Cool look back at when Horror Nights was at Islands of Adventure

[Bairstow]

Human/Dinosaur hybrids jumping out of the bushes at Jurassic Park?
A Carnage-themed house where you can see the mutilated bodies of Wolverine and Spiderman?
A giant foam party along toon lagoon street?

I really wish I could have seen this madness.

 

[Skip]

As cool as some of this stuff was, the haunted house quality was nowhere near what it is today. There are always tradeoffs.

 

[GLaDOS]

The Carnage house was also one of the worst houses ever conceived. It was so bad.

 

[BryceM]

That looks insane! It just looks like a strange event.

What were Port of Entry, Seuss Landing and The Lost Continent like during this?

 

[71jason]

That looks insane! It just looks like a strange event.

What were Port of Entry, Seuss Landing and The Lost Continent like during this?

Port of Entry had a stage at the end where they would do a show periodically throughout the night. I think there was fog, too, but I don't recall any scare-actors.

Seuss Landing had literally nothing. They just dimmed the lights and played the music loop backwards (surprisingly creepy). May have added fog the last year.

Lost Continent had lots of fog, orc-inspired scare-actors.

Treeks and Foons were pretty scary in a bizarre kind of way. The lasers on the fog were truly amazing.

Maximum Carnage was not that great. If it hadn't been for ing Marvel off royally, I don't think anyone would remember it today.

Best quote--people would riot after waiting 4 hours for a 15-minute experience. Didn't the 10 minute Walking Dead house get up to 3 hour waits last year?

 

[Skip]

Port of Entry had a stage at the end where they would do a show periodically throughout the night. I think there was fog, too, but I don't recall any scare-actors.

Seuss Landing had literally nothing. They just dimmed the lights and played the music loop backwards (surprisingly creepy). May have added fog the last year.

Lost Continent had lots of fog, orc-inspired scare-actors.

Treeks and Foons were pretty scary in a bizarre kind of way. The lasers on the fog were truly amazing.

Maximum Carnage was not that great. If it hadn't been for ing Marvel off royally, I don't think anyone would remember it today.

Best quote--people would riot after waiting 4 hours for a 15-minute experience. Didn't the 10 minute Walking Dead house get up to 3 hour waits last year?

Port of Entry had characters from all of the various "Islands" present - a little bit of everything. They can be seen in the special. The Caretaker would occasionally claim a random "tourist" and kill him via live surgery.

Lost Continent's characters included Nightmare, who is also in the special.

Saying the Walking Dead house last year lasted 10 minutes is seriously generous... 3 or 4 is more accurate.

 

[Bairstow]

Seuss Landing had literally nothing. They just dimmed the lights and played the music loop backwards (surprisingly creepy).

*fiddles with Audacity*
Wow, that is creepy.

The Carnage house was also one of the worst houses ever conceived. It was so bad.

Did you have a chance to check it out?
It looks great in the video they shot, but then again, it would.
The concept they mentioned really sounded cool: "A land where the villains have won."

The Islands lend themselves so much better to some creative houses and haunts than the studios do, especially the Jurassic Park trails and forests.

I would have loved to see some custom "horror" projection effects on the facades at Mythos and Poseidon's Fury. Imagine those buildings being brought to "life" with modern projection technology.

These days it just seems like zombie, zombie, zombie, year after year.

 

[71jason]

Did you have a chance to check it out?
It looks great in the video they shot, but then again, it would.
The concept they mentioned really sounded cool: "A land where the villains have won."

I know a lot of fans hated it, I just found it underwhelming. All I really remember is Shreik (sp?) running around on a catwalk too far up to be scary, and a headless mannequin dressed like Spidey. I vaguely remember thinking it had a lot of generic monsters/thugs but not many recognizable Marvel supervillains.

Now Body Collectors or Demon Cantina, which I guess must have been the next year, I could almost give you a room by room walk-through. The houses seemed to really step up the year of the Terra Queen.

 

[HTF]

Well I for one loved HHN at IOA and the Raptors jumping out at guests in JP was fantastic. The foam was a little irritating but definetely cool how Treaks and Foons hid within it. I totally disagree about house detail level though. Screamhouse, Body Collectors, All Nite Die In, and Psychoscarapy were all over the top phenomenal houses from the IOA days.

 

[NowInc]

If I recall correctly from when I went to this HHN at IOA, they had the backstage areas open and some of universal open as well. I think its still way better just at uni instead of IOA (IOA in my opinion is a lot less "open" and yields to some bottlenecks). It was cool to see how they transformed marvel island tho.

 

[HTF]

If I recall correctly from when I went to this HHN at IOA, they had the backstage areas open and some of universal open as well. I think its still way better just at uni instead of IOA (IOA in my opinion is a lot less "open" and yields to some bottlenecks). It was cool to see how they transformed marvel island tho.

IOA's backstage area was open for the FF Haunt, Maximum Carnage Haunt, and Screamhouse in its first year at IOA. More followed at 13, 14, and 15 when JP, Lost Continent, and the Studios were introduced to expand capacity.

 

[Timekeeper]

If I recall correctly from when I went to this HHN at IOA, they had the backstage areas open and some of universal open as well. I think its still way better just at uni instead of IOA (IOA in my opinion is a lot less "open" and yields to some bottlenecks). It was cool to see how they transformed marvel island tho.

Speaking of bottlenecks, this year's plan to create a single exit location for all 4 soundstage houses (a road that's 10 feet wide) was an interesting decision...

 

[Skip]

Well I for one loved HHN at IOA and the Raptors jumping out at guests in JP was fantastic. The foam was a little irritating but definetely cool how Treaks and Foons hid within it. I totally disagree about house detail level though. Screamhouse, Body Collectors, All Nite Die In, and Psychoscarapy were all over the top phenomenal houses from the IOA days.

Those were definitely strong houses - but that's where the budgets went. For every Screamhouse and Body Collectors you'd have a Fear Factor, Maximum Carnage, Skoolhouse, hell even Scary Tales II...

 

[HTF]

Those were definitely strong houses - but that's where the budgets went. For every Screamhouse and Body Collectors you'd have a Fear Factor, Maximum Carnage, Skoolhouse, hell even Scary Tales II...

Whoa hey now, I loved Scary Tales 2. A lot of content came out of that house for years to come afterwards.

 

[JT3000]

Whoa hey now, I loved Scary Tales 2. A lot of content came out of that house for years to come afterwards.

I also lost 5 pounds going through it.

 

[HTF]

I also lost 5 pounds going through it.

Pooping yourself lol I loved the 3 little pigs chainsaw assault at the exit along with the mini cornfield and the Big Bad Wolf...

 

[ChrisFL]

Ship of Screams was awesome at HHN 13, IIRC that was also the first Castle Vampyr...sexy

 

[Hockeyman]

Im really shocked they didn't capture a drunk me stumbling around HHN in that video