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Halloween Horror Nights 29 General Discussion

It’s so interesting how different tastes are met in different houses and the love House of 1000 Corpses has gotten... it was by far our least favourite house and the only one we didn’t want to revisit. But while I didn’t like it... this is why there is such variety and why it’s an amazing event. Universal Monsters (which gave me true fear this year!), Yeti, and Us were my absolute favourites this year. Incredible stuff. Can not wait for next year.
 
Funny how rob zombie got HOTY and is probably the people's choice for zone of the year, even though both are in the worst locations! Talk about underdog circumstances! He deserved the double IMO. Hope to see more zones like hellbilly in the future, just so much going on in that little space!!...I've only been going to hhn since 25 but people have been saying that zone feels like old hhn so if was nice to get a feel for the past!
 
So. When does HotY get announced?

BTW, seems big crowds at Halloween events are becoming a problem nationwide:


Cedar Point did that to himself though. They sold an anniversary Gold Pass that is good all next season and the rest of this season....with NO BLACKOUT DATES. The sell outs are just starting there.
 
Funny how rob zombie got HOTY and is probably the people's choice for zone of the year, even though both are in the worst locations! Talk about underdog circumstances! He deserved the double IMO. Hope to see more zones like hellbilly in the future, just so much going on in that little space!!...I've only been going to hhn since 25 but people have been saying that zone feels like old hhn so if was nice to get a feel for the past!

It definitely was my choice for SOTY...but I'm guessing the "half naked women dancing on poles" set up probably was just as much of a turnoff to some people taking surveys as much as it was a turnon for others.
 
It definitely was my choice for SOTY...but I'm guessing the "half naked women dancing on poles" set up probably was just as much of a turnoff to some people taking surveys as much as it was a turnon for others.
I'm sure people would appreciate it more if they realized the dancers are 100% a recreation of the demonoid phenomenon video and not just random...but yeah I get what you're saying
 
The winners show both sides of how “nothing matters” with the accolade.

The design team was still praising Ghostbusters as recently as last night, but it lost because its cool reception would have made the favoritism obvious if it won.

The breaking character issue reared its head again, disqualifying Monsters. So, they chose a well-received house with a cast they liked.

On the opposite end, despite Hellbilly being a guest favorite in a year where all the streets were lukewarm, the designers just grabbed the mic and picked their favorite.
 
Corpses definitely deserved the love, for me, as the cast has been absolutely wild. Spaulding and Otis in particular have really shown how much they care for their roles and how much they appreciate the guests for coming by; some houses feel a little like the scareactors are going through the motions and that’s it. There’s not really anything wrong with that, because it’s a job, after all, but the human connection isn’t there. I feel like this about Yeti even though I adore the design and so many of the concepts and their executions. Ghostbusters suffered heavily from this, obviously. If we’re talking just numbers determining HotY, though, Corpses did draw in a lot of crowds and I can recall only seeing one different Otis that must have been a reserve and I personally know of another reserve that you wouldn’t have even noticed if you were there. Few callouts/dropouts, and they gave stellar, fun performances all throughout the season.

Anarch-cade leaves me baffled, but if we think that those deciding these things read guest responses on these forums...
  • Zombieland has gotten so, so, so much flack on here. The stage show may have horrendous dialogue, but some of those scareactors are very cute and fun. If anyone’s seen the jogger, while he’s not necessarily in character as a zombie that’s actively exercising/leading group exercises, these kinds of interactive, fun performers are loved. That’s just one example. But there’s been heavy critique of Zombieland seeming like the worst scarezone ever, so maybe that has to do with it.
  • Vikings has nothing standout and forms a severe, frustrating bottleneck in Central Park. There isn’t a lot else to say.
  • Assuming CDT doesn’t count as a real scarezone. If it did, that has the best cast in terms of interactivity between scareactors and pure joy. It just doesn’t have a lot to give beyond those people.
  • Hellbilly is probably similar to Vikings and what you guys have said. It’s a bad congestion zone and I’m certain that the sexiness made a lot of people dislike it. I know that it’s a replication of the music video content and that HHN has used female sex appeal since the beginning, but it feels nice when an area doesn’t think to include sex and instead focus on the scares. Frightening women in the streets might have made up for it, but every female role was sex-charged, and I’m sure a lot of guests didn’t vibe well with that.
  • Vanity Ball had many, many flaws. Great concept, but sort of lackluster execution. Two types of scares (getting in front of you or throwing something at your face and making a high-pitched startle noise) made for a lack of variety among the scareactors. Again, if this forum is read, management has probably read about all that the people have had to say about the scareactors walking and talking with their friends instead of even trying to scare. I don’t know if anyone got talked to, but I saw that up until the last night, even between the nurses and the victims, which you can’t even stretch to make sense.

So that brings us to Anarch-cade. I don’t have anything to say about it. Photo op zone, good guest flow, and I have to give the ground scareactors credit for being aggressive and clever with their scares. There really isn’t anything standout, but there aren’t negatives. To me, it’s a harmless, safe zone to bank on for SotY without drawing controversy. None of this is to say that they don’t deserve it, but it’s possible that the extreme positives and negatives of the other zones led to this one getting pushed up.
 
Honestly, HOTC deserves it just for the clown last night that wouldn’t step on his trigger but followed my head as I walked into the house. That was a lot of fun and one of my favorite moments from any year I’ve attended
 
Reminder:

Reminder that internal awards are more about meeting management expectations and such more than what was outstanding.

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Interesting observation from a friend: does anybody think Sid Haig’s death contributed to the HotY choice at all?

As Legacy said, no, but to expand, I don't think they're that blatant. After all, FvJ didn't win the year Wes Craven died.

I think HOTC just did have a great cast, that likely just had minimal issues. And being a divisive film with a divisive director, as well as being in what was associated as the death location before this year, I imagine the fact the house beat expectation was probably a part of it.
 
True. I think that, if anything, Sid’s death might have pushed the cast into embracing their roles even more than they already had/inspired less callouts.

In other news, does anybody want to talk about how Gozer got scareactor of the year for Ghostbusters ? To be fair, I don’t know of any one role that could be definitively called the BEST performed in the house, as so many of the roles seem like minimal-effort roles, but I wouldn’t have guessed that Gozer stood out as a great member of the cast. A good attitude backstage might be why, especially with how strict the ASMs were with Ghostbusters.
 
It definitely was my choice for SOTY...but I'm guessing the "half naked women dancing on poles" set up probably was just as much of a turnoff to some people taking surveys as much as it was a turnon for others.

in this era of PC i was always shocked that uni took such a giant risk with those costumes and those dancers,
im surprised it didnt create a bigger controversy to be honest, i half expected the dancers to be removed mid season, but nothing big ever happened, im sure a lot of people complained, but im surprised there never was a protest or anything
 
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