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Halloween Horror Nights 27 (UO): Reviews & Photos

Hive features a stilt actor with a smaller vampire jumping up between his legs. Good scare.

Cool, so there was plenty I liked about Hive as well. I guess with this house, I'm a bit surprised about the mixed ratings.

But then again, the only thing I can say is that Saw was my least favorite and it is still a good house, so I think it just shows that this year is a really good event!
 
My rankings after this past weekend:

Houses

Scarescrow - Super intense and claustrophobic. All around amazing. 10/10
The Fallen - Had some really great runs in this. The plank scare got me every time. 10/10
The Shining - Gold room and elevator scenes were incredible. Also "Danny! Danny boy!" is forever stuck in my head like "thats mah gold!" 9/10
Blumhouse - Wow...had the worst one-two punch of a scare in the Insidious part. Sinister and purge were eh, but Insidious made up for it them and then some. Pleasant surprise of a house. 9/10
Dead Waters - went through for unmasking the horror so I have a much better idea of the detail that went in. Great scares, but wayyy too short. Dat facade tho. 9/10
AHS - Don't watch the show, but a lot of cool scenes. Get ready to plug your nose in one of the rooms. Ewwww 8/10
Ash Vs. Evil Dead - Love this show and a lot of great scenes from it. The morgue scene had me dying with laughter. Can't believe they did that. 8/10
The Hive - This is where the houses go from amazing to great to just good. Hive was fine, just never got a good run. The actors make up for a lot of the meh in this house. 6/10
Saw - It's saw. Hi....I'm in Saw. Got to see a couple of the traps go off, so yay. 5/10

Scarezones

Trick r Treat - Hands down best scarezone I've seen in a long time. All around amazing. 10/10
Chainsaw Clowns - always on point. 9/10
The Purge - the little shows are still neat 6/10
Invasion - Disappointed in this one. Cool designs but not scary 6/10
Festival of the Deadliest - okay, nothing special whenever I went through 5/10
Altars of Horror - really? 2/10 its ranked this high only because when I walked back to go through AHS again from the exit during stay n scream, it was empty except for the scare actors. When I was taking a picture of the area, they all turned around and looked at me at the same time which was super creepy.

Shows

AOV - It was fine and they worked well with what they were given. 7/10
Bill and Ted - Kind of a tear jerker near the end. Super solid this year and I FINALLY GOT MY PICTURE WITH THEM! Better late than never, right? 8/10

All in all a very good year. The houses definitely had to carry, but seeing as how a majority of them were just so awesome, I'd give the entire experience an 8.5/10.
 
I just don't rank houses/scare zones. Why? Well, for one I only went three nights. I really loved Scarecrow, but the first time I did it I missed almost all the scares. After that, I hit almost all the scares and that house just blew me away. Second, people rank houses on very different ways. Scares, set designs, casts, costumes, and so on. Third, don't judge an IP if you haven't seen the IP. For example, I have seen the Ash TV series and really enjoyed the Ash house(great music too), but I certainly can understand if people who are not familiar with the show to not enjoy it. Of course music is very subjective as I loved the music, many others might not. Fourth, Scare Zones shouldn't be judged by scares. Just my opinion. While I would like to be scared in the scare zone, it just hardly ever happens. Yes, the chainsaw clowns were great and they did scare a lot of teenage girls. I enjoyed having a drink and people watched those crazed clowns do their thing. Trick r' Treat was just beautiful. I would walk through that area several times each night.
 
just a few more photos

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Brian - awesome pictures, thank you. I'm glad you had a shot of the underrated "chanting" seen in The Fallen. Great re-use of a previous scene.

PS - where was the doll?!
 
Just got back from a soggy visit with 5 "virgins." Did S&S in Springfield. Rain wasn't as bad as compared to Friday night (according to a couple on the water taxi back to Royal Pacific, Friday night saw period of relentless deluge).
We ended up doing all the houses but Saw, some twice. Our tops were Scarecrow (the hype is justified), The Fallen, and Hive. I enjoyed AHS, the Shining, and Dead Water, but mainly for the sets and design--not so much the scares, although of the three Dead Waters had the best scares. Blumhouse was a bit paint-by-numbers as were Ash vs. the Evil Dead. Trick r Treat was great, but the rain cleared out the scare actors. Kudos to the Clowns, though. They were at it rain or shine. The Purge (or should I say Walking Dead Part II: Electric Boogaloo) has long since passed it.... Invasion was great scenically, but not much else. (Did see some people that were dressed in such a way that I thought they were part of the show--not sure that was their goal, but rather an unfortunate sartorial choice).

Wish we could have stayed until the end, but the soaking rain definitely put a damper on the festivities after a while. They were having some major drainage problems near some of the houses; some pretty deep puddles near Scarecrow and Hive.

Scarecrow's masks/makeup--- Spectacular. Hive's makeup--even moreso!!!

Crowds were not an issue, even by the time we left at 10:30.

Our "virgins" were suitably terrified and loved it as did we so all around success this year!!
 
Welp now that I've done every house. Time for my review.
First up. The Houses:

1. Dead Waters (10/10). This house had some of the largest environments I've ever seen at HHN. The scares kept coming. This is one of the best of all time imo.

2. Scarecrow The Reaping (10/10). This is one of the scariest houses I've ever been through. My last run I got literally every scare possible in the house and I actually had to stop and take a breath about halfway through because I couldn't breathe. The stuff in face is always awesome. And I LOVED that they kept the trapdoor scare from Tomb last year. If it wasn't for Dead Waters' sets, this would be #1.

3. The Horrors Of Blumhouse (10/10). WOW. Surprise house of the year for me right here. Went in with such low expectations for it and it blew me right out of the water. The sinister hallway with 2 Baguls gets me every freakin time. Some of the most insane scares of the event are in this house. The actors are so aggressive and come way out of their boo holes to give the best scare possible. This house is also extremely dark, and creates a threatening and intense atmosphere.

4. Hive (8/10). This house I was really looking forward to and it didn't disappoint. This house is so dark, and the glowing eyes of the vampires are a sight to see. There's some pretty creative scares in this one too. I just wish some of the sets weren't as repetitive. Because about halfway through the house it starts to lag a bit.

5. AHS (6/10). Here's where the event starts to go downhill imo. I was so looking forward to this house as my most anticipated. I've seen every episode of this show atleast 3 times and my fav seasons are 2,3, and 6. So I thought this house would be freakin amazing. I was wrong. There was such a lack of interest in this house coming from A&D I could see. They missed small details from every season that were glaringly obvious to a super fan like me. Like in the nurse scene in Roanoke. It is obviously a flashback because they're stabbing an elderly man on the bed, yet the word MURDER is clearly spelled out behind them on the wall. If you watched the show you would know that they couldn't complete the word until they killed Rory many years later. The transitions started well. I liked the Briarcliff facade even though it looked nothing like Briarcliff. Then the coven painting was clever. But MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED WITH ROANOKE. It's a TV on a table with a black tablecloth on it. They didn't even bother to cover the brand of the tv. I couldn't believe the lack of knowledge of the show in this house, and it disappointed me. Almost no good scares besides bloody face. Also...why the hell was there no axe man in coven????? Terrible choice of scenes and characters.

6. The Fallen (6/10). What the hell happened here? It was supposed to be a battle between angels and demons with heavy metal and all sorts of set awesomeness. This maze has an extremely impressive facade with nothing to back it up. This house is so dark you can't see the sets. This house is also very time dependent and I went through it 4 times now and haven't seen any of the flying actors...There were no angels, and no heavy metal, and I was really looking forward to that heavy metal.

7. Ash vs The Evil Dead (4/10). What in the actual $&@: happened to this house... It had SO MUCH potential. The show was non stop scares and deadite awesomeness, and this house has none of that. The comedy works in the show very well, but is extremely cringe in this house. The sets aren't very well representative of their scenes either. The casts were very slow and had no energy. The show is such a gore fest I was expecting this house to be caked in blood effects. Not a single blood squirt...The ashey slashy puppet I was also expecting to be like the teddy bear in Krampus last year which would've been awesome. But instead they just have him sitting there at the end of the house behind a fence. Jacksonville Florida...its everything I ever dreamed of. What a disappointment.

8. Saw (3/10). I've only seen the first saw, and really liked it. I had no clue what was going on in this house. The scares were ok at best. There was really only one impressive scene to me and it was the strobe scene with all the fake pig men. My main gripe with this house is the facade. Wow that is the worst facade I've ever seen in HHN history. A few Tv screens and a tarp with a fence in front of the blue shrek wall. Wow...just wow.

9. The Shining. (1/10) I KNOW I KNOW. You all are gonna hate me for saying this. I hated the movie and never saw how people could like it. It was so boring and the payoff was terrible. This house is exactly like the movie. Which is good...except the movie is boring. This is the only house I've ever actually been bored in and wanted to leave. The only scene that impressed me was the blood elevator scene. I'm thankful we didn't get a screen for it. But wow was this house bad, really bad. The casts are low energy and the Johnny's look nothing like Nicholson. I hope this is good enough to impress Stephen king into giving us the license for IT.


SCAREZONES.
1. Invasion (10/10). I absolutely adore this zone. The cast interactions are amazing and the hidden storyline in the car is an awesome little gem. That spaceship is impressive and the lighting effects in this zone are so cool.

2. Trick r' Treat. (7/10). My favorite horror movie. Should have been a house. This Scarezone will suffice. I atleast get to see the characters. Even tho the casts for this zone are absolutely horrendous. They barely even move. I'm just glad to finally see this come to the event in some way or another. One thing that bugs me. Why no Marilyn Manson..?

3. The Purge. (7/10) Cast interactions here are great. They're pretty energetic and are always on the move. TBH the stage show in here is a bit cringey but then again the entire 3rd movie was.

4. Festival Of The Deadliest. (5/10). I actually liked the hurricane version of this zone better than the current one. On the first weekend this zone was so dark and spooky. All the actors were in your face and energetic. Now it's waaaayyy to bright and none of the actors have boots on the ground. They're all on the floats or stripper poles. I'm disappointed in the direction they took this zone. Also shoutout to universal for literally just painting red over the layer of the banshee props.

5. Altars Of Horror. (2/10). The only good ting about this zone is getting to see some cool characters outside of the houses. The lighting is off, music cuts in and out randomly and they just spliced in soundtracks from the houses. If you listen closely you can even here the actors lines in the soundtrack that they didn't bother to cut out from the house versions.

SHOWS.
Bill and Ted. (10/10). This is one of the best renditions of the show and was a great farewell.

Academy of Villians. (N/A) in dissapointed we won't get to see the show they had planned. I don't blame anyone for this but the hurricane.

OVERALL:
This year is one giant leap back from last year. There are less actors all around. The houses feel cheaper besides the top 3. Energy is low so far besides a few houses. I really hope they step it up next year.
 
So I took an Unmasking the Horror Tour a few weeks ago and brought along my 360° camera. After a lot of editing, I've put together some lights-on virtual tours from the houses. As most of you know, there are restrictions on where you can and can't take photos, so I wasn't able to capture every scene from each house (Blumhouse and The Shining were VERY limited), but I at least hope this provides a new/unique look into the houses.

Dead Waters - Virtual Tour

The Fallen - Virtual Tour

Hive - Virtual Tour

The Horrors of Blumhouse - Virtual Tour

The Shining - Room 237
 
So I took an Unmasking the Horror Tour a few weeks ago and brought along my 360° camera. After a lot of editing, I've put together some lights-on virtual tours from the houses. As most of you know, there are restrictions on where you can and can't take photos, so I wasn't able to capture every scene from each house (Blumhouse and The Shining were VERY limited), but I at least hope this provides a new/unique look into the houses.

Dead Waters - Virtual Tour

The Fallen - Virtual Tour

Hive - Virtual Tour

The Horrors of Blumhouse - Virtual Tour

The Shining - Room 237
:thumbsup: Thanks for the post. Nice job. :cheers:
 
Quick thoughts, 10/4 (SPOILER ALERT):

Houses (Listed in order I went through them--except for the final one I talk about, which I went in between Fallen and Hive. I think you know which one it is.)

The Shining: Blood elevator was amazing, second Room 237 lady got me good, and the Gold Room effect was a very cool "creative liberty." A very good looking house, even if no "all work and no play" like in Hollywood (would've loved cold too). Wendys were perfectly cast. Oh and after hearing that he wasn't there, I was delighted to see a Dick mannequin on the floor in the lobby.

The Fallen (two runs): First run I missed a ton of scares, but the final bungee guy actually made me recoil in fear--and I don't flinch easily. The POVs do not do this final effect justice, it actually feels like he's going to land on you. This was such a great effect and from what I've read, I'm pretty sure it's a relatively new effect. While I didn't get to see him quite as well the second run, the rest of the cast made up for it--the coughing room got me good too. I like the gore, house looks like a Slayer album cover (as I said earlier).

Hive: Was a big fan of the 80s synth outside, and I actually think the facade works here. Some very cool effects with the scare actors here--the vamps on stilts and the "hanging" vamps, though I'm a bit confused about the rocking mannequin being eaten. I always love when they put elaborate stories in the house descriptions.

Saw: I was not looking forward to this, but person I was with wanted to go in. It honestly wasn't that bad, though I have no intention of going in again. The room full of pig mask guys was actually quite scary. Not much else to say, though I didn't regret going in it by the time it was over.

Dead Waters: Reviews for this were spot on. Wonderful, wonderful sets--not to mention audio (crickets chirping) and even smells (pine trees)--if I hadn't known beforehand I might have been convinced I was outdoors. I loved the tilted walkway, not to mention Mark Twain. Sadly I missed the Voodoo queen. :( As everyone has said, however, it is extremely short, probably due in part to the large sets. I walked through this very slowly, looking around on all sides.

Alright. So with four houses that were "good" and I feel I will enjoy even more with repeated runs, there is one house I went in that needs no growing.

Ladies and gentlemen, the indisputable house of the night...

Scarecrow: The Reaping: OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. THIS HOUSE WAS AWESOME. As soon as I got in line at the very back of the line--a ways from the tent--and I could hear roars and screams, I knew I was in for something special. Dead Waters obviously takes the cake for facade, this was not too far behind. The scarecrows themselves, my god, these guys were relentless and were everywhere. This was also a loud, LOUD house. Like I said before, I could hear this house relatively far away from the tent. Not only that, but it literally felt like death. I don't know why, but the crow attack was a particularly haunting effect (I also got splashed with by the outhouse toilet. This house is scary, it's fun, it has everything you could want. I walked out CACKLING and giddy because of how great this house was. Next week, I might hit this first thing.

SCARE-ZONES--Altars and Purge were forgettable, though I applaud the actors in each area. Invasion was such a disappointment, and this is coming from someone who loved Dead Man's Wharf--though I admired the costumes. Trick R Treat wasn't quite as good as Skoolhouse, but it was still (pardon the pun) a treat for my Halloween-loving self. Sam helping with traffic control, taking one of those light wands and marching with it, might've made my night if I hadn't been through Scarecrow. Me taking pictures resulted in me being separated from my friend, so I had to walk through Festival fairly quickly, but I actually liked what I saw. It wasn't spectacular but I'm very glad they finished it. Oh and yay for Metallica's Orion.

So yeah, I had a lot of fun. Can't wait to go back next week!
 
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Now that i've gotten to do the houses more, here's my new (and vastly changed) rankings:

1. Scarecrow
2. Dead Waters
3. Blumhouse
4. The Fallen
5. AHS
6. Saw
7. The Shining
8. Hive
9. Ash v. Evil Dead

Scarecrow, Dead Waters and Blumhouse are an easy 1-3 for me. After that things start to fall off and just get "pretty", which is 4-8 for the most part. Those houses are more scenic than scary in most respects. Ash just plain sucks.

Below are how a rated the houses 2 weeks ago.

Gotta disagree on Ash, although I haven't watched the show. I'm sure if you're a fan then it's great and makes a lot more sense, but the house just seemed all over the place to me and it wasn't funny nor scary. Easily the worst house of the event for me so far.

My rankings of the houses so far are as follows:

1. The Fallen
2. Dead Waters
3. The Shining
4. AHS
5. Blumhouse
6. Saw
7. Hive
8. Ash v. Evil Dead

I've still yet to do Scarecrow and AHS, plan to have that remedied by tomorrow or Saturday though. I have high expectations for Scarecrow based on what i've heard.
 
The main reason that I attend Horror Nights is for the haunted houses. And more specifically, the element that I most enjoy is the scare-factor. I will begin with my house rankings.

By attending this year's event, I have now experienced over 100 HHN houses. 105 to be exact. In my opinion, this is a very strong year for haunted houses. This is the best year for houses since 2009. I give 2017 a slight edge over 2011. Nightingales was better than any of this year's houses, but overall I feel that this year's slate was stronger than the entirety of HHN21's as a whole. I've now gone through each house this year a minimum of three times and feel pretty confident in my rankings. Without further ado:
  1. The Shining
  2. Horrors of Blumhouse
  3. Dead Waters
  4. Scarecrow
  5. American Horror Story
  6. The Fallen
  7. Ash vs Evil Dead
  8. Hive
  9. Saw
If I get some time, I will go into specifics regarding the houses within each of their dedicated threads. I will say that I came away very surprised (shocked, really) that I enjoyed Blumhouse as much as I did. I am not really a fan of any of the films and had not heard very good things about the house before experiencing it for myself.

I was not very impressed with this year's scare zones. The only zone that I wouldn't mind walking through repeatedly is Trick 'r Treat - but even then, I much preferred the non-licensed version back in 2008 (The Skoolhouse.) This year's zone seemed to be majorly lacking in scares and also something that I just can't put my finger on that feels a bit "off".
  1. Trick 'r Treat -- Most actors in this zone are far too passive for my liking. Definitely not as much fun as 2008's Skoolhouse. #1 in a weak SZ year. I will say that aesthetically, this is a beautiful zone.
  2. Undead Clown Chainsaw horde -- Large casts; effective scares; clever tactics; fun
  3. Festival of the Deadliest -- The actors put a lot of effort into making the best of what they were given. Would like to see some of this zone's actors' energy over in Trick 'r Treat.
  4. Invasion! -- Would have liked it more had it been set in NY with more large/creative set pieces. Also would have liked to see a couple more varying alien species. A larger cast with a much larger area to work with would have really jumped this up higher on my list. Also, too many aliens acting 'goofily,' for the lack of a better term. The lighting - of the zone itself, the spaceship, and on some of the actors is really well done.
  5. Altars of Horror -- Did anyone look up the definition of altar before finalizing this zone's name? I saw no altars. I think this area of the park needs to be re-thought as a scare zone going forward. It's always extremely crowded and if the whole intention of the zone was to allow guests to get pictures with the licensed characters, they should be on stages (altars) with lesser minion character scaring from the ground. If this setup had been used in say, Hollywood with larger casts I think this could have been a hit of a zone.
  6. The Purge -- Been there, done EXACTLY that. Didn't enjoy the zone at 24. REALLY didn't enjoy the house at 25. Seeing generic characters that I've seen twice already in the park's largest zone in basically the same exact situations that I've already seen them just feels lazy. There's no better way to put it. Just my opinion, but this zone is a total waste of Universal's money and of guests' time.
To sum up the scare zones: I would have had a larger Invasion! zone placed in NY; I would have placed Altars in Hollywood and had it setup more like "7" from HHN 21; I would have moved Festival of the Deadliest to San Fran (or even a new/better location); and I would have totally scrapped the Purge and also scrapped Avenue of the Stars as a zone location. The zones really do seem to have become paint by the numbers and plug-and-play year over year in Orlando.

I'll keep my reviews of the shows brief. Not a fan of either. Will not see either of them for a second time. I haven't really enjoyed Bill & Ted since 2006 and we weren't ever going to go back to the show's glory days, so I'm not upset in the least that its' time has come. I thought Academy of Villains was just okay last year and feel like they/their show regressed this year. Did Irma play a big part in how the quality of their show turned out this year? Of course. But, put me in the camp who would rather see a Halloween-themed show over a dance crew at a horror event.

To wrap things up on a positive note... while this year doesn't have a stand out "amazing" house, almost all of them are really well done. I'm still not sure if I personally prefer a top heavy (1 to 3 great houses + 1 to 3 below-average houses) lineup or a more balanced lineup like this year. I'll have to think about that a bit more.
 
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Hey guys, I just wanted to share that I did my full write up and review on my site. Here it is if you are interested HHN 27 – Full Review! – Theme Park Blog. I just wanted to also say that I am happy with this years event. I have been a total of 5 times thus far. There are a few things that need to be fixed, and the lack of overall theme this year was kind of disappointing. I have enjoyed most of the IP houses except that I think Blum House is trying to do too much in one house, and the quality suffers for it. So here is my List of best to worst, and like I said, if you are interested in my full opinions, you can check out my full write up!

Scare Zones:
1. Trick r' Treat
2. The Purge
3. Festival of the Deadliest
4. Invasion
5. Altars of Horror


Houses:
1. Ash vs Evil Dead
2. American Horror Story
3. The Shinning
4. Scarecrow the Reaping
5. Saw: The Games of Jigsaw
6. Dead Waters
7. The Fallen
8. Blum House of Horrors
9. Hive
 
Week 4 Update:

Houses:
1. Scarecrow
2. Dead Waters
3. Blumhouse
4. AHS V2
5. HIVE
6. Fallen
7. Ash v ED
8. Shining
9. Saw

The way I would clump the houses with the top 3 all being very good houses, then 4-6 being quality houses that just don't hit the mark to make them great, 7 and 8 being good houses, and then just being over Saw, not terrible but just there.

I saw @Brian G. said Fallen has dropped down for him but I really don't know what made this a top 2 house earlier as I feel I have just been getting lackluster runs or the cast is just very passive along with long resets on bungee stuff. House is beautiful but the only scares I ever get are the guy on the left in the forge room and hook demon. Put Blumhouses cast in Fallen and it could be number 1 but the cast is killing this house for me and it makes me sad as this was my most anticipated house. Also the AHS cast is way weaker than last year's cast which is interesting since I would have figured they would have tried to use as many of the same people for face characters. Although thinking back, the best parts of AHS last year was the twisties and Angela Bassets character from Hotel and there is no overlap in those characters. Plus the ronoake part just drags the other two parts down.

Zones:
Trick r Treat
Clownz
Festival
Invasions
Purge
Altars

I really hope that going forward that they figure out what they want to do with scarezones. Past few years overall house quality has gone up in my opinion while zone quality has gone down. I know it is mostly due to crowds and the nature of people today but idk. I would prefer bigger and more realized zones in just Hollywood and New York with a roaming crew or two then continue with 5 in locations that have obvious drawbacks.
 
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