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Halloween Horror Nights 2018 (USH) General Discussion

Funny how Orlandos worst rated maze by The Trackers (Blumhouse) is how all of our highest rated mazes look like:'(
I'd say their Blumhouse maze isn't as good in set quality as our TrT or Universal Monsters, c'mon now haha. We're giving them waaaaaay too much credit. But no doubt, in general, their sets this year are hands down at least 3 times better in most cases. I prefer our scares though, and at the end of the day, that's kinda what I'm at a Halloween event for.
 
So I decided to go back to about 2009 and onward to see exactly where these black wallz originated from. And after watching videos, honestly, there were 0 for the entire event of 2009 and 2010. Not one... single... black wall. Go ahead and look for yourself. When ideas were creatively bankrupt, they'd resort to a a dozen hanging sheets to go through and/or a hanging body room -- but even those had scenic on the walls. I'm 99% sure 07/08 were the same, but it's hard to find good video proof of those mazes.

But where did plain black walls come from? And I started to remember a lot of people requesting in 2010ish they wanted "darker mazes." Murdy obliged, saying some mazes will have really dark scenes. We'd then go in and there'd be the strings hanging down or a "feather ninja" tickling you. Again, this was in 2011 and the first I can remember it happening was La Llorona. It was brought back many years for a bunch of other mazes (since HHN is a huge victim of "if it works once, do it to death the next 3 years.") However, this isn't what we've seen a whole lot of in 2015, 2017, and this year.

I remember it was around 2011 where I personally started to think some mazes had a lot of "plain walls." As in, long corridors that are painted, but have no real scenic design, props against the walls, or dressing on them whatsoever. I thought this was mainly prevalent in The Thing and to a lesser degree in Alice Cooper. We would talk about the budget being stretched thin as to maybe why that's happening, because this is also when we got another new maze location with the JP venue, on top of the T2 venue.

So let's fast forward a bit because surprisingly I couldn't find a single black wall until 2013, and even that we forgive because it fits the theme, Insidious. Then there's a quick one in Evil Dead to transition to the basement. So quick, you'd think nothing of it. And then there's El Cucuy, which had the most complained about segment of a maze at the time, the long dark black corridor of nothing. BUT this corridor is always here for the Parisian Square maze, my guess is it's for some weird logistical reason. And you may remember it was fixed, because they put a random usher in there to pretend they were guiding the way, but really they were there to scare you.

So now 2014. And I actually guessed this was the first, since I personally could remember black walls being an issue here, but I figured there had to be an earlier occurrence that I couldn't remember. Maybe I was looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses? The proof is there and I couldn't find any. So ladies and gentleman, your first black wall violator was... American Werewolf in London. Yes, the maze you remember dearly, but my reviews for it called out these glaring issues. My quote: "Set Design - 7. It's a shame because the transitions are so HORRIBLE. Every time you exit a scene, it's a dark hallway. What the hell HAPPENED here? It's the only thing I can think about and it bugs, because it was so needless. Everything else looked great though." However, this maze got raving reviews. If we all banded together, maybe we could've stopped them sooner! So whatever happened that year in creative made them think, "hm, let's keep doing this." Because the issue was about to be a repeat offender.

2015's Crimson Peak was next, although not as heavily praised as a whole, HOWEVER was praised purely for it's set design even though there's three black hallways in the maze for no reason. Insidious, again, was also that year but is excusable due to the Further -- and that was again maze of the year. Did we praise the mazes with black walls so much and ask for darkness to the point that creative thought that's what we actually wanted? 2016's black walls are a bit more controversial to decide. The Exorcist was using them in an experimental manner. FvJ used overhead lights during these moments to blind/disorient you as you transition between the two stories before they collide. Halloween used it as a false finale after the hospital to transition before it's real finale which relied on darkness/black light. In other words, this wasn't a problem in 2016 either, as they were used creatively...

So what happened in 2014, 2015, 2017 (where it was most prevalent) and 2018? What are your theories? Is this simply budget cuts, a budget spreading thin, or a creative team going bankrupt with ideas? Or worst of all, did we bring this upon ourselves? As they say... careful... what you wish for.
 
So I decided to go back to about 2009 and onward to see exactly where these black wallz originated from. And after watching videos, honestly, there were 0 for the entire event of 2009 and 2010. Not one... single... black wall. Go ahead and look for yourself. When ideas were creatively bankrupt, they'd resort to a a dozen hanging sheets to go through and/or a hanging body room -- but even those had scenic on the walls. I'm 99% sure 07/08 were the same, but it's hard to find good video proof of those mazes.

But where did plain black walls come from? And I started to remember a lot of people requesting in 2010ish they wanted "darker mazes." Murdy obliged, saying some mazes will have really dark scenes. We'd then go in and there'd be the strings hanging down or a "feather ninja" tickling you. Again, this was in 2011 and the first I can remember it happening was La Llorona. It was brought back many years for a bunch of other mazes (since HHN is a huge victim of "if it works once, do it to death the next 3 years.") However, this isn't what we've seen a whole lot of in 2015, 2017, and this year.

I remember it was around 2011 where I personally started to think some mazes had a lot of "plain walls." As in, long corridors that are painted, but have no real scenic design, props against the walls, or dressing on them whatsoever. I thought this was mainly prevalent in The Thing and to a lesser degree in Alice Cooper. We would talk about the budget being stretched thin as to maybe why that's happening, because this is also when we got another new maze location with the JP venue, on top of the T2 venue.

So let's fast forward a bit because surprisingly I couldn't find a single black wall until 2013, and even that we forgive because it fits the theme, Insidious. Then there's a quick one in Evil Dead to transition to the basement. So quick, you'd think nothing of it. And then there's El Cucuy, which had the most complained about segment of a maze at the time, the long dark black corridor of nothing. BUT this corridor is always here for the Parisian Square maze, my guess is it's for some weird logistical reason. And you may remember it was fixed, because they put a random usher in there to pretend they were guiding the way, but really they were there to scare you.

So now 2014. And I actually guessed this was the first, since I personally could remember black walls being an issue here, but I figured there had to be an earlier occurrence that I couldn't remember. Maybe I was looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses? The proof is there and I couldn't find any. So ladies and gentleman, your first black wall violator was... American Werewolf in London. Yes, the maze you remember dearly, but my reviews for it called out these glaring issues. My quote: "Set Design - 7. It's a shame because the transitions are so HORRIBLE. Every time you exit a scene, it's a dark hallway. What the hell HAPPENED here? It's the only thing I can think about and it bugs, because it was so needless. Everything else looked great though." However, this maze got raving reviews. If we all banded together, maybe we could've stopped them sooner! So whatever happened that year in creative made them think, "hm, let's keep doing this." Because the issue was about to be a repeat offender.

2015's Crimson Peak was next, although not as heavily praised as a whole, HOWEVER was praised purely for it's set design even though there's three black hallways in the maze for no reason. Insidious, again, was also that year but is excusable due to the Further -- and that was again maze of the year. Did we praise the mazes with black walls so much and ask for darkness to the point that creative thought that's what we actually wanted? 2016's black walls are a bit more controversial to decide. The Exorcist was using them in an experimental manner. FvJ used overhead lights during these moments to blind/disorient you as you transition between the two stories before they collide. Halloween used it as a false finale after the hospital to transition before it's real finale which relied on darkness/black light. In other words, this wasn't a problem in 2016 either, as they were used creatively...

So what happened in 2014, 2015, 2017 (where it was most prevalent) and 2018? What are your theories? Is this simply budget cuts, a budget spreading thin, or a creative team going bankrupt with ideas? Or worst of all, did we bring this upon ourselves? As they say... careful... what you wish for.

I honestly think the reason is pretty uncomplicated.

In 2013, there were only 5 mazes plus a HoH retheme.

In 2014 (when the black wallz first really started dripping in), there were 6 mazes plus a HoH retheme. Plus, we had the most expensive horror nights maze ever with AvP.

In 2016, we had 6 mazes plus the Walking Dead Attraction.

In 2017, we had 7 mazes, plus a ton of in-house facades in mazes like Ash, AHS, Blumhouse, etc. Suddenly, black wallz everywhere.

2018 is a little better.

Seems like an obvious corrolation to me. Whenever the event increases the house number, the black wallz make a comeback. Since Murdy was the creative director for all of this, I seriously doubt he's shoving random black wallz in out of creative vision rather than budget considerations. I'm gonna guess myself that the main reason why we keep seeing the number of houses increase is less due to Murdy really wanting another spot (and spreading the hard-fought budget even thinner) and more due to corporate pushing the event to attract more people. Compromises in Showbiz, it's like Taxes for Benjamin Franklin: He doesn't want them, but he has to do them anyways.
 
I honestly think the reason is pretty uncomplicated.

In 2013, there were only 5 mazes plus a HoH retheme.

In 2014 (when the black wallz first really started dripping in), there were 6 mazes plus a HoH retheme. Plus, we had the most expensive horror nights maze ever with AvP.

In 2016, we had 6 mazes plus the Walking Dead Attraction.

In 2017, we had 7 mazes, plus a ton of in-house facades in mazes like Ash, AHS, Blumhouse, etc. Suddenly, black wallz everywhere.

2018 is a little better.

Seems like an obvious corrolation to me. Whenever the event increases the house number, the black wallz make a comeback. Since Murdy was the creative director for all of this, I seriously doubt he's shoving random black wallz in out of creative vision rather than budget considerations. I'm gonna guess myself that the main reason why we keep seeing the number of houses increase is less due to Murdy really wanting another spot (and spreading the hard-fought budget even thinner) and more due to corporate pushing the event to attract more people. Compromises in Showbiz, it's like Taxes for Benjamin Franklin: He doesn't want them, but he has to do them anyways.
Even if he does have to spread the budget thin, why not get a little creative and make a "Dead Exposure" style house that's heavily dependant on black lighting? That could really help the budget. But no, everything has to be based on a movie.

They better not add another maze. The quality is suffering.
 
This is off topic to what we've been talking about, but I can't be the only one to hear Hollywood Harry saying a few of the lyrics of Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" as the tram is pulling up to whoville am I?
 
The black walls weren't as bad this year as last year honestly. Like I kinda figured Poltergeist and Stranger Things would pull the same card as "Insidious" does by saying the blackout rooms represent "The Other Side"/"Different Dimension". Hell, Halloween 4 took a minimalist style (perhaps for budgetary reasons), but the intensity of the actors and that ending scene made up for it in my opinion. The First Purge was this year's blackout maze (but I don't mind given it being my least desired maze). I have a good feeling this year's event will make more money than last year, leading to hopefully a bigger budget. And given that I can't think of wanted IPs (not including the obvious ones mentioned on this forum each year) that would demand a super huge budget, maybe we'll see a bigger decrease of blackout rooms next year.
 
The black walls weren't as bad this year as last year honestly. Like I kinda figured Poltergeist and Stranger Things would pull the same card as "Insidious" does by saying the blackout rooms represent "The Other Side"/"Different Dimension". Hell, Halloween 4 took a minimalist style (perhaps for budgetary reasons), but the intensity of the actors and that ending scene made up for it in my opinion. The First Purge was this year's blackout maze (but I don't mind given it being my least desired maze). I have a good feeling this year's event will make more money than last year, leading to hopefully a bigger budget. And given that I can't think of wanted IPs (not including the obvious ones mentioned on this forum each year) that would demand a super huge budget, maybe we'll see a bigger decrease of blackout rooms next year.

I predict that next year will be the year of "repeats," IE Stranger Things 2 and Universal Monsters: Now with Gillman. They have the Demogorgon suits and the UCM sets, so even if they add a bit to the maze, I'm sure it'll be alot cheaper then building it from scratch like this year. Plus, I'm guessing that Truth or Dare was chosen as part of Blumhouse at least in part so that they could build the Mexican-themed sets this year and reuse them for an Urban Legends maze later on (y'all notice how the final blackout scare in ToD had an arche rather than a normal square? It's almost like it was designed to be repainted into another "church" wall until they ran out of lights or paint or whatever)

I think this will help the budget situation a-lot this time around. It also feels like they bought alot more picket fences this time around, more than any other year (seriously, they were in Poltergeist, all over Halloween 4, Trick r Treat, etc.), so I'm guessing those are for the purpose of being reusable for next year's mazes (Halloween 2018? Channel Zero season 2, assuming the show doesn't get cancelled? Netflix movies like It Follows or Babadook? The Hannibal revival?). Thus, 2019 can invest in more show-lighting or walls or paint or etc. to get rid of the black wallz.
 
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Orlando’s Poltergeist is my #1 of all time. Excited to see Hollywood’s rendition since the videos I saw looked promising.

If next year does bring us a new creative team I hope it’ll break the odd year curse
 
Given that this year's Terror tram seemed to be more than 95% immortal masks (nothing wrong with that), I can definitely see them doing that again next year, so yeah, I wouldn't be surprised with the return of various props, set pieces, and more. All I hope is they can use the Sound Stage again for next year.
 
I do remember seeing a group of people wearing the Immortal Mask shirts with those Staff/Press guided groups outside of Halloween 4 and Blumhouse. I wasn't aware of Immoral and Universal's crumbling partnership though.
 
I do remember seeing a group of people wearing the Immortal Mask shirts with those Staff/Press guided groups outside of Halloween 4 and Blumhouse. I wasn't aware of Immoral and Universal's crumbling partnership though.

If you noticed, last year the Hell-o-ween masks changed after the first week. Yeah....they completely fell apart and Magee FX had to remake all of them. HHN used to have Larry Bones make most of their masks until he either A. Got fired. B. Left to do his own thing. *I've heard more A. than B.....
Now, Pat and his team makes all of the customs for the event.
I believe immortal was the original designer of the HH mask though and they definitely supplied the masks for Toxic Tunnel last years event. Haven't done enough research to confirm their involvement in the zone this year.
 
Honestly I don't think us keeping a soundstage matters a whole lot. It gets major light bleed, they don't go all that much more vertical or wide, and the mazes aren't much longer than a typical spot, I think even HOB's spot is longer.
 
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