Halloween Horror Nights 2024 (USH) - Reviews, Photos & Videos
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- Nov 7, 2016
- 1,764
- 2,051
Saturday, September 7th, 2024
W/Early Entry + Express
ARRIVAL
Got to Universal around 4:20pm, about 20 minutes later than I planned to line up. We had some friends running a little late (even though we all had lunch off-site just before, but whatever lol) — but NO STRESS — we have Express! And Early Entry! We should get everything done in no time, right?! At 5pm we lineup, far left side with the smallest line -- ticket machine breaks down and they can’t print our Express passes…..welp. Head inside and there’s a small line under one of those front umbrellas and it’s taking a bit. Their printer breaks too. WHAT?! I go to Universal Plaza — way more people over here but there’s 4 cashiers, so it moves quickly. At this point though, it’s already 5:35pm-ish.
STARWAY
I do not understand what happened to the music here. Is this such a hard thing to implement? Nothing screams Horror Nights like Dua Lipa and Sabrina Carpenter, I guess. Cool to see the construction for Fast & Furious. Also great spot to get a view of NintendoWorld.
EARLY ACCESS + FIRST IMPRESSIONS
I’m going to review everything in the order I did stuff but I’m going to grade them based on the two overall visits of these mazes I got to do later in the night in the last 30 minutes. Suffice to say, what I saw during Early Access was….basically tours of the mazes. Weeknd and Dead Exposure were fairly well populated, but Texas Chainsaw and Bloodlines were at least 65% empty. The stories for those made zero sense and there was almost zero scares. When I did Weeknd again though, I saw quite a few more scareactors than I did in the beginning of the night, so that one was maybe 25% empty. Let’s just say, my initial impression — despite being very understanding — was very low on the quality of mazes this year. By 8pm, I will say every maze I went to seemed to be fairly “on,” so I can say I can fairly judge those.
THE WEEKND: NIGHTMARE TRILOGY
Ad Wait: Blank screen (even though this is Early Access, this needs to be fixed, all the mazes were like this until about 6pm).
Time in Line: 5:57pm
In the Maze: 5:59pm
Actual Wait: 3 mins
Is this…the best facade in Horror Nights history? Just astounding and even for the day time, the lights and all seemed to pop (compared to last Weeknd maze, I didn’t see his eyes glowing on the facade until I did it at night). I think it might have helped that the maze seemed slightly more pushed back away from the sunset? Maybe that’s my imagination though. Major tech issues going on with the video and music in the outside queue, stuttering like crazy and it was like that all night — just turn it off at that point? Anyway, if you read my review of the last Weeknd maze, you’d know I thought it was one of the worst mazes ever. I expected similar for this but I thought this was MUCH better. My biggest gripe with the first iteration is too many repeat mannequin scares and it got old REAL fast. This has quite a bit of variation. Some stuff worked on me (paparazzi monsters), some stuff didn’t (money…monsters?). At some point I even noticed someone high up and was impressed they used the soundstage levels. Overall narrative for this is…VERY strange. I didn’t get the “trilogy” aspect of the maze, it all seemed to blend together to me. With that said and while noting this is a MAJOR improvement, I didn’t find the overall vibe to be scary here. I don’t know, I guess I just don’t imagine my mazes with guests dancing through them. Perhaps not quite the vibe I’m looking for, but perhaps at…say…Universal Fan Nights? I had fun here and didn’t hate every second like the first one and in fact, this was one of the highlights of the night. Biggest complaint is they have like 4-5 swirling light of death hallways and don’t put a single scare in any of them to take advantage. Finale of the baby being birthed I have…no idea what that is and I have even less idea of WTF that giant moth baby cockroach looking thing is. My first run through, I gave this maze a C+, but I’ll be judging it more on the later run for the overall grade, which I gave it a —
B-
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE LEGACY OF LEATHERFACE
Advertised Wait: 5 mins
Time in Line: 6:12pm
In the Maze: 6:17pm
Actual Wait: 5 mins
I love the cow-head guy outside, very creepy vibe to start off. I wish the facade was more imposing in general though, needs better music. — I don’t think the narration works, even if it was just animals squealing, it’d be more unsettling. I liked the masks to start to help setup the multiverse aspect, but weirdly enough, I didn’t notice the changes in masks. Maybe because the body shapes of the scareactors were too similar, but I think there’s certain aspects of each of the Leatherfaces that needed to be accounted for to give them a unique characteristic to make them stand out. If they’re all the same height and shape, and move/attack the same way, the masks/costumes don’t really matter, in my opinion. So that felt like a dud for me. Some spots in here were creative, but for the most part this felt standard. With that said, it’s hard to go wrong with chainsaws. I think scale-wise, I expected more from the slaughterhouse element — either utilize some taller/bigger rooms or go all in on the claustrophobia. Is this one of the more gross ones (because of the smell, adding realism)? Sure, but I definitely don’t think it’s one of the scarier ones. And I’d rank this toward the lower half of the TCM mazes we’ve had, but at least better than the 2021 one. I can’t quite place it, but this didn’t quite feel like TCM to me though — obviously, at least not until the final scene. I think the original IP aspect didn’t really vibe in the way I was hoping, as I think part of what makes TCM so scary is the environments, oddly enough not so much the characters. TCM: Blood Brothers attempted to do its own thing and that one felt more like TCM, in a trippier way. A few of my friends thought this was the scariest one of the night though, so this is clearly just me kinda getting tired of the IP and kinda being sick of slaughterhouse mazes — while a few of my friends, this is their first TCM maze and very likely their first slaughterhouse maze. I had one friend absolutely refuse to go back in it because of the smell, which I really didn’t think was that bad compared to something like The Exorcist: Believer. My first run through, I gave this maze a C, but I’ll be judging it more on the later run for the overall grade, which I gave it a —
B-
JURASSIC WORLD
Well, it was hot, so ya know the drill. Oddly enough, didn’t seem like summer mode was on. Ride looked to be in great shape and all was working.
W/Early Entry + Express
ARRIVAL
Got to Universal around 4:20pm, about 20 minutes later than I planned to line up. We had some friends running a little late (even though we all had lunch off-site just before, but whatever lol) — but NO STRESS — we have Express! And Early Entry! We should get everything done in no time, right?! At 5pm we lineup, far left side with the smallest line -- ticket machine breaks down and they can’t print our Express passes…..welp. Head inside and there’s a small line under one of those front umbrellas and it’s taking a bit. Their printer breaks too. WHAT?! I go to Universal Plaza — way more people over here but there’s 4 cashiers, so it moves quickly. At this point though, it’s already 5:35pm-ish.
STARWAY
I do not understand what happened to the music here. Is this such a hard thing to implement? Nothing screams Horror Nights like Dua Lipa and Sabrina Carpenter, I guess. Cool to see the construction for Fast & Furious. Also great spot to get a view of NintendoWorld.
EARLY ACCESS + FIRST IMPRESSIONS
I’m going to review everything in the order I did stuff but I’m going to grade them based on the two overall visits of these mazes I got to do later in the night in the last 30 minutes. Suffice to say, what I saw during Early Access was….basically tours of the mazes. Weeknd and Dead Exposure were fairly well populated, but Texas Chainsaw and Bloodlines were at least 65% empty. The stories for those made zero sense and there was almost zero scares. When I did Weeknd again though, I saw quite a few more scareactors than I did in the beginning of the night, so that one was maybe 25% empty. Let’s just say, my initial impression — despite being very understanding — was very low on the quality of mazes this year. By 8pm, I will say every maze I went to seemed to be fairly “on,” so I can say I can fairly judge those.
THE WEEKND: NIGHTMARE TRILOGY
Ad Wait: Blank screen (even though this is Early Access, this needs to be fixed, all the mazes were like this until about 6pm).
Time in Line: 5:57pm
In the Maze: 5:59pm
Actual Wait: 3 mins
Is this…the best facade in Horror Nights history? Just astounding and even for the day time, the lights and all seemed to pop (compared to last Weeknd maze, I didn’t see his eyes glowing on the facade until I did it at night). I think it might have helped that the maze seemed slightly more pushed back away from the sunset? Maybe that’s my imagination though. Major tech issues going on with the video and music in the outside queue, stuttering like crazy and it was like that all night — just turn it off at that point? Anyway, if you read my review of the last Weeknd maze, you’d know I thought it was one of the worst mazes ever. I expected similar for this but I thought this was MUCH better. My biggest gripe with the first iteration is too many repeat mannequin scares and it got old REAL fast. This has quite a bit of variation. Some stuff worked on me (paparazzi monsters), some stuff didn’t (money…monsters?). At some point I even noticed someone high up and was impressed they used the soundstage levels. Overall narrative for this is…VERY strange. I didn’t get the “trilogy” aspect of the maze, it all seemed to blend together to me. With that said and while noting this is a MAJOR improvement, I didn’t find the overall vibe to be scary here. I don’t know, I guess I just don’t imagine my mazes with guests dancing through them. Perhaps not quite the vibe I’m looking for, but perhaps at…say…Universal Fan Nights? I had fun here and didn’t hate every second like the first one and in fact, this was one of the highlights of the night. Biggest complaint is they have like 4-5 swirling light of death hallways and don’t put a single scare in any of them to take advantage. Finale of the baby being birthed I have…no idea what that is and I have even less idea of WTF that giant moth baby cockroach looking thing is. My first run through, I gave this maze a C+, but I’ll be judging it more on the later run for the overall grade, which I gave it a —
B-
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE LEGACY OF LEATHERFACE
Advertised Wait: 5 mins
Time in Line: 6:12pm
In the Maze: 6:17pm
Actual Wait: 5 mins
I love the cow-head guy outside, very creepy vibe to start off. I wish the facade was more imposing in general though, needs better music. — I don’t think the narration works, even if it was just animals squealing, it’d be more unsettling. I liked the masks to start to help setup the multiverse aspect, but weirdly enough, I didn’t notice the changes in masks. Maybe because the body shapes of the scareactors were too similar, but I think there’s certain aspects of each of the Leatherfaces that needed to be accounted for to give them a unique characteristic to make them stand out. If they’re all the same height and shape, and move/attack the same way, the masks/costumes don’t really matter, in my opinion. So that felt like a dud for me. Some spots in here were creative, but for the most part this felt standard. With that said, it’s hard to go wrong with chainsaws. I think scale-wise, I expected more from the slaughterhouse element — either utilize some taller/bigger rooms or go all in on the claustrophobia. Is this one of the more gross ones (because of the smell, adding realism)? Sure, but I definitely don’t think it’s one of the scarier ones. And I’d rank this toward the lower half of the TCM mazes we’ve had, but at least better than the 2021 one. I can’t quite place it, but this didn’t quite feel like TCM to me though — obviously, at least not until the final scene. I think the original IP aspect didn’t really vibe in the way I was hoping, as I think part of what makes TCM so scary is the environments, oddly enough not so much the characters. TCM: Blood Brothers attempted to do its own thing and that one felt more like TCM, in a trippier way. A few of my friends thought this was the scariest one of the night though, so this is clearly just me kinda getting tired of the IP and kinda being sick of slaughterhouse mazes — while a few of my friends, this is their first TCM maze and very likely their first slaughterhouse maze. I had one friend absolutely refuse to go back in it because of the smell, which I really didn’t think was that bad compared to something like The Exorcist: Believer. My first run through, I gave this maze a C, but I’ll be judging it more on the later run for the overall grade, which I gave it a —
B-
JURASSIC WORLD
Well, it was hot, so ya know the drill. Oddly enough, didn’t seem like summer mode was on. Ride looked to be in great shape and all was working.
Last edited:
- Nov 7, 2016
- 1,764
- 2,051
UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: ETERNAL BLOODLINES
Advertised Wait: 5 mins
Time in Line: 6:53pm
In the Maze: 7pm
Actual Wait: 7 minutes
Woof. Reviews were not joking. This one is a stinker in pretty much every aspect imaginable — scope, makeup, costumes (we couldn’t make Van Helsing look A LITTLE cooler?), narrative, sound, lighting and even length. This felt like the biggest after thought. It’s not the worst HHN maze I’ve been through, but that first run-through I had was pretty close. The story made zero sense without everyone in there. Luckily I went through this again and that helped it quite a bit, but still, just WOW is this…something. I loved the signs outside the building giving the history of the stage. You’d think they’d do that for every soundstage maze, but perhaps they wanted to highlight maybe one of the only cool aspects this one has going for it. I think this started off great with the shooting of the vampire, really setting my expectations (using a trick from Last of Us last year, I see) and then it just went downhill. I knew I was in for trouble in the She-Wolf forest when the projection of the moon looked freakin’ TERRIBLE! Then, they wasted 50% of this maze on transitions not having a scare in them. Or even darkness. Or even threads. Or anything. Just narration that repeats on a loop so many times, that even if you are walking at a normal pace, it will become grating and the only method of solace is to repeat it because it’s either suffer in madness or join it. “LAST — OF THE VAN HELSINGS!” “TO SEVER THE BLOODLINE — AIM FOR THE HEART!” “I BROUGHT HER HOME — BUT EVIL ALWAYS FOLLOWS!” The story is fine and works, it just seems oddly too simple though — like Bride of Frankenstein Lives was a bit more complex and made sense, but didn’t feel like it had to be dumbed down for us like this one. One scare I really liked in here is when the monsters comes out with their trigger, it interacts with a screen and bats fly away. At this point, I’m just trying to find nice things to say at this point. But man, maybe its time to give the Universal Monsters a break. I don’t know if I wanna see Creature From the Black Lagoon if they’re going to do this little for it. And considering the ending, I have zero desire to see a sequel with a Frankensteined Van Helsing — we can take pride that the Bride had a great first maze and just leave it at that. My first run through, I gave this maze an F, but I’ll be judging it more on the later run for the overall grade, which I gave it a —
D+
DEAD EXPOSURE: DEATH VALLEY
Advertised Wait: 10 mins
Time in Line: 7:18pm
In the Maze: 7:21pm
Actual Wait: 3 mins (none of these signs are going to be accurate, are they?)
A scare right in the facade tricked me into thinking this would be great, and while the house seemed fully staffed, the set design here is so underwhelming. The maze is saved by its committed cast though. And the monkey stuff was interesting, gave it something slightly different than just usual zombie stuff. Honestly, no stand out moments or things to highlight here. The maze kinda just…is. It’s fairly standard (again, aside from the monkey stuff, which is too brief). It didn’t seem like any love or passion went into it, they just threw it together just for the heck of it. I got some good jumps in here, but mentally, I was bored and I kept forgetting we event through it. Not the worst time waster in the world, but I wouldn’t wait longer than 15 minutes for it.
C-
TRANSFORMERS
Ride looks good! Projections are working well.
SUPER NINTENDOLAND/MARIO KART
Advertised Wait: 10 mins
Time in Line: 8:19pm
On the Ride: 8:22pm
Actual Wait: 3 mins of walking
None of my friends had been through this, so went and this was the highlight of their night. The zone is completely empty and is vastly different than how I experienced it last summer. Took pictures with Peach and Toad with zero line. I didn’t know you could play the games without the watch, you just don’t earn points I guess. Walked right on the ride, they’re not even playing the pre-show stuff. I feel like the AR graphics are not as sharp as the first few times I rode this though and they weren’t interacting with the sets as well as they used. With that said, still a very fun detour that we took for an hour simply because we could. With it being empty though, it’s clear how much this area suffers from not much to do.
TERROR TRAM: ENTER THE BLUMHOUSE
Advertised Wait: 5 mins
Time in Line: 9:10pm
In the Maze: 9:12pm
Actual Wait: 2 mins
Off the bat, I will say it. This was the highlight of my night. This is the best the Terror Tram has been since my favorite tram in 2008. It doesn’t quite match the scope of that (and I’ll get to why later), but it was so jam packed right from the beginning, that I was instantly in love. This is what the Terror Tram has been desperately needing for YEARS. It’s the shot of adrenaline to make this thing fresh again. The format could easily work for the next 3-5 years before I start to really think, “okay, but how can we change up War of the Worlds now?” The beginning video shows quite a bit of properties not featured and it doesn’t do much to sell any semblance of a story, but at least its a fun montage. Getting off, things kick off with some chainsaw action and these guys were aggressive! First time I saw any aggressive movements out of scareactors in the night, as the sun had finally set and the heat wasn’t too bad. The Megan segment was great, the little show scenes off to the side is basically a Megan maze or gauntlet scare zone. They put SO much into this part and was a great way to kick things off. You go through he middle of the motel, just as I had been wanting the format to return to, keeping the action going. The Freaky stuff was fantastic, all the scareactors here were having fun chasing each other, dying, etc.. The Black Phone section is literally one tiny hallway but they pack in so many Grabbers in there, that it feels like a whole experience. The hill that I usually dread going up to the Psycho house was given a cool view of the Hollywood sign — I wish we could take pix with it, but they keep you moving. Usually the trams start off great and then end terribly because the WOTW set is always empty and I was preparing myself for disappoint. But by God, every two or three steps I took, someone was swinging a bat, an axe, or a machete in my face. I have never seen so many Purgers in my life. It legit felt like more Purgers than guests walking through. My only issue here is they didn’t utilize the plane or the houses off to the side. Usually there’s carnage everywhere other than the usual destruction from the WOTW set, but they kept it fairly barebones other than the lit up cop car. While it would’ve been great to have a finale scene (and sadly — or thankfully, I’m not sure haha) The Wolf Man section was closed, with one more section giving the Terror Tram a nice button at the end. More chainsaw carnage to close it out. Short and sweet. I missed the Nope sets but I totally understand getting rid of it if its making the route thin of scareactors. This was much better and highly appreciated. The experience ends with the Speak No Evil trailer which I have seen literally a thousand times and I am sick of it, but in general — I feel like they could play something scarier to close us out. Anyway, very sold.
A
HARRY POTTER AND THE FORBIDDEN JOURNEY
Projections aren’t looking that great right now. I also wish the ride would go back to the 3D.
GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE
Advertised Wait: 5 mins
Time in line: 11pm
In the Maze: 11:05pm
Actual Wait: 5 mins
In that entire wait, Slimer only came out once and very briefly, so my entire group missed it. They need to fix the intervals here. Once every 5 minutes should not be the standard. I hated the first Ghostbusters maze and right as I entered, the tone was much better. And while some parts are fun, maybe get a few jumps, and overall it’s aesthetically well designed, it’s never scary. Love the marshmallow smell. Also love Vigo, as Ghostbusters 2 is my favorite (I know, hot take) — they could’ve placed him somewhere a little better though — and could we get a little bit of the slime?! I think adding ghosts from the entire franchise was a great call, it kept it lively and unpredictable. The finale is kind of a dud, ending this in womp-womp fashion. I don’t know, destroying the evil is a weird way to cap things off. But I didn’t hate it, so that’s a plus for me, but overall it feels like a giant “out of all the IPs, why this one?”
C
INSIDIOUS: THE FURTHER
Advertised Wait: 15 mins
Time in Line: 11:10pm
In the Maze: 11:20pm
Actual Wait 10 minutes
I was rather shocked by the length of this Express line, going through several zigzags was definitely strange to me. The first two Insidious mazes are all-timers, but the third one was just fine. This easily places above the third one but doesn’t quite match the greatness of the first two. One of my initial complaints about the first two was there were too many dummies and funny enough — for this maze, they literally just made them actual mannequins LMAO. Aesthetic-wise, that works for me, as it seems like a deliberate choice. Oddly, I don’t know what to say about this maze because there was so much packed in. It’s both a pro and a con — pro because it’s one of the only mazes this year that genuinely feel intense and a con because the other Insidious mazes actually built up a considerable amount of dread with the quiet moments while this one just attacks you around every corner. The Further sequence felt too short, my only big complaint. Darth Maul was freakin’ everywhere though and the variation of demons was great, especially in the end.
B+
Advertised Wait: 5 mins
Time in Line: 6:53pm
In the Maze: 7pm
Actual Wait: 7 minutes
Woof. Reviews were not joking. This one is a stinker in pretty much every aspect imaginable — scope, makeup, costumes (we couldn’t make Van Helsing look A LITTLE cooler?), narrative, sound, lighting and even length. This felt like the biggest after thought. It’s not the worst HHN maze I’ve been through, but that first run-through I had was pretty close. The story made zero sense without everyone in there. Luckily I went through this again and that helped it quite a bit, but still, just WOW is this…something. I loved the signs outside the building giving the history of the stage. You’d think they’d do that for every soundstage maze, but perhaps they wanted to highlight maybe one of the only cool aspects this one has going for it. I think this started off great with the shooting of the vampire, really setting my expectations (using a trick from Last of Us last year, I see) and then it just went downhill. I knew I was in for trouble in the She-Wolf forest when the projection of the moon looked freakin’ TERRIBLE! Then, they wasted 50% of this maze on transitions not having a scare in them. Or even darkness. Or even threads. Or anything. Just narration that repeats on a loop so many times, that even if you are walking at a normal pace, it will become grating and the only method of solace is to repeat it because it’s either suffer in madness or join it. “LAST — OF THE VAN HELSINGS!” “TO SEVER THE BLOODLINE — AIM FOR THE HEART!” “I BROUGHT HER HOME — BUT EVIL ALWAYS FOLLOWS!” The story is fine and works, it just seems oddly too simple though — like Bride of Frankenstein Lives was a bit more complex and made sense, but didn’t feel like it had to be dumbed down for us like this one. One scare I really liked in here is when the monsters comes out with their trigger, it interacts with a screen and bats fly away. At this point, I’m just trying to find nice things to say at this point. But man, maybe its time to give the Universal Monsters a break. I don’t know if I wanna see Creature From the Black Lagoon if they’re going to do this little for it. And considering the ending, I have zero desire to see a sequel with a Frankensteined Van Helsing — we can take pride that the Bride had a great first maze and just leave it at that. My first run through, I gave this maze an F, but I’ll be judging it more on the later run for the overall grade, which I gave it a —
D+
DEAD EXPOSURE: DEATH VALLEY
Advertised Wait: 10 mins
Time in Line: 7:18pm
In the Maze: 7:21pm
Actual Wait: 3 mins (none of these signs are going to be accurate, are they?)
A scare right in the facade tricked me into thinking this would be great, and while the house seemed fully staffed, the set design here is so underwhelming. The maze is saved by its committed cast though. And the monkey stuff was interesting, gave it something slightly different than just usual zombie stuff. Honestly, no stand out moments or things to highlight here. The maze kinda just…is. It’s fairly standard (again, aside from the monkey stuff, which is too brief). It didn’t seem like any love or passion went into it, they just threw it together just for the heck of it. I got some good jumps in here, but mentally, I was bored and I kept forgetting we event through it. Not the worst time waster in the world, but I wouldn’t wait longer than 15 minutes for it.
C-
TRANSFORMERS
Ride looks good! Projections are working well.
SUPER NINTENDOLAND/MARIO KART
Advertised Wait: 10 mins
Time in Line: 8:19pm
On the Ride: 8:22pm
Actual Wait: 3 mins of walking
None of my friends had been through this, so went and this was the highlight of their night. The zone is completely empty and is vastly different than how I experienced it last summer. Took pictures with Peach and Toad with zero line. I didn’t know you could play the games without the watch, you just don’t earn points I guess. Walked right on the ride, they’re not even playing the pre-show stuff. I feel like the AR graphics are not as sharp as the first few times I rode this though and they weren’t interacting with the sets as well as they used. With that said, still a very fun detour that we took for an hour simply because we could. With it being empty though, it’s clear how much this area suffers from not much to do.
TERROR TRAM: ENTER THE BLUMHOUSE
Advertised Wait: 5 mins
Time in Line: 9:10pm
In the Maze: 9:12pm
Actual Wait: 2 mins
Off the bat, I will say it. This was the highlight of my night. This is the best the Terror Tram has been since my favorite tram in 2008. It doesn’t quite match the scope of that (and I’ll get to why later), but it was so jam packed right from the beginning, that I was instantly in love. This is what the Terror Tram has been desperately needing for YEARS. It’s the shot of adrenaline to make this thing fresh again. The format could easily work for the next 3-5 years before I start to really think, “okay, but how can we change up War of the Worlds now?” The beginning video shows quite a bit of properties not featured and it doesn’t do much to sell any semblance of a story, but at least its a fun montage. Getting off, things kick off with some chainsaw action and these guys were aggressive! First time I saw any aggressive movements out of scareactors in the night, as the sun had finally set and the heat wasn’t too bad. The Megan segment was great, the little show scenes off to the side is basically a Megan maze or gauntlet scare zone. They put SO much into this part and was a great way to kick things off. You go through he middle of the motel, just as I had been wanting the format to return to, keeping the action going. The Freaky stuff was fantastic, all the scareactors here were having fun chasing each other, dying, etc.. The Black Phone section is literally one tiny hallway but they pack in so many Grabbers in there, that it feels like a whole experience. The hill that I usually dread going up to the Psycho house was given a cool view of the Hollywood sign — I wish we could take pix with it, but they keep you moving. Usually the trams start off great and then end terribly because the WOTW set is always empty and I was preparing myself for disappoint. But by God, every two or three steps I took, someone was swinging a bat, an axe, or a machete in my face. I have never seen so many Purgers in my life. It legit felt like more Purgers than guests walking through. My only issue here is they didn’t utilize the plane or the houses off to the side. Usually there’s carnage everywhere other than the usual destruction from the WOTW set, but they kept it fairly barebones other than the lit up cop car. While it would’ve been great to have a finale scene (and sadly — or thankfully, I’m not sure haha) The Wolf Man section was closed, with one more section giving the Terror Tram a nice button at the end. More chainsaw carnage to close it out. Short and sweet. I missed the Nope sets but I totally understand getting rid of it if its making the route thin of scareactors. This was much better and highly appreciated. The experience ends with the Speak No Evil trailer which I have seen literally a thousand times and I am sick of it, but in general — I feel like they could play something scarier to close us out. Anyway, very sold.
A
HARRY POTTER AND THE FORBIDDEN JOURNEY
Projections aren’t looking that great right now. I also wish the ride would go back to the 3D.
GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE
Advertised Wait: 5 mins
Time in line: 11pm
In the Maze: 11:05pm
Actual Wait: 5 mins
In that entire wait, Slimer only came out once and very briefly, so my entire group missed it. They need to fix the intervals here. Once every 5 minutes should not be the standard. I hated the first Ghostbusters maze and right as I entered, the tone was much better. And while some parts are fun, maybe get a few jumps, and overall it’s aesthetically well designed, it’s never scary. Love the marshmallow smell. Also love Vigo, as Ghostbusters 2 is my favorite (I know, hot take) — they could’ve placed him somewhere a little better though — and could we get a little bit of the slime?! I think adding ghosts from the entire franchise was a great call, it kept it lively and unpredictable. The finale is kind of a dud, ending this in womp-womp fashion. I don’t know, destroying the evil is a weird way to cap things off. But I didn’t hate it, so that’s a plus for me, but overall it feels like a giant “out of all the IPs, why this one?”
C
INSIDIOUS: THE FURTHER
Advertised Wait: 15 mins
Time in Line: 11:10pm
In the Maze: 11:20pm
Actual Wait 10 minutes
I was rather shocked by the length of this Express line, going through several zigzags was definitely strange to me. The first two Insidious mazes are all-timers, but the third one was just fine. This easily places above the third one but doesn’t quite match the greatness of the first two. One of my initial complaints about the first two was there were too many dummies and funny enough — for this maze, they literally just made them actual mannequins LMAO. Aesthetic-wise, that works for me, as it seems like a deliberate choice. Oddly, I don’t know what to say about this maze because there was so much packed in. It’s both a pro and a con — pro because it’s one of the only mazes this year that genuinely feel intense and a con because the other Insidious mazes actually built up a considerable amount of dread with the quiet moments while this one just attacks you around every corner. The Further sequence felt too short, my only big complaint. Darth Maul was freakin’ everywhere though and the variation of demons was great, especially in the end.
B+
- Nov 7, 2016
- 1,764
- 2,051
LATE NIGHT WITH CHUCKY
Advertised Wait: 10 mins
Time in Line: 11:47pm
In the Pre-Show: 11:50pm
In the Show: 12:02am
Actual Wait: Overall more like 15 mins
I watched a bit of video to see what this would be like and I can gladly say, this is much better than what I saw. To start, we had a great host who was firing off questions. Chucky trying not to be mean and looking around the room with awkward silence whenever a question was stupid was a hilarious way not to insult people. Could this be more verging on rated R? Unfortunately, they kept it fairly PG, but I still laughed out loud over and over again. The crowd was into it too. And hey, amazing A/C, I could’ve stayed in there all day. Oddly, another highlight of my night, but I think it ends right when it could be getting interesting. Check if out if you have time, not necessarily a “don’t miss,” but if you need a break and don’t want to see Dangerous Waters, this is a fun enough detour. Although two teen girls as I was leaving said, “we waited all that time for THAT?” General line said 25 minutes, so I guess that could mean overall 50ish minutes of your time and that’d be disappointing, but with very little line, that was great.
B
THE PURGE: DANGEROUS WATERS
Skipped this because it was delayed and I really didn’t want it to take up more of my night by that point because I wanted repeats on the lower lot.
A QUIET PLACE
Advertised Wait: 15 mins
Time in Line: 12:38am
In the Maze: 12:40am
Actual Wait: 2 mins
Didn’t get to see much of the queue video but it didn’t look that great. Was shocked to see the new layout for the queue on the inside but I didn’t get to go through much of it. Maze starts and I am impressed scenically. It goes without saying, nobody was quiet going through, but hey, that was expected. I think this started off well and as I went through it, I started to realize it was just going to be the same thing over…and over…and over. I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to Stranger Things and that was my initial thought that’s what this would be like but this is somehow better and worse at the same. Yes, the animatronics are cool and impressive. However, their range of motion is so stilted, that there is very little room for scares to occur. And the boo holes are so massive, you can see the scare from a mile away — or the monsters are simply just in plain sight right in front of you. The maze needs more human elements to come out and scare you, or dressing people up as the monsters, because there’s no way this is going to work throughout the run without being a total dud and failure of an experiment. Even if this was a dark ride, I don’t think I’d go on it that often. My group was very disappointed. Also this felt shorter than Evil Dead Rise somehow, but maybe that’s just me. I’d grade this lower but some of the scenic and animatronics were technically impressive.
D
MONSTROUS 2: THE MONSTERS OF LATIN AMERICA
Advertised Wait: 20 mins (oh really?!)
Time in Line: 12:45am
In the Maze: 12:49am
Actual Wait: 4 mins (no, not really)
This was one of the better mazes of the night, but part 1 is definitely the better iteration of this maze. Why they didn’t just repeat Cucuy is anyone’s guess, because they clearly weren’t interested in the other monsters. The middle section is so quick, and the same exact scare in the same exact way over and over in one hallway, it’s a wonder why they even bothered. And by shortening Cucuy, it neuters what made it so scary as a maze the first time — there’s entire scenes that were jaw dropping completely missing here. The new design of him works, making him less Freddy Krueger, so there’s that. And while I feel like I am being negative in this review, I will say I had a good time in here. I was just…whelmed by the first half.
B-
SCAREZONES
Oh yeah. Luchadores was empty-ish when I went through. Usually this area is rocking — sad to see how the mighty have fallen. Crowz is way too small and in a very awkward weird spot. Love the baby bird animatronic though and obviously the crows were rocking it. I haven’t cared about the entry or New York zone in years though and neither of those themes were going to change that. No Death Eaters is also a major blow — I don’t think I realized how much that was helping out the scare zone vibe. This might be the worst our scare zones have been in…ever? I’d blame the heat, but even design-wise, I was bored.
REVENGE OF THE MUMMY
Operations seemed to be going a bit slow on this ride, I think because someone wasn’t outside pestering people to throw their bags in lockers like usual. The ride ops, while doing their absolute best, had to force people over and over again to shove their big bags into the pouches on the ride and it created entire standstills. After people exit, they then looked through every seat to make sure nothing was left behind. Getting off the ride to look longer than getting on. Anyway, ride was in good shape other than that!
LAST 30 MINUTE LOWER LOT MAZE CRAWL
One of our group had to arrive to the event late unexpectedly, so we went back down to the lower lot to redo the mazes they missed earlier in the night. I wanted to repeat them anyway because my guess was they’d be more populated now that the heat had stopped. And sure enough, it turned out to be true. My suggestion is if this heat continues, skip Early Access all together — it’s not really worth it. Scareactors didn’t really feel like they came out to play until 8-9pm. In the final 30 minutes, our group got to do Dead Exposure (I went on Mummy though), Bloodlines (1:42am), TCM (1:51am) and The Weeknd (1:58am)
RANKINGS:
Terror Tram: Enter the Blumhouse - A
Insidious: The Further - B+
Monstrous 2: The Nightmares of Latin America - B-
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Legacy of Leatherface - B-
The Weekend: Nightmare Trilogy - B-
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire - C
Dead Exposure: Death Valley - C-
Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines - D+
A Quiet Place - D
OVERALL
I had no business getting Express this year. The park was dang near empty. I can’t imagine it will stay like this for the rest of the season, but all the lines were incredibly short and looked way shorter than what they were advertising. When Jurassic World is a walk-on in 100+ degree weather even during the day time, you know something is off. A part of me wants to attribute this to heat, another part is wondering if people just aren’t that interested. I didn’t hear many good reviews walking throughout the park, even during the nighttime. Vibes were…strange. Maybe people were just exhausted. I can say though that a good chunk of my friends thought it was the worst year they had gone, even if they got in the repeats when all the scareactors came out. I don’t think it’s the worst year, but it is definitely near the bottom. There’s some things that just straight up suck and don’t work from a design standpoint. A Quiet Place and Bloodlines are flawed from their very inception. Weeknd and Ghostbusters simply aren’t scary. Dead Exposure and Texas Chainsaw are kinda bland design-wise. And Insidious and Monstrous, while both still fun, have a “been there, done that” feel to them, and both could’ve benefited with having a little more focus on certain elements. I have been proven very wrong before, but this year feels like a big ol’ “I told you so.” Nothing enters classic territory, other than Terror Tram (but hey, at least that’s finally getting love) — which I think this is the very first time I have EVER ranked it first out of a year’s lineup. Truthfully, I had a hard time with my rankings because I am splitting hairs because everything is underwhelming in many aspects (except for the Tram!). I’ve seen the event get 15-20% better throughout the run, but even that boost is still not going to fix a lot of problems.
Budget clearly isn’t the issue, I’d say 7 of these mazes (Bloodlines excluded) look top notch . I’d really like to know what happened here behind the screams. I thought last year was a step in the right direction after ’17-23, but I feel like it’s randomly a step back. I can’t keep harking back to ’07-’10, ’14, or ’16, something has to go very right here eventually, right? I’m having a hard time trying to figure out what HHN needs to do — when they experiment, they fail lately, and when they rely on the classic, they’re also failing. There seems to be just a general creative well being dried up here. If I didn’t have two groups of people I go with to Horror Nights, I don’t think I’d return this year, especially with how much I already paid for Express on a night that didn’t even really need it. However, with Early Access, I am pretty sold on using Express after my two years experimenting with it because it afforded me a fairly chill night and being able to hit all the rides. We easily could’ve thrown in Simpsons, Hippogriff and saw Dangerous Waters if we wanted to, but we wanted to repeat the earlier mazes, take pictures, and snack/sit breaks. But if I didn’t want to hit rides or see shows, would Express be worth it? Probably not. Especially if the lackluster mazes is all I have to look forward to. Until next time folks, see y’all in the fog!
C-
Advertised Wait: 10 mins
Time in Line: 11:47pm
In the Pre-Show: 11:50pm
In the Show: 12:02am
Actual Wait: Overall more like 15 mins
I watched a bit of video to see what this would be like and I can gladly say, this is much better than what I saw. To start, we had a great host who was firing off questions. Chucky trying not to be mean and looking around the room with awkward silence whenever a question was stupid was a hilarious way not to insult people. Could this be more verging on rated R? Unfortunately, they kept it fairly PG, but I still laughed out loud over and over again. The crowd was into it too. And hey, amazing A/C, I could’ve stayed in there all day. Oddly, another highlight of my night, but I think it ends right when it could be getting interesting. Check if out if you have time, not necessarily a “don’t miss,” but if you need a break and don’t want to see Dangerous Waters, this is a fun enough detour. Although two teen girls as I was leaving said, “we waited all that time for THAT?” General line said 25 minutes, so I guess that could mean overall 50ish minutes of your time and that’d be disappointing, but with very little line, that was great.
B
THE PURGE: DANGEROUS WATERS
Skipped this because it was delayed and I really didn’t want it to take up more of my night by that point because I wanted repeats on the lower lot.
A QUIET PLACE
Advertised Wait: 15 mins
Time in Line: 12:38am
In the Maze: 12:40am
Actual Wait: 2 mins
Didn’t get to see much of the queue video but it didn’t look that great. Was shocked to see the new layout for the queue on the inside but I didn’t get to go through much of it. Maze starts and I am impressed scenically. It goes without saying, nobody was quiet going through, but hey, that was expected. I think this started off well and as I went through it, I started to realize it was just going to be the same thing over…and over…and over. I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to Stranger Things and that was my initial thought that’s what this would be like but this is somehow better and worse at the same. Yes, the animatronics are cool and impressive. However, their range of motion is so stilted, that there is very little room for scares to occur. And the boo holes are so massive, you can see the scare from a mile away — or the monsters are simply just in plain sight right in front of you. The maze needs more human elements to come out and scare you, or dressing people up as the monsters, because there’s no way this is going to work throughout the run without being a total dud and failure of an experiment. Even if this was a dark ride, I don’t think I’d go on it that often. My group was very disappointed. Also this felt shorter than Evil Dead Rise somehow, but maybe that’s just me. I’d grade this lower but some of the scenic and animatronics were technically impressive.
D
MONSTROUS 2: THE MONSTERS OF LATIN AMERICA
Advertised Wait: 20 mins (oh really?!)
Time in Line: 12:45am
In the Maze: 12:49am
Actual Wait: 4 mins (no, not really)
This was one of the better mazes of the night, but part 1 is definitely the better iteration of this maze. Why they didn’t just repeat Cucuy is anyone’s guess, because they clearly weren’t interested in the other monsters. The middle section is so quick, and the same exact scare in the same exact way over and over in one hallway, it’s a wonder why they even bothered. And by shortening Cucuy, it neuters what made it so scary as a maze the first time — there’s entire scenes that were jaw dropping completely missing here. The new design of him works, making him less Freddy Krueger, so there’s that. And while I feel like I am being negative in this review, I will say I had a good time in here. I was just…whelmed by the first half.
B-
SCAREZONES
Oh yeah. Luchadores was empty-ish when I went through. Usually this area is rocking — sad to see how the mighty have fallen. Crowz is way too small and in a very awkward weird spot. Love the baby bird animatronic though and obviously the crows were rocking it. I haven’t cared about the entry or New York zone in years though and neither of those themes were going to change that. No Death Eaters is also a major blow — I don’t think I realized how much that was helping out the scare zone vibe. This might be the worst our scare zones have been in…ever? I’d blame the heat, but even design-wise, I was bored.
REVENGE OF THE MUMMY
Operations seemed to be going a bit slow on this ride, I think because someone wasn’t outside pestering people to throw their bags in lockers like usual. The ride ops, while doing their absolute best, had to force people over and over again to shove their big bags into the pouches on the ride and it created entire standstills. After people exit, they then looked through every seat to make sure nothing was left behind. Getting off the ride to look longer than getting on. Anyway, ride was in good shape other than that!
LAST 30 MINUTE LOWER LOT MAZE CRAWL
One of our group had to arrive to the event late unexpectedly, so we went back down to the lower lot to redo the mazes they missed earlier in the night. I wanted to repeat them anyway because my guess was they’d be more populated now that the heat had stopped. And sure enough, it turned out to be true. My suggestion is if this heat continues, skip Early Access all together — it’s not really worth it. Scareactors didn’t really feel like they came out to play until 8-9pm. In the final 30 minutes, our group got to do Dead Exposure (I went on Mummy though), Bloodlines (1:42am), TCM (1:51am) and The Weeknd (1:58am)
RANKINGS:
Terror Tram: Enter the Blumhouse - A
Insidious: The Further - B+
Monstrous 2: The Nightmares of Latin America - B-
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Legacy of Leatherface - B-
The Weekend: Nightmare Trilogy - B-
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire - C
Dead Exposure: Death Valley - C-
Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines - D+
A Quiet Place - D
OVERALL
I had no business getting Express this year. The park was dang near empty. I can’t imagine it will stay like this for the rest of the season, but all the lines were incredibly short and looked way shorter than what they were advertising. When Jurassic World is a walk-on in 100+ degree weather even during the day time, you know something is off. A part of me wants to attribute this to heat, another part is wondering if people just aren’t that interested. I didn’t hear many good reviews walking throughout the park, even during the nighttime. Vibes were…strange. Maybe people were just exhausted. I can say though that a good chunk of my friends thought it was the worst year they had gone, even if they got in the repeats when all the scareactors came out. I don’t think it’s the worst year, but it is definitely near the bottom. There’s some things that just straight up suck and don’t work from a design standpoint. A Quiet Place and Bloodlines are flawed from their very inception. Weeknd and Ghostbusters simply aren’t scary. Dead Exposure and Texas Chainsaw are kinda bland design-wise. And Insidious and Monstrous, while both still fun, have a “been there, done that” feel to them, and both could’ve benefited with having a little more focus on certain elements. I have been proven very wrong before, but this year feels like a big ol’ “I told you so.” Nothing enters classic territory, other than Terror Tram (but hey, at least that’s finally getting love) — which I think this is the very first time I have EVER ranked it first out of a year’s lineup. Truthfully, I had a hard time with my rankings because I am splitting hairs because everything is underwhelming in many aspects (except for the Tram!). I’ve seen the event get 15-20% better throughout the run, but even that boost is still not going to fix a lot of problems.
Budget clearly isn’t the issue, I’d say 7 of these mazes (Bloodlines excluded) look top notch . I’d really like to know what happened here behind the screams. I thought last year was a step in the right direction after ’17-23, but I feel like it’s randomly a step back. I can’t keep harking back to ’07-’10, ’14, or ’16, something has to go very right here eventually, right? I’m having a hard time trying to figure out what HHN needs to do — when they experiment, they fail lately, and when they rely on the classic, they’re also failing. There seems to be just a general creative well being dried up here. If I didn’t have two groups of people I go with to Horror Nights, I don’t think I’d return this year, especially with how much I already paid for Express on a night that didn’t even really need it. However, with Early Access, I am pretty sold on using Express after my two years experimenting with it because it afforded me a fairly chill night and being able to hit all the rides. We easily could’ve thrown in Simpsons, Hippogriff and saw Dangerous Waters if we wanted to, but we wanted to repeat the earlier mazes, take pictures, and snack/sit breaks. But if I didn’t want to hit rides or see shows, would Express be worth it? Probably not. Especially if the lackluster mazes is all I have to look forward to. Until next time folks, see y’all in the fog!
C-
Last edited:
- Nov 7, 2016
- 1,764
- 2,051
Starway playing rock music or even hokey-spooky stuff like "Monster Mash" would be better than just the usual.
By summer mode, I mean the lagoon didn't seem as high on the final drop. The people in the front row looked like maybe someone ran by with a cup of water and just splashed them. Last year, I was drenched from head to toe in the front row like someone came with 6 buckets and just dunked them on me mercilessly.
Ah okay. Well to be fair, the first dip & final drop are fairly dry. The actual wetness is the small dip inside after the big lift hill. That varies, however if your on the sides of row 1/2, you won't be dry. Middle of the row is fairly safe.
I should tell them someone complained it wasn't wet enough for the current weather lol
