All things Universal Studios Hollywood

[PiratesMansion]

I haven’t been into any of these Halloween events for a very long time but dammit that Chucky maze looks cool.

How many of the Chucky movies are worth watching?

I just watched the OG Child's Play last week, and it was fine (thankfully pretty short too). I've heard mixed things on the others and have a vague aversion to horror sequels after a few too many bad ones over the years.

 

[mickEblu]

How many of the Chucky movies are worth watching?

I just watched the OG Child's Play last week, and it was fine (thankfully pretty short too). I've heard mixed things on the others and have a vague aversion to horror sequels after a few too many bad ones over the years.

Well, I haven’t seen most of them in a very long time (since I was a kid for some) so I’m not 100% sure they hold up but I’m fairly certain that Child’s Play 2 and 3 are worth a watch too. Child’s Play 2 was my favorite growing up but I think the original is probably the best. Here’s how I rank them…

Child’s Play 1
Child’s Play 2
Child’s Play 3
Cult of Chucky
Curse of Chucky
Bride of Chucky
Seed of Chucky.

Bride and Seed are abominations to the franchise and not worth a watch.

To sum it up I’d definitely check out Child’s Play 2. If you don’t like it, then you won’t like part 3. The rest aren’t really worth it. Curse and Cult of Chucky ditched the ridiculous stuff they did with Bride and Seed and felt much more like the original trilogy. Perhaps even a little darker than part 2 and part 3 but I only saw those one time- they were both straight to streaming/ video. Don’t remember loving or hating them.

 

[Phroobar]

The reboot Chucky movie where Chucky is a AI robot voiced by Mark Hamill is on Prime.

 

[Skip]

I love the Chucky franchise - even at its weirdest and when it's clear they only got a few dimes and nickels to make a movie.

If you want to be caught up for the house and catch all the references, you really need to watch --

Child's Play 2
Bride of Chucky
Seed of Chucky
Cult of Chucky
Chucky TV Sseries (both seasons)

With that said, the house still works even if you aren't super familiar with the franchise.

 

[PiratesMansion]

I love the Chucky franchise - even at its weirdest and when it's clear they only got a few dimes and nickels to make a movie.

If you want to be caught up for the house and catch all the references, you really need to watch --

Child's Play 2
Bride of Chucky
Seed of Chucky
Cult of Chucky
Chucky TV Sseries (both seasons)

With that said, the house still works even if you aren't super familiar with the franchise.

I'm basically completely unfamiliar with everything this year (so not terribly different from my first experience in 2019, really). Part of me would love to catch up with everything before then. Part of me, though, just isn't interested in doing the homework-and potentially spoiling, say, Season 4 of Stranger Things if I start it but don't quite get through everything before I visit.

 

[Phroobar]

I went to HHN last night and used the Express Pass. It made the event a lot more tolerable than without it. Every maze was an hour to two hours long. With the pass everything was a walk on. We even stood in line for a couple of shorter 20-30min mazes.

We started with the Latina America Monsters maze. It was a solid maze with some unique monsters. Basically there was a bird that stole babies and a tall Freddy Krueger looking guy that would put you in a bag. The puppets were huge and well animated. It was a good effort.

The Evil Dead maze was in the walking dead building. I was disappointed they just recycled last year's haunted hotel maze for this. They just added the two bad guys from the recent evil dead movie. It was acceptable.

Blumhouse Presents behind the scenes is in the Dreamworks theater. You get to look at props from Five Nights at Freddy's and MEGAN and Black Phone. You watch a trailer for Five Nights and then MEGAN comes out to dance and you are thrown out. Everyone was left asking "That was it?"

The Terror Tram had a bug exterminator theme except we were the bugs. It is the usual walk around the Bates Motel and the Airplane set. Finally you walk the Nope set with US characters. It was okay but not as intense as previous years. Not enough scare actors I guess.

Behind Harry Potter was the Classic Universal Monsters maze. These were monsters of Paris that included the Phantom of the Opera, Hunchback of ND and Invisible Man. This maze was well put together and fun. The other maze was the Chucky kill count maze. It was also excellent with many AA Chuckys killing people.

The Water World arena had the Purge: Dangerous Waters. This was a stunt show similar to Water World but with less boats. They had two water skis that were more transportation than stunts. It had lots of pyro but no splashing of the audience. It felt like a highlight reel of the daytime show. It was very short.

Lower lot included Stranger Things 4 which covered that season very well. The Last of Us was also a summary of the show/game. The Exorcist Believer felt similar to the original Exorcist but gorier like the recent Evil Dead movies. It had some good world building areas. Finally there was Holidays in Hell which treated Halloween as an afterthought with floating pumpkins. It should have stayed a scare zone.

Universal is packed during the event with 20-30 year old. They were kind of the same group you would see at a Raiders game or Magic Mountain. Not really a family friendly group. Security felt like they were in charge which was good. Rides were up with minimum waits. You are in for a much more pleasant night with an Express pass.

 

[Phroobar]

Here is the MEGAN dance sequence at HHN.

 

[Phroobar]

The Purge Dangerous Waters stunt show

 

[PiratesMansion]

The Terror Tram had a bug exterminator theme except we were the bugs. It is the usual walk around the Bates Motel and the Airplane set. Finally you walk the Nope set with US characters. It was okay but not as intense as previous years. Not enough scare actors I guess.

I'm curious about this from a recovering ankle perspective. After Nope, do you get on a tram to go to the exit? Or do you walk back? If you walk back, how long/hilly is it?

 

[Phroobar]

I'm curious about this from a recovering ankle perspective. After Nope, do you get on a tram to go to the exit? Or do you walk back? If you walk back, how long/hilly is it?

You get on the tram when you exit Nope. There is a semi-steep hill between the Bates Motel and War of the World though.

 

[Emmanuel]

Yesterday I went to HHN for the first time in 9 years. I had the Platinum Pass which includes a free general admission ticket to the event (and with Flexpay, i get one every year). I also bought early access which was surprisingly cheap at $20 for yesterday.

Checking in was easy as I didn't had to exit and re-enter the park. Went to a kiosk set up by the park exit. They do have differently colored wristbands depending on wether or not you have early access. Brown was the color i was given.

Made my way down to the lower lot where I was able to do 2 mazes down there with early access which was Holidayz in Hell which I got in line for with less than 5 minutes before it opened at 5:30 and The Exorcist: Believer which already built up a 50 minute wait time before 5:45 when the maze opened. Had a quick dinner at Jurassic Cafe before heading back up to the upper lot for the Purge Dangerous Waters (which I ended up seeing twice) and then seeing the Death Eaters before heading to Terror Tram which didn't had much of a line when I did it. Did two more mazes which was
Monstruos: The Monsters of Latin America and Evil Dead Rise which both had a 45-50 minute wait each.

The remaining 4 didn't end up doing due to not having express and their normal lines were 2-3 hour waits most of the times that I checked the app.

Doing half of the mazes actually is a win for me as I didn't think I'd get half done before I left before midnight.

 

[Phroobar]

It is impossible to do all the mazes without Express Pass. Too many people with it keep the standby lines really long. It is the same problem Disneyland has. It doesn't help that universal over sells their events.

 

[Emmanuel]

It is impossible to do all the mazes without Express Pass. Too many people with it keep the standby lines really long. It is the same problem Disneyland has. It doesn't help that universal over sells their events.

Very much impossible indeed. And it really does feel that they oversell for HHN. While I would've liked to have bought Express, the price was too high for me to get so I just stuck to getting what mazes I could do plus the Terror Tram.

Yesterday was also the last Saturday that Platinum Pass Members can use their free HHN ticket on a Saturday this season. This month, it can only be redeemable on Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

 

[Disneyland/DCA]

I'm addicted to the scent of the Easter room from Holidayz.

 

[Phroobar]

Very much impossible indeed. And it really does feel that they oversell for HHN. While I would've liked to have bought Express, the price was too high for me to get so I just stuck to getting what mazes I could do plus the Terror Tram.

Yesterday was also the last Saturday that Platinum Pass Members can use their free HHN ticket on a Saturday this season. This month, it can only be redeemable on Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

It's been kind of a turn off. I may just get a Scary Farm pass instead. But then again, twice is enough of that.

How is the LA Hay ride?

 

[Emmanuel]

It's been kind of a turn off. I may just get a Scary Farm pass instead. But then again, twice is enough of that.

How is the LA Hay ride?

Hadn't been to the Hay ride myself. I've mainly stuck to Scary Farm because the ease of enjoying the event.

When I went to Scary Farm on opening weekend, I was able to do all 10 mazes easily because everyone started leaving around midnight making it easy to do the mazes. When i do return visits to Scary Farm, I'm planning to take it easy to enjoy the shows and the scare zones while the increasing masses focus on the mazes

I'd say two visits to Scary Farm is decent enough to get your moneys worth from the pass but you're probably better off just buying a normal ticket

 

[Phroobar]

Hadn't been to the Hay ride myself. I've mainly stuck to Scary Farm because the ease of enjoying the event.

When I went to Scary Farm on opening weekend, I was able to do all 10 mazes easily because everyone started leaving around midnight making it easy to do the mazes. When i do return visits to Scary Farm, I'm planning to take it easy to enjoy the shows and the scare zones while the increasing masses focus on the mazes

I'd say two visits to Scary Farm is decent enough to get your moneys worth from the pass but you're probably better off just buying a normal ticket

My daughter has a Scary Farm pass. She is treating it like a After 5 pass to enjoy the park, rides, any mazes she wants to do and hang out.

 

[Professortango1]

Hadn't been to the Hay ride myself. I've mainly stuck to Scary Farm because the ease of enjoying the event.

When I went to Scary Farm on opening weekend, I was able to do all 10 mazes easily because everyone started leaving around midnight making it easy to do the mazes. When i do return visits to Scary Farm, I'm planning to take it easy to enjoy the shows and the scare zones while the increasing masses focus on the mazes

I'd say two visits to Scary Farm is decent enough to get your moneys worth from the pass but you're probably better off just buying a normal ticket

We did Scary Farm this last week and not only did all 10 mazes, Dr. Cleaver, the 50th Show, Ghostrider twice, Hang Time, Silver Bullet, and Timber Mountain Log Ride. And that's why I stopped going to Universal. I like being able to get my money's worth.

 

[CaptinEO]

Did scary farm opening day and had four mazes done in 2 hours. We ended up doing two more (six total), eating dinner, and went on a couple rides and went home around 11. Had a great time.

I think 6 was our limit for mazes, at least for one day. We didn't really feel a need to do more and already got our money's worth.

Never been to Universal Horror Nights but yikes at those wait times. Looking forward to going to Knotts again next year.

Also I guess I find unique concepts more appealing than existing movie properties, but can see why for some the idea of seeing a movie or show they like is a draw.

 

[Phroobar]

Yes. The lines are long and the clientele is rough. What I don't like is the large number of boo boxes. They are dark areas where the monster pops up. Typically they leave it unthemed. It destroys the flow of the maze. It is a box you try to push your way though for fear of a really loud flashing monster popping up. Also Universal's mazes are super loud.