Halloween Horror Nights 25 Discussion

[shiekra38]

I think the difference is H.R. Bloodengutz and Home for the Holidays were built on deeply disturbing premises - a psychopathic, murderous television host and a rampaging army of escaped asylum inmates. The humor comes from the juxtaposition of the "dark" (the murders, gore, terror) and the "light," or the things that are traditionally happy and safe (Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving). These conceits work even better when the juxtaposition is taken to over-the-top extremes (the rabid easter bunny, the snowman with severed head). The natural absurdity of the situations is what's making the house fun and really work - you're scared, but you're being scared by a giant easter bunny. You're scared, but only because an insane woman is singing Christmas carols next to a man strangled in Christmas lights. It's taking expectations of an especially happy thing and twisting them to the point where they're nearly unrecognizable.

The problem is, Ghostbusters features none of the things I just talked about. It doesn't really take anything to extremity, and nothing about it or its settings are particularly "safe." The one exception is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (the whole bit is they thought it was something innocent and could never hurt anyone), but there isn't really anything else like that in the movie, and that one thing can't carry the house (and would be hard to execute logistically in the first place). It just isn't a horror film - it's an action comedy that happens to feature ghosts and demons. It just doesn't really work as a haunted house, at least conceptually. And here's the thing - they could do it anyway and might turn out a really quality product that people enjoy, and that's fine. But that thing won't really be Ghostbusters - it'll have to be a major compromise of what that film/franchise is and what it's about. We'll see something that resembles Ghostbusters on the surface... but that's it. (Sounds a lot like The Walking Dead, when you really think about it...)

Yes, but at least TWD has Zombies...Ghostbusters has nothing..it's almost like turning MIB into a haunted attraction

 

[Clive]

Yes, but at least TWD has Zombies...Ghostbusters has nothing..it's almost like turning MIB into a haunted attraction

I mean, Ghostbusters has ghosts and demons. Walking Dead has zombies. Both properties have scenes that are intended to frighten, startle, and garner suspense - but the chief aim of both is not to be scary. Ghostbusters is supposed to make you laugh, Walking Dead is to provide you dramatic escapism. Neither are horror properties and neither work as haunted houses without dramatically compromising what each property is meant to do.

 

[Cole]

Well a big difference between walking dead and ghostbusters (a hilarious sentence on its own) is that one is for teens to adults and the other is for the entire family. Ghostbusters is the definition of a spooky movie for the family to cuddle up together on halloween to watch, I mean c'mon guys there was a cartoon series based on it along with a daytime show at universal in the 90s. Atleast walking dead has it's moments along with the scary idea of zombies themselves. Ghostbusters has a towering marshmallow man and a hot dog eating green ghost!!!! Definitely for the beer drinking adults and punk teens going to horror nights.

Quote me on this, if ghostbusters comes to horror nights, I'll let one of you kick me in the nuts at the OU meetup and THEN I'll go through the ghostbusters haunted house. This is a promise I plan to keep, I'm dead serious mark my words....

 

[Mad Dog]

If they do Ghostbusters 2015, then in 2016 comes Addams Family and the Munsters in 2017. The Silly Trio. It may not scare the customers, but it will be hellishly humorous.

 

[ThreePack Shagur]

If they do Ghostbusters 2015, then in 2016 comes Addams Family and the Munsters in 2017. The Silly Trio. It may not scare the customers, but it will be hellishly humorous.

I'd be down for that.


Really though, I'm surprised to see so much negativity towards Ghostbusters. You wouldn't want to see these in New York along with the return of the foam party (marshmallow fluff). A mix of demons, zombies, and ghosts in the streets? Terror Dogs whose costumes harken back to the creepers on all fours from HHN 2005?

 

[MrRoamer]

I'm really surprised with the negativity for Ghostbusters. Much of it is comical but there are some spooky parts that make me think it could work very well. In my opinion it may be one of the most versatile IPs they could use. It could be used for a show, a house, or a scarezone and succeed as any one of those.

 

[UNIrd]

And I can't imagine a Ghostbusters house being any less scary than a lot of the output from the past few years.

 

[Jakemeister]

I'm almost positive Ghostbusters is a Red Herring.

 

[Teebin]

What reason would they have for putting a red herring on a survey? I see no logic in it.

 

[Jakemeister]

We end up talking about that more than other things that are more realistic in the survey. I have the same thought process with Sharknado in the show survey.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

What reason would they have for putting a red herring on a survey? I see no logic in it.

Same with the entertainment surveys: they want to have other properties to judge things on. "See more people want to see Ghostbusters than AHS."

 

[shiekra38]

I don't know if red herring is the right word...I would rather use outlier

 

[ThemeParks4Life]

I was doing some thinking last night about how many houses we'll get next year, and I think there will be 10 in one park. 5 in the soundstages, the Disaster queue, the tents, Parade, and where the Legendary Truth experience was this year. If it goes two parks,I can see them getting rid of the tents and Disaster and replace them with Popeye, Thunder Falls, and Carnage Warehouse, plus putting some soundstage entrances in IOA to even it out. I do wonder if another SS house be possible if the entrances were split across both parks. As cool as it wouldbe to see all the locations possible in use, I doubt they'd have 13 houses.

 

[Cole]

I say 10 is a good number if not 9

 

[shiekra38]

9 and 1 upcharge...that's my prediction....unless Universal decides to move ahead with the Disaster project...btw, couldn't you fit two houses in the Parade building if you took all of the balloons out?

 

[Cole]

9 and 1 upcharge...that's my prediction....unless Universal decides to move ahead with the Disaster project...btw, couldn't you fit two houses in the Parade building if you took all of the balloons out?

Probably, so much potential in that area it's kind of ridiculous. Also that sounds like a perfect estimate I definitely agree

 

[OrlandoGuy]

9 and 1 upcharge...that's my prediction....unless Universal decides to move ahead with the Disaster project...btw, couldn't you fit two houses in the Parade building if you took all of the balloons out?

But where would the balloons go?

 

[sjago13]

But where would the balloons go?

Put them in one of the sprung tents.

 

[shiekra38]

But where would the balloons go?

Well if they don't do a 'mega house' this year they could fit them in the back of a soundstage..or just store them in a Gringotts Vault

 

[Dr. Raymond Holmes]

Ghostbusters = Legendary Truth