As a note to begin: If you have the ability, I totally recommend doing end-of-night solo runs of houses whenever possible. It can be a completely different, and significantly more intense experience than during opening / peak hours following a conga.
I just had a dread-inducing run of Dolls. I think a conga format hurts this house. I'm fairly desensitized to HHN haunts, and even some solo runs have been closer to a thrill-factor experience than an actual scare-fest for me, if that makes sense. Less legitimate fear and more about the rush of a ton of in-my-face jumpscares.
Not here; I kinda didn't want to go in haha!! I felt it from the start of the queue honestly. A solo run spotlights the pure unease built into the haunt at a foundational level. Something about the quiet, creepy dollhouse music, the decaying figures and props around me, the sheer and complete emptiness of it all. Had there not been a single scare-actor, this house solo is one of the disquieting and overall freaky experiences I've had at the event.
But there
were scare-actors, and they were all great. Going solo, you are able to get either the purest version of a scareactors performance, or something wholly unique. It emphasizes the live perfomance aspect of an event that is usually designed to be the exact same canned experience night to night, run to run.
It's relatively obvious, but it can't be understated how different (read: better) the experience of an HHN house can be when a scare is not happening to the person in front of you, or to your group, but to
you, specifically and personally. The victim scares really shine in that situation, and only add to the unrepentent unease the house. Walking through battered playsets and ripped apart dollhouse rooms surrounded by melted, chopped up, and taped together plastic dolls, and a few of them randomly start moving and reaching out towards you? Man, it sold me on this one. This is great.
I think houses like Insidious and Jason are clearly "scarier" houses, and I have had great solo runs there too, but there's an extent to where a traditionally "horror" situation like a slasher villain or a ghost haunting can weirdly be easier for me to handle. They are intense houses, and usually a lot more like that thrill-type rush I mentioned before. I know what to expect out of that.
But Dolls isn't that. It's disquieting, uncomfortable. It's quieter, and kinda disturbing. I wasn't met with a slasher at every turn jumping out with a horror-movie sting sound. I was walking through large spaces that felt open and empty, and would sometimes have a frightening creature shamble or lurch out towards me specifically, groaning or crying out in uncanny ways. And I was real freaked out!! and in such an honest way that I haven't felt in a long while.
Shoutout to the clown performer jumping around at essentially 2AM, tons of energy 'til the very end. And the Rat that pounces out during the final dollhouse dinner table scene is probably the most legitimate scare I've had in ages. The entire experience was building up tension for me, and that puppeteer threw that Rat out at me way farther and more wildly than I ever could've predicted. All that tension released in a great scare that honestly sent me scrambling a bit haha!
I feel like these HHN posts keep getting longer haha. Guess these houses are getting some kind of reaction out of me!
