Halloween Horror Nights 30 Speculation Thread

There arent that many horror female characters either, just a couple. Thats kinda weird now that i think about it.
Is this because men are more scary or seen as more violent or more of a threat? Are humans more scared of males?
As for Chance, a lot of people think shes hot and pretty lol. But no one would think Jack is hot lolol.

 

Not debating who they can use, but the scariest icon they ever created was female.

 

It's a shame - there's a huge discrepancy between amazing female cast members and a dearth of female horror icons. I feel like this is why we get so many memorable scenes of female face characters in houses - they almost always rock their roles. Poltergeist, Us, Stranger things... without the major attack sequences and memorable moments, the houses would definitely fall. Even my favorite moments of Texas Chainsaw were when Sally literally jumps out of the window in the final scene -- absolutely breathtaking. And that's even discounting the women behind the mask in so many houses. It's why, for example, it's much harder for me to come up with a male look-alike character that blew away my expectations than a female one.

I think most horror movies play on depictions of horror that draw on big gender stereotypes. Men are usually viewed as more physically imposing, more scary in a visual way. Horror movies about male antagonists usually draw on the horrors of men having too much physical power for their own good and abuse, like Michael Meyers and Jack Torrence. These movies usually play on the fact that men hold most of the cards in our society -- and it can be scary when one man has so much power. When women are portrayed as evil, they don't often physically overpower, they usually must rely on psychological power to be scary. More often than male characters, female characters are usually the victims first, like Regan (not her fault) or Kayako (a victim). I'm pretty sure even Chance had some problematic first incarnations as Jack's punching bag. In many cases, but not all, we need to see the growth of a female character to become scared of her. I really applaud Universal for doing things like Nightingales or the Victorian-style Ghost houses to meet the trope halfway. These houses give a piece of backstory to everyone entering, but allow the terror of the female characters do the rest. I think it's why so many of the Disney villains are so popular - Maleficent's scary in a masculine, overpowering way, while still getting it with that jawline. As we can see, she sells a buttload of merch, a buttload of merch to female guests that Uni would be wise to tap into in terms of female power. It's why Eleven and Elsa merch sells so well, IMHO, because these women literally have power.

My thought? It's way easier to do a live horror event based on male characters rather than female because (as society has trained us) we don't need to look for the reason in male characters as much as female. Guests are used to an evil male overlord character and can understand that better. Usually, when we see a female character at the event, it is framed as a subversion (It's CHANCE'S year now!), a detailed backstory (Bloody Mary can't just be an evil spirit -- she must be a good doctor turned evil), or a temptress (Lady Luck).

I feel that Universal could have done better with all three of these characters because we never see them showing off their power. Lady Luck has no physical manifestation of her power, they instead decided to turn her into, like, a weird werewolf? They should have gone truly Maleficent with her - I want to see the bad luck physically. It's rare that we see Chance do anything truly evil aside from standing NEXT to corpses and assisting Jack. Even her prison escape had to be "in her imagination", as if Uni was too scared to suggest she would ACTUALLY kill all those people. And, well, Bloody Mary was the most well done, but there was room to give her more agency instead of being stuck behind a mirror for many of the scenes in the event. I think Universal has great potential with Storyteller, Cindy, and Terra Queen, but for some reason, probably the ones stated above, they fear that the girls will have an impact. I think it's a dang shame.

I hold firm that Universal has been thinking about this, and that each year we should expect a growth of female-led houses and a shift in this perception, including this year.

On a side note: Selfishly (as a gay guy), I wish they would get around to objectifying the men just as much as the women. I would love to see the Director come back as more of a seducer than he was before, a sexed-up Eddie, or even like, a Lost Boys-styled vampire Icon. It seems like the Vamp-style zones do well. But sometimes I think Uni forgets why sexy villains work. The Lost Boys don't walk down red carpets, catwalks, or whatever else they want to turn Hollywood Blvd into. They're out for blood. Maybe they should consider moving "the sexy zone" into a place where it feels less like an exploitative runway.

 

Bloodymary? Yes, but It helped that it was an existing urban legend that scared kids for generations. She definitely looked really scary. But her house is one of the worst uni has made lolol.

I dont think it is only about power for male chatacters but maybe it has to do with some of the violent impulses that men can have? Seems like most violence and war in the world is by men. Power (like you said) has to do with it, but also maybe our fear of violence? What horror slashers have in common is that brutality and extreme violence.

Also I thought about it, and most female horror characters in movies tend to be ghosts or demons, or supernatural entities, thats kinda interesting. Even bloody mary is an avenging ghost. The lady from Dead Silence came back to avenge. Carrie took revenge with her supernatural powers, the girl from the ring and the girl from the grudge come back to take revenge, or they are vampires like Queen of the Damned or Dusk Till Dawn's vampires, etc.
Interesting to think about, you made me think.
( and yes we need sexy Eddie in leather outfits, a leather vest)

 

When did the code names come out last year, I can’t remember?

 

Late January

 

That's not entirely fair. Admittedly, above all, I'd love either a new Icon or to see the return of the Terra Queen. I'd LOVE a well-marketed female icon that truly connects with attendees. But I consider myself a hardcore fan (don't discount just because I'm just now surfacing around here) and I LOVE Jack and Chance. I collect their iconography and had a little "shrine" for lack of a better term (until I moved and haven't been able to redo it yet). This borderlines on gatekeeper mentality, and it marginalizes. Would I like to see the pair return at 30? I wouldn't complain. BUT Do I think they need to return? No. I'd much rather see something fresh, or a tribute to *all* Icons (which I doubt we'll even really see much of). As was alluded to several pages ago and I couldn't comment on (Been a bad week), I think "Lore" is pretty much out the window at this point, which is what a lot of folk seem to want with Icons, and the days of the website stories and rollouts. I miss it dearly.

But now - I'm just hoping for a return to a less "disconnected 80s party" atmosphere with some amazing houses, and more of a Halloween party feel. I think AoV did a good job pivoting here for 29. Cyberpunk was not nearly as fitting with the Halloween-time and monsters and spooky atmosphere as this year's show was. And it got SO MANY more fans for it.

 

Fair enough. I suppose I was projecting a bit. I think part of my resentment towards Chance is because my memory of her is colored by 26. She works as a sidekick, but when she had to carry the event herself, it did not work very well. It reminds me of Nostalgia Critic's analysis of Mike Myers (no, not that one):

8:20-9:20 sort of applies to Chance, too, IMO.

But yes, I would like to see something fresh in regards to icons, however unlikely that is.

 

Let's not speak of that abomination lol.

I feel like Chance's failure as central icon to 26 was more of a storyline misstep than a commentary on the character's inability to carry an event. This has been beaten to death but, if her whole deal was the asylum or sanitarium deal, and big, less colorful/more scary redesign - why make her "house" practically the comedy house that year? I know what the concept behind it was, but the Impact would have been much stronger if she had her own truly scary house design rather than the 3D gimmick (which I just never really like as far as scare-factor goes). Just a misstep in her handling. Even the Merch that year was a step down.

True, from our POV, she works best as a sidekick. However we'll probably never know how a truly well-executed "Chance-year" could have been.

 

Quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. Hated it as a third grader and hate it now.

They could've showed the origins of Chance. She needed a full name.

 

The duality of Chance's mind could have been better presented...It was a neat concept that was never fully explored.

But I certainly didn't think she was a failure....I mean, not on the scale of Lady Luck

 

Hi Guys!

I just wanted to point out something interesting that I remember seeing in the KKFOS house that may help with speculation for next year. One of the victim mannequins looks oddly like Bloody Mary from 2008. I inserted a screenshot from a walkthrough of it on youtube and a picture of the icon from horrornightmares.com . what do you all think?

 

I believe the IP of Bloody Mary will probably not be used again

 

Unrelated.

 

I still want to know who/why that girl is there. I asked my UTH tour guide and she didn't even know.

 

My question would "Why isn't Mike, Debbie and Dave in the house?", last year they had a character who might as well been Debbie carrying the pop corn klown creatures, The Terenzi's and Mooney made their appearance in the house but interesting how they weren't featured.

Anyways, I still hope maybe 2018 has a chance of coming this year, especially there will be a lot of good promotion for Halloween Kills, it'd be cool to see have a house with Halloween 2018 starting and the end being a sneak peek for the movie, it would be a good marketing tool and good opportunity if they took it.

 

Clue

 

Oh she wasn't a failure in an overall sense. Just lackluster as far as carrying the event's marketing and "story". The idea of her broken mind certainly could've been better executed. Again, gimmicky 3D house I just feel was a misstep.

Lady Luck, too could have been a lot cooler. I was really excited about her when she first got revealed.

I've seen people keep wondering about this mannequin. This effect has been used for years as filler in houses. Some variation of Creepy girl lit with strobes. The first clear memory I have of it is The Skool (15) I'm pretty sure. She may have even been in Horror in Wax (14). It was REALLY out of place in KKFOS, but it was pretty much something stuck in there because designers needed that turn to not be empty. It's not a bad thought, but as others said, not related.