motel - Great use of the set. Unnecessary excessive "show scene" deaths, waste of scareactors.
Psycho house - Great TCM set up.
WoW - Only time multiple Freddy Kruegers is acceptable. Could've used the character more/better.
Finale - Nice TCM set up. Too repetitive with TCM characters. Unnecessary show-scene kills.

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I'm not going to lose hope... Employee Preview is a terrible way to judge an event. Hell, sometimes so is Opening Weekend. The hard part is, last year was so good so this year has a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, we all know Universal won't make any drastic changes to improve the event this year. They'll just file it away for next year.

 

I think it will be a good year, its just hiding. Hopefully.

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In my experience, and this may be personal superstition, but the even numbered years are always WAY better. '09 was pretty good for back than and '13 improved a lot over time, but I know there's a lot of fans of '11, and that's easily one of my least favorites. And '07 was good back than, but in comparison to what the event is now, it's pretty standard aside from that year's TCM and lower lot scare zone.

 

*PERFECT* - 16
AMAZING - 14, 08, 12, 10, 13, 09
GREAT - 15
GOOD - 11
AVERAGE - 07

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I seriously can't believe it's finally time! Even though not all of us are going tomorrow I can't wait to read everyone's thoughts. And I'm eager to see what tweaks and changes occur from preview night to tomorrow. 

 

Update- Anyone confirm if the app wait times are accurate? At one point tonight Insidious had a wait time double every other maze and Shining had the shortest wait at one point. If this is true I'm shocked!

Edited by dereksdominance
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