Halloween Horror Nights 2021 (USH) - News & Info

[JawsVictim]

Really, IMO, we should stop comparing the two and instead be thankful they each have taken a different approach, so that we as guests get the best (and worst) of both worlds. It strangely allows them to co-exist nicely.

This really is the truth of the matter. It was so awesome to finally hit KSF after years of reading about it AND getting to attend HHNH. Two very different experiences.

Really, I think we should be comparing HHNH and HHNO since they are the same company but vastly different in quality. IMO, they should receive the same budget based on resource ratios (ie Hollywood and Orlando’s house/maze budget should be equal on a per build basis), which should be one resource pot from Comcast instead of regional budgets.

 

[Spookies n' Stuff]

Dude, they practically wasted Trick r Treat. I was absolutely flabbergasted by how the majority of the house was just black walls. Like, did Murdy not give a crap at all about how desired the IP was? That is the only IP I wouldn’t mind seeing get brought back to be done right. It was boarder line insulting how that IP was treated at Hollywood.

I still really enjoyed it for what it was, but given that they've finally started testing the waters of repeating old concepts with modifications like TCM and H4, it's basically prime time to give it another try.

 

[zto8411]

Eh, I think I repeats at HHN are fine if it’s been a while. I’d love to see quite a few different mazes make a return. The Thing, the 2015 Halloween: Hell Comes to Haddonfield. Every year brings new people to the events. Teens turn old enough to go on their own with friends, starting traditions. People move to the area etc.

This year was different obviously, but it wasn’t really the fault of the creative team. That’s what worries me, how will the higher ups react? Will any changes be made for the better? Or for worse?? Remains to be seen, but living in this country and knowing how profit driven people operate makes me worried about next year just a bit.

 

[Clive]

Repeats at HHN Hollywood are sort of inevitable when there is a finite number of adaptable IPs and the creative team refuses to entertain doing more originals.

I unexpectedly attended the final night of the event. It was very crowded, and I think they definitely could have extended into November had there not been such dire casting and operational issues. Hollywood is definitely still feeling the labor pinch, as most food and beverage locations seemed understaffed. Exorcist definitely improved but was still a shadow of the 2016 incarnation. Texas remained strong. The bar above Jurassic was the event's best kept secret despite every reasonable effort to promote it. Tram improved significantly but still needs to be put back to rest. Bride of Frankenstein still delivered. Hill House has my heart. Skipped Halloween and Pandora - I know what I'm getting there and had no desire to wait 45 minutes apiece for them.

Tons of last-night shenanigans. Every stilt walker and performer was out in Scare Zone 1 for the last hour, and it really made me wish they staffed the streets at that level all the time. Felt much closer to something like Knotts's Ghost Town. Silver Scream Queenz also raided Scare Zone 1 right before Brigade. All sorts of hijinks in Hill House, which I ended up inadvertently closing out. Hats off to that cast for making a very tricky property something special.

 

[DTH]

Repeats really aren't a big deal and have been part of the HHN reboot since it started, so I don't know why anyone would expect anything different. No matter what time you started going, repeats have been practically a staple to some degree.

07 reused 06's The Asylum for Freddy's Nightmares, down to it's props.
08 was a direct repeat of 07 with minor adjustments.
09 was a brand new year and is maybe the ONLY non-repeat year
2010 "repeated" Freddy, Jason and Saw.
2011 repeated House of 1000 Corpses.
2012 repeated La Llorona.
2013-2014 "repeated" Walking Dead and Universal Monsters Remix.
2015 repeated AVP and Insidious.
2016, supposedly the best year according to many here, "repeated" Freddy, Jason, Texas Chainsaw, Halloween, and technically also The Walking Dead for it's first year of "attraction," which makes it actually MORE repeat IPs in a single year than 2021.
2017 "repeated" Evil Dead, American Horror Story, Jason, Freddy, and Leatherface.
2018 "repeated" Purge, Blumhouse, and Halloween.
2019 "repeated" Stranger Things and House of 1000 Corpses.
2021 repeated Halloween 4, TCM, The Exorcist, and Pandora's Box after the entire world went through a freakin' pandemic, so excuse them for being broke for a bit.

GP doesn't care. I don't care. I'm willing to bet many of us don't care. The weirdest thing is I didn't even see people complain about this "issue" until 2010 when Freddy and Jason's mazes were "repeats," and those particular people didn't even attend 07 or 08, so I don't know why it would matter to them especially since the 2010 mazes were nothing like their 07-08 counterparts. Since then, this campaign to complain about "repeats," when 80% of these mazes aren't even carbon copy repeats, is just being rallied for reasons beyond my understanding and simply because "well... that's what Orlando does." Great, go to Orlando. It's an entirely different event with different budget allocation and has been around for three times as long. Hollywood has repeats. Hollywood also has some terrifying black walls that 99% of the attendees don't care about either -- they freak people out. Deal with it.

FWIW, here are the only genuine, carbon-copied REPEATS in Hollywood since 2006 (as in not a single room was changed):
2008 - Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th
2011 - House of 1000 Corpses
2016 - Alien vs. Predator
2021 - The Exorcist and Pandora's Box (although technically the locations changed so layouts were rearranged)

SIX. Out of 17 events, there have been SIX actual repeats of mazes. So honestly, whenever I hear someone complain about repeats, I can only think, "wow, you're spoiled as hell." I don't know how anyone can get it in their head that an IP returning is a "repeat." That's ridiculous. Frankly, I'd even call some of the attitude here toxic. I'm no saint either, but pick your freakin' battles for things that matter.

 

[Nick]

Repeats at HHN Hollywood are sort of inevitable when there is a finite number of adaptable IPs and the creative team refuses to entertain doing more originals.

I unexpectedly attended the final night of the event. It was very crowded, and I think they definitely could have extended into November had there not been such dire casting and operational issues. Hollywood is definitely still feeling the labor pinch, as most food and beverage locations seemed understaffed. Exorcist definitely improved but was still a shadow of the 2016 incarnation. Texas remained strong. The bar above Jurassic was the event's best kept secret despite every reasonable effort to promote it. Tram improved significantly but still needs to be put back to rest. Bride of Frankenstein still delivered. Hill House has my heart. Skipped Halloween and Pandora - I know what I'm getting there and had no desire to wait 45 minutes apiece for them.

Tons of last-night shenanigans. Every stilt walker and performer was out in Scare Zone 1 for the last hour, and it really made me wish they staffed the streets at that level all the time. Felt much closer to something like Knotts's Ghost Town. Silver Scream Queenz also raided Scare Zone 1 right before Brigade. All sorts of hijinks in Hill House, which I ended up inadvertently closing out. Hats off to that cast for making a very tricky property something special.

Why is Hollywood so against originals?

 

[Horror Lover]

Why is Hollywood so against originals?

It's 100% a John Murdy thing.. He feels that every other haunt in SoCal does original content so he has to make HHN Hollywood unique from the pack by doing IP mazes.. but he has said he's more open to original content in recent years..

 

[Clive]

It's 100% a John Murdy thing.. He feels that every other haunt in SoCal does original content so he has to make HHN Hollywood unique from the pack by doing IP mazes.. but he has said he's more open to original content in recent years..

This is all true and isn't a bad justification. But the other factor - if we're really being honest - is Murdy enjoys working with talent and filmmakers. Many of the originals that do happen have some sort of celebrity attached - Slash, Danny Trejo, Eli Roth. La Llorona and Pandora's Box are two of the only originals I can think of that have had no celebrity involvement whatsoever. (2016 is arguably an outlier as the event's first year).

 

[Freak]

Repeats really aren't a big deal and have been part of the HHN reboot since it started, so I don't know why anyone would expect anything different. No matter what time you started going, repeats have been practically a staple to some degree.

07 reused 06's The Asylum for Freddy's Nightmares, down to it's props.
08 was a direct repeat of 07 with minor adjustments.
09 was a brand new year and is maybe the ONLY non-repeat year
2010 "repeated" Freddy, Jason and Saw.
2011 repeated House of 1000 Corpses.
2012 repeated La Llorona.
2013-2014 "repeated" Walking Dead and Universal Monsters Remix.
2015 repeated AVP and Insidious.
2016, supposedly the best year according to many here, "repeated" Freddy, Jason, Texas Chainsaw, Halloween, and technically also The Walking Dead for it's first year of "attraction," which makes it actually MORE repeat IPs in a single year than 2021.
2017 "repeated" Evil Dead, American Horror Story, Jason, Freddy, and Leatherface.
2018 "repeated" Purge, Blumhouse, and Halloween.
2019 "repeated" Stranger Things and House of 1000 Corpses.
2021 repeated Halloween 4, TCM, The Exorcist, and Pandora's Box after the entire world went through a freakin' pandemic, so excuse them for being broke for a bit.

GP doesn't care. I don't care. I'm willing to bet many of us don't care. The weirdest thing is I didn't even see people complain about this "issue" until 2010 when Freddy and Jason's mazes were "repeats," and those particular people didn't even attend 07 or 08, so I don't know why it would matter to them especially since the 2010 mazes were nothing like their 07-08 counterparts. Since then, this campaign to complain about "repeats," when 80% of these mazes aren't even carbon copy repeats, is just being rallied for reasons beyond my understanding and simply because "well... that's what Orlando does." Great, go to Orlando. It's an entirely different event with different budget allocation and has been around for three times as long. Hollywood has repeats. Hollywood also has some terrifying black walls that 99% of the attendees don't care about either -- they freak people out. Deal with it.

FWIW, here are the only genuine, carbon-copied REPEATS in Hollywood since 2006 (as in not a single room was changed):
2008 - Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th
2011 - House of 1000 Corpses
2016 - Alien vs. Predator
2021 - The Exorcist and Pandora's Box (although technically the locations changed so layouts were rearranged)

SIX. Out of 17 events, there have been SIX actual repeats of mazes. So honestly, whenever I hear someone complain about repeats, I can only think, "wow, you're spoiled as hell." I don't know how anyone can get it in their head that an IP returning is a "repeat." That's ridiculous. Frankly, I'd even call some of the attitude here toxic. I'm no saint either, but pick your freakin' battles for things that matter.

I think you’re really stretching the definition of a repeat to fit your argument. A house could have just a couple of changed and improved rooms and/or an altered layout and still be a total repeat. In that case we had…

‘08- Texas and F13
‘10- Saw
‘11- HoTC
‘12- La Llorona
‘15- AVP
‘21- Exorcist, Halloween 4, Pandora, TCM

We have gone for six years without repeats and suddenly Now an IP returning is not a straight up repeat if there’s a different approach to it (i.e. Halloween ‘15 was a more “paranormal” approach) Halloween ‘15 and Saw ‘17 come to mind. In those cases there were “reboots” and not repeats (Although they were inferior to the original incarnations).

Also I think it’s completely unfair to call people who are tired of repeats, black walls, and the same IPs “toxic”. What’s so bad about people criticizing HHN for wanting a better event? If anything I find that an excuse to for creative laziness. I don’t see any other haunts doing black walls for all of their haunts. Especially for an event that’s known for their movie quality sets. I thought Trick r Treat was extremely underwhelming and mediocre with the amount of black walls it had. Are you going to tell anyone who was disappointed about it in that regard to “get over it?”

 

[DTH]

This is all true and isn't a bad justification. But the other factor - if we're really being honest - is Murdy enjoys working with talent and filmmakers. Many of the originals that do happen have some sort of celebrity attached - Slash, Danny Trejo, Eli Roth. La Llorona and Pandora's Box are two of the only originals I can think of that have had no celebrity involvement whatsoever. (2016 is arguably an outlier as the event's first year).

La Llorona had Diego Luna.

I think you’re really stretching the definition of a repeat to fit your argument. A house could have just a couple of changed and improved rooms and/or an altered layout and still be a total repeat. In that case we had…

Also I think it’s completely unfair to call people who are tired of repeats, black walls, and the same IPs “toxic”. What’s so bad about people criticizing HHN for wanting a better event? If anything I find that an excuse to for creative laziness. I don’t see any other haunts doing black walls for all of their haunts. Especially for an event that’s known for their movie quality sets. I thought Trick r Treat was extremely underwhelming and mediocre with the amount of black walls it had. Are you going to tell anyone who was disappointed about it in that regard to “get over it?”

I think you could stretch anything whichever way someone wants to say something is a repeat. One could say "ugh I'm tired of slasher mazes, they're all the same, just another repeat." If this argument is going to be made, which it really shouldn't matter, then someone should classify what constitutes a "repeat."

And I don't think criticism is toxic. I think the way it's slung is toxic when everyone gets in a negative frenzy on here over something trivial and it becomes personal towards Murdy.

And yes, I'd tell everyone disappointed by black walls in TrT to get over it. I personally loved it. Many other people on this board did too. Many GP did as well. The same way I could be disappointed year after year they still haven't made a Scream maze. "My personal preference and expectations weren't met" is the very definition of something to "get over." Especially when 99.9% of the guests don't notice, mind, nor care and in fact, huge percentages of them even love the black wallz because "they're so scaryz and darkz and omfgz."

 

[Freak]

La Llorona had Diego Luna.


I think you could stretch anything whichever way someone wants to say something is a repeat. One could say "ugh I'm tired of slasher mazes, they're all the same, just another repeat." If this argument is going to be made, which it really shouldn't matter, then someone should classify what constitutes a "repeat."

And I don't think criticism is toxic. I think the way it's slung is toxic when everyone gets in a negative frenzy on here over something trivial and it becomes personal towards Murdy.

And yes, I'd tell everyone disappointed by black walls in TrT to get over it. I personally loved it. Many other people on this board did too. Many GP did as well. The same way I could be disappointed year after year they still haven't made a Scream maze. "My personal preference and expectations weren't met" is the very definition of something to "get over." Especially when 99.9% of the guests don't notice, mind, nor care and in fact, huge percentages of them even love the black wallz because "they're so scaryz and darkz and omfgz."

We’ll, I’m glad you enjoyed TrT. I actually don’t mind black walls when they’re used appropriately and creatively. Heck, Orlando’s Hill House had a black hallway and it was used very effectively. But that was literally the only black wall at the whole event. But I seriously doubt you’d take it well if you went through Scream, the garage scene is missing, and half of the maze is black walls, and someone told you to “get over it”.

Also, if I feel like the creative director isn’t being well….creative. I don’t think it’s wrong to criticize him for that. If a director made a bad movie and you criticized his movie, isn’t that because you wanted to see a good movie?

 

[Crazy4Horror]

This is all true and isn't a bad justification. But the other factor - if we're really being honest - is Murdy enjoys working with talent and filmmakers. Many of the originals that do happen have some sort of celebrity attached - Slash, Danny Trejo, Eli Roth. La Llorona and Pandora's Box are two of the only originals I can think of that have had no celebrity involvement whatsoever. (2016 is arguably an outlier as the event's first year).

Diego Luna was attached to La Llorona even though he’s mainly only famous in the Mexican community. He helped with the backstory and design. I’ll see if I can find the video where they interviewed him.

Yeah “repeat” means something different to everyone. To me whenever they use the same IP I count it as a repeat. Well, in the sense of the IP is getting repeated again. I personally loved H4 this year a lot more than it’s previous version. I thought it felt more intense, louder and was creative with the scares.

Now, I would wish they did a lot more originals. Originals are definitely a breathe of fresh air since it’s something no one technically knows about and don’t know what to expect. I’m sure the General Public wouldn’t mind any originals as Universal already has the crowds on the hook. If they want to do repeats maybe go for repeated originals… I would love to see the return of La Llorona and see what improvements they can make.

the only thing that worries me is IP-based originals like Bride and how that one always had the shortest line. Many times I went it would say 20 minutes and it was a literal walk-on. There was also many times where Walking Dead has a much larger line than it.


I hope the executives/creative/higher ups don’t look at Bride and be like “oh this one didn’t attract many people so we definitely aren’t trying any non-IP-based originals”.

let the speculation and rumors begin!

 

[HHNManics]

Diego Luna was attached to La Llorona even though he’s mainly only famous in the Mexican community. He helped with the backstory and design. I’ll see if I can find the video where they interviewed him.

Yeah “repeat” means something different to everyone. To me whenever they use the same IP I count it as a repeat. Well, in the sense of the IP is getting repeated again. I personally loved H4 this year a lot more than it’s previous version. I thought it felt more intense, louder and was creative with the scares.

Now, I would wish they did a lot more originals. Originals are definitely a breathe of fresh air since it’s something no one technically knows about and don’t know what to expect. I’m sure the General Public wouldn’t mind any originals as Universal already has the crowds on the hook. If they want to do repeats maybe go for repeated originals… I would love to see the return of La Llorona and see what improvements they can make.

the only thing that worries me is IP-based originals like Bride and how that one always had the shortest line. Many times I went it would say 20 minutes and it was a literal walk-on. There was also many times where Walking Dead has a much larger line than it.

I hope the executives/creative/higher ups don’t look at Bride and be like “oh this one didn’t attract many people so we definitely aren’t trying any non-IP-based originals”.

let the speculation and rumors begin!

Here.

Bride actually did decently enough. Despite sparking a low wait time. Bride ranked 3rd in the GP Ratings. For anyone wondering to my knowledge the ratings went...

1. The Exorcist
2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
3. Bride of Frankenstein Lives
4. Halloween 4
5. The Curse of Pandora's Box
6. The Haunting of Hill House

While I didn't enjoy Bride I do believe there will aspects of that Maze that will carry over/be repeated in Future IP Originals or Full on Originals. Usually the Mazes that end up in the Top 3 will have their aspects carry over to mazes the next year which we have seen time and time again.

And yes, I'd tell everyone disappointed by black walls in TrT to get over it. I personally loved it. Many other people on this board did too. Many GP did as well.

The General Public did not enjoy Trick 'r Treat. It spouted a low wait constantly and got one of the Lower Rankings of the GP Ratings which went...

1. Universal Monsters
2. Stranger Things
3. Halloween 4
4. The First Purge
5. Poltergeist
6. Trick 'r Treat
7. The Horrors of Blumhouse Chapter 2

 

[deadbydawn]

I had no idea about Diego Luna's involvement with La Llorona. How cool! I really enjoyed that maze.

 

[Brian G.]

Have at it.

Halloween Horror Nights 2022 (USH) - Speculation & Rumors

This thread is dedicated to all Speculation & Rumors for this year's Halloween Horror Nights 2022 event at Universal Studios Hollywood. As always, we ask that all speculation come from realistic expectations and adds to the discussion. Please keep discussions about wishful thinking/dream...

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