me and 5 other folks attended on Saturday the 10th!
overall we had a GREAT time.
the scare zones themselves were a bit of a let down overall for the exception of the areas from the simpsons on down to the entrance/exit.
that particular stretch was amazing.
with the fast pass we were able to do all of the houses, the mummy, escape from gringots, m.i.b., and the simpsons.
we did everything with about half an hour to spare and I would have done transformers, but I was just ready to buy my t-shirts and leave.
I didn't get back to my house until 3:50 AM. so it was a good choice.
one of the really cool things was that they had LEGIT 3xl shirts this year.
I ended up grabbing the glow in the dark zombie shirt and also bought the jack'd up shirt with all the houses on the back.
I only planned on buying 1 shirt, but I literally wanted 5 from Halloween store attached to twister.
So to actually only leave with 2 items was a win lol.
the scare zones I think lost a bit of value due to going to howl o screams more often now at Busch Gardens.
their scare zones are a bit better because they have more winding paths and bushes etc. for the actors to hide in.
I think BG has the better scare zones vs. Universal obviously having the better houses.
the bill and ted show was ABSOLUTELY AWESOME. the Disney world jokes had me laughing out loud.
I missed the jack show.. I will watch it at lunch today on youtube.
it was about 12 and I had 4 houses still to go and I for some reason though it ended at 3am and not 2am.
once I heard it was 2 we skipped the last show
im going to rank my houses below and I may actually take a bit of a hit for this.
I DID get in the park right when the gates opened early... around 6:15... so they may not have been on top of their game or something, but my rankings sort of differ from what ive seen on here.
there may be a few small spoiler in here, so beware... nothing major.
I will say this.. Im not really a scared type of person.
I enjoy these events to see the ladies I am with get frightened etc.
what I do like Is when im surprised and I jump or flinch.
the first year walking dead was done at HHN was the last time I went and I only had two moments of the jitters.
it was a bit of a let down... this year I flinched at LEAST a dozen times.
most people were on top of their games once the time rolled around 8pm till close.
#1 house... freddy vs. Jason.
this house was just done awesome!
the visuals were great.
the actors were GREAT!
the only knock I have was the timing.
I didn't actually see the final scene as I was rushed through the end scenes.
the two part I caught on the screens were great though.
one other bit of timing issue was that TWO freddys popped out at us simultaneously and it messed up the random effect that was supposed to take place in the mirror room.
even though I was only surprised or startled once in this house the visuals, scenes, effort, etc. was by far the best.
#2 house... Body collectors.
the actors in this house were on TOP of their game.
off the top of my head I was startled 2 or 3 times.
this house also gets high marks for having the BEST scene IMO.
you come into a room and you see an actors face and when you come around the bend you can see that another actor is ripping
out the spinal cord like some mortal kombat fatality.
that scene was AMAZING and really stuck out to me.
the only knock I had was that some of the rooms were too open.
#3 house... insidious
this one was the house where I had a lot of jumpy moments.
actors were on point AGAIN in this house.
the ONE knock I have on this house was that there were two or maybe three rooms with 0 actors in them.
im not sure if that was normal or not.
the room like in the church with the people with coverings over their heads was AWESOME...
but there was nobody under any of them... and if there were they never popped up.
this was a busy night too and the line through the house was moving slow... maybe someone called in sick??
#4 house... the walking dead.
we REALLY expected this house to be GREAT.
we probably put too high of expectations on it.
the zombie actors sort of threw us off in some houses because they moved like... well... not zombies.
not jerky motions.. they were fluid and they kind of jumped and ran fast...
it kind of messed up the vibe of the show to me.
another issue was that a lot of the scenes were set back too far or they were wayyyy too close.
it really lacked the element of surprise.
there was only one spot in the whole house I flinched and it was not to the credit of the actor as much as it was me
looking for detail back in the room and I turned around and the guy happened to be right in my face.
I was also let down in the outside theming.
I mentioned before that my last trip to HHN was the first year they had walking dead and all of the outside was done up and looked awesome.
this year you kind of just walked up to soundstage...booooo.
after those 4 the quality of the houses or actors realllly started to fall off for me. all the remaining houses had one of the key aspects really lacking.
#5 Asylum in wonderland 3-d
the visuals in the house were AWESOME!
I loved the glow paint and the 3-d.
the actors were just downright AWFUL in this house.
the house itself is an extreme rip off of the clown 3-d house at howl o screams.
the one at howl o screams is their BEST house... but you mainly just walk around in this one and see cool visuals.
it wasn't scary AT ALL. 0 scares. the house gets extra points for another aspect they ripped off from howl o screams... the spinning tunnel.
#6 the purge.
this was another house that oddly had two rooms with 0 actors.
that part was just irritating.
when there WERE actors they were mostly doing GREAT.
but again.. I may have only been surprised once in this one.
some of the rooms were too wide open again and no room for scares.
this one gets a few bonus points with me for the air pushing guns.
that was kind of cool, but it was overdone 3 or even 4 times.
I really like the purge concept more even than the movies and like the movies I felt like the house didn't live up to its potential.
#7 house... RUN.
there was nothing particularly bad about this one.. but also nothing really good.
the first room where you are being prepped to run was actually really cool.
the rest of the house was kind of random and it wasn't very scary.
no standout scenes... it was what it was.
#8 house.. 25 years monsters mayhem.
the actors were TERRIBLE in this house.
this was the first house we did though....
I literally almost did this one AGAIN on the way out without the fast pass because people said it was good.
at least 4 rooms with 0 actors in it.
the sideways walking ship scene stuck out to me because it was bland, boring, no actors... completely stupid.
I don't even see where there was an opportunity to be scared at all in it.
it gets a slight bump for being arguably the LONGEST house.
I asked one of the workers how many rooms were left at one point and he said 3....
so if you go you'll know at what point I was literally BORED.
#9 house... An American Werewolf.
I visited each house in order from the entrance in a big circle....
so one of the main things that knocked this house WAY down for me was that it seemed like a 30 second house
after we did the long 25 year house... this is by far the shortest house of all 9.
the puppets were terrible. almost the whole house is puppets.. that you see coming.
the funniest.. most ironic thing about this house.. in the second to last room of the house there is a TON of fog.
one of the annoying employees dressed in black scared the JUNK out of me.. more than ANY of the scareactors in any of the houses.
I almost fell backwards... then I immediately caught myself stumbled forward into the last room and the police officer with the air push rifle jumps right in front of my face and shoots the puppet for a scare combo. that scared me the most because I was looking at the puppet. so oddly enough the house I disliked the most had the best scare of the night for me via a worker actor combo.
that just tells you how bad the set designs and puppets were though for the rest of the house.. and how short it was.
even though my review is a bit critical... it was WAYYY better than the first year they did walking dead OVERALL.
even though the side of universal that has harry potter had WEAK scare zones the ones on the opposite side of the park were AMAZING. The souvenirs this year were 5 star. overall id give the night a 7.5 out of 10.
one final knock I will give the experience was the over abundance of STAFF... my goodness.
it may be because I was on a peak night Saturday but a staff member in EVERY room/scene hurrying you along was upsetting.
every 3 rooms or so would have been fine... but not EVERY room.
I also had a staff member cut me in line and tap a clicker through two houses and it took a bit away from the experience too.
I enjoy seeing the people in front of me get scared.. not seeing some staff member walk through carelessly with a clicker.
there has to be a better way of crowd control.
. I did complete an extensive survey about HHN when I got home- there were a LOT of questions about TWD. My responses were to move on. ** I also have really had enough of clowns with chainsaws.