Halloween Horror Nights 24: Reviews & Photos

[Lucky Planet]

I don't get the hate for FDTD. The temple rooms were great because the hiding spots were so unnoticeable. I got scared a few times and the beginning and ending scenes were probably the best rooms of the event. Whatever floats your boat but I liked it

I don't hate Dusk as much as Roanoke or Dracula, but the only thing I didn't like was the lack of different rooms. how come they didn't even have the room full of weapons (from both the show and movie) how come we never saw the RV or the priest? where was Carlos and the room where he talked to santanico in the show? (the room with the chair and the mirrors)

the caves were cool but they relied too much on them. i do like the vampies in the house a lot more than dracula or the cannibals, I do. but they could have had at least 3 or more of the rooms to be different.

 

[RogueAntilles]

It's all to each his own.

I don't get FDTD being the weakest. I've gone through Roanoke 5 times and it's slowly going down my list. It's a cool story/theme but the actors aren't scary to me whatsoever. I also dont find the word "meat" funny or as amusing as others do. Plus the scare spots are so easy to anticipate. FDTD my couple runs actors were popping out left and right. It might have gotten a tad repetitive but hey they were actually trying to scare me and present.

It is nice that NONE of the houses downright suck.

Yeah I would love to go through AVP now and see the apparently brilliant changes they made. I wanted to love that house too much lol

A few changes I loved with AvP.

-Lots of fog in face huger tube makes it look more organic.

-Female in egg hallway telling you to get the hell out of here.

-Face hugers on actors

-Predators reset a lot faster and are more aggressive.

-It's MUCH louder than the first 2 weekends.

 

[Teebin]

Slightly off subject, but I was looking at some pics of HHN Hollywood and there's what appears to be dozens of mannequin monster vignettes erected in the streets. What's with that? Are scare actors too expensive out there?

 

[Brian G.]

Slightly off subject, but I was looking at some pics of HHN Hollywood and there's what appears to be dozens of mannequin monster vignettes erected in the streets. What's with that? Are scare actors too expensive out there?

No, they have them out there. They just use the mannequins to fill the street more.

 

[Hockeyman55]

MASKerade Unstitched by Mike Sperduto, on Flickr


Face Off by Mike Sperduto, on Flickr


Face Off by Mike Sperduto, on Flickr

 

[shiekra38]

I don't hate Dusk as much as Roanoke or Dracula, but the only thing I didn't like was the lack of different rooms. how come they didn't even have the room full of weapons (from both the show and movie) how come we never saw the RV or the priest? where was Carlos and the room where he talked to santanico in the show? (the room with the chair and the mirrors)

the caves were cool but they relied too much on them. i do like the vampies in the house a lot more than dracula or the cannibals, I do. but they could have had at least 3 or more of the rooms to be different.

Purely speculation, but I imagine A&D wasn't too passionate about this house...

 

[Brian G.]

Purely speculation, but I imagine A&D wasn't too passionate about this house...

Aiello said this during the first Compound Meet-Up that this house was added later into the event's design process. He had only seen the movie at that point and Creative started designing the house based on what they had seen in the movie.

So if I were to take my best guess, they designed the opening scenes, the finale, and waited for the show to premiere to hammer out the rest; which makes sense since the house's beginning and end has been praised, whereas the middle has fallen flat to many.

Furthermore he answered another question unknowingly, but we all pretty much assumed - This house wasn't added by Creative but by the Marketing side.

 

[Cole]

That sucks, You can obviously tell they didn't give a s**t about any of the IPs besides AVP and halloween. For every 3 or 4 forced IP's there is always one passion project. Gigantic shame because I bet if A&D got to pick all the IP's they'd probably all be passion projects. Down with marketing!!!!

 

[Brian G.]

That sucks, You can obviously tell they didn't give a s**t about any of the IPs besides AVP and halloween. For every 3 or 4 forced IP's there is always one passion project. Gigantic shame because I bet if A&D got to pick all the IP's they'd probably all be passion projects. Down with marketing!!!!

I wouldn't say they didn't care, they obviously don't want to have any house be frowned upon. It's not like they all get together and say "OK, which house can we get the guests to really despise".

 

[Teebin]

That sucks, You can obviously tell they didn't give a s**t about any of the IPs besides AVP and halloween. For every 3 or 4 forced IP's there is always one passion project.

I know for a fact that this is not true at all. You would be surprised at how pragmatic and professional they are about the entire event.

Gigantic shame because I bet if A&D got to pick all the IP's they'd probably all be passion projects. Down with marketing!!!!

Marketing's job is to fill the event with people. From what I am hearing, they have done a lovely job of that this year, supported by the work of A&D and word-of-mouth.

 

[Cole]

They care about what looks good next to another or what's new. They are the reasons why dracula untold and FDTD are houses along with the third year of the walking dead. They probably weren't the ones looking into AWIL, AVP or even Halloween right off the bat. Of course they aren't trying to make guests angry (TWD aside) but then again it's all in money and profitability now, half the reason why the event has fallen in quality these past few years. A&D should be proud of that they've done but they should be proud of what THEY wanted to do

 

[shiekra38]

I wouldn't say they didn't care, they obviously don't want to have any house be frowned upon. It's not like they all get together and say "OK, which house can we get the guests to really despise".

Certainly not, but I think there is something to be said in regards to passion when examining a house like FDTD vs. Halloween or AVP...certainly they don't want any house to flop..but some are..less inspired

I still think they did a good job with what they had...I was expecting nothing from this house

 

[Cole]

Could you imagine being signed on to work for the Dracula untold haunted house? Would you really be that excited to do it while your pals are messing with alien puppets in the room next to you? These are questions that keep me awake at night

 

[shiekra38]

Could you imagine being signed on to work for the Dracula untold haunted house? Would you really be that excited to do it while your pals are messing with alien puppets in the room next to you? These are questions that keep me awake at night

Weeell I don't know if that is how that works...anyone know more about that process?

 

[Cole]

Weeell I don't know if that is how that works...anyone know more about that process?

I heard there were different teams for different houses but I'm probably wrong

 

[Lucky Planet]

That sucks, You can obviously tell they didn't give a s**t about any of the IPs besides AVP and halloween. For every 3 or 4 forced IP's there is always one passion project. Gigantic shame because I bet if A&D got to pick all the IP's they'd probably all be passion projects. Down with marketing!!!!

I wouldn't say they didn't care, they obviously don't want to have any house be frowned upon. It's not like they all get together and say "OK, which house can we get the guests to really despise".

well it is clear that marketing might be thinking "Money Money money baby!!! mo' money for us" lol
and it is clear that our future is in IPs, IPs are going to lead the way from now on. And, technically that is not a bad thing.

Ips are not automatically a bad thing, But I just don't get why, After at least 3 years, where Universal and Marketing see the huge amount of positive feedback that the older IPs get, (or IPs with a following) why do they still try to use HHN as a marketing device for new IPs?
(Im talking about 2007, 2013 and 2014)

they don't even really make sense. they want money but they want to risk it with promotional houses? it just doesn't, it does not make sense to me.
Everyone loves SAW, and everyone loved the Saw house, Everyone loves American Werewolf and the house was loved. 2007 was like the dream come true for horror movie fans. like, Why bother with stuff like FDTD

I know I am ranting and I am being negative and i'm talking bad about these houses that people worked hard on making. But, I just can't understand, If they want to only use IPs for name recognition, and they want to sell as many tickets as they can.
Then why not stick to all the IPs that people love already? Im ranting and I am repeating myself but I just wish I understood how they are doing things.
if I wanted to sell out an event, I wanted to only use Movie properties, Wouldn't it make sense for me to do research on what people love the Most, and bring it to that event? and keep bringing those loved movies year after year?

 

[MrRoamer]

At some point it becomes a diminishing rewards deal. If you already have a ton of people showing up for one of the big popular IP houses (I feel there have been 1 house since 2011 and 2 houses more recently in this category) at some point you actually end up costing yourself money in the end. This year we have AvP and Halloween, arguably some of the biggest Horror movies around, would it really draw a lot more people if we had Friday the 13th, Nightmare, etc. They would most likely be getting roughly the same number of people in the park (especially if they max capacity). They would then burn the IP for a year where it could be used later or cause Walking Dead syndrome. It really does make sense for them to do experimental/promotional type houses with those. It brings extra money that likely would not have been spent on seeing the movie or show. I feel like last year if they hadn't had CitW and Evil Dead we would not have gotten the huge success that was AWiL.

 

[Cole]

But who is going to the event for specifically FDTD or Dracula untold? There isn't even marketing for them (billboards, commercials ect). I'm definitely fot IPs they just have to have a purpose, can't just have the whole "there are recognizable characters and environments" spiel to warrant them. Those should be a plus to something not the main goal. Takes a ton of heart from the event

 

[MrRoamer]

There is always a chance that the house will resonate and knock it out of the park. I've heard a few people that do like these houses, and FDTD was a good movie so there was a chance it could have been good. I agree that the pre-movie houses generally aren't my favorites Wolfman, Dracula Unleashed, and somewhat Silent Hill (was too split between movie and game for me) definitely are not in my list of best houses. Should all the houses be good yes, but I don't feel like they have ever done as little as they could with a house other than the house that was completely pitch black because of extreme circumstances. Wasn't it not too long ago that everyone was saying Giggles and Gore was going to be terrible because it was the smallest house ever and they pulled all the budget away from it? As long as they do have the superstar houses (IP or not) to pull the guests it, allows them to fill the parks while at the same time take chances with other houses without extreme risk.

My main points are:
Who is going to HHN for these probably not many, myself included.
Does it matter they are based off of an unknown/forgotten/unpopular IP, doubt it since I've never seen Roanoke the movie before and the risk of an IP being bad is just as good as an original
Do they increase the house count, Yes
Is there potential for them to be amazing houses, always.
Can these houses drive profits for the IP either in movie sales or increased viewership, Yes. Again in my extreme case I do not like werewolf movies, without the AWiL house I most likely would have not watched that movie unless someone told me I absolutely needed to.

 

[Teebin]

But who is going to the event for specifically FDTD or Dracula untold? There isn't even marketing for them (billboards, commercials ect). I'm definitely fot IPs they just have to have a purpose, can't just have the whole "there are recognizable characters and environments" spiel to warrant them. Those should be a plus to something not the main goal. Takes a ton of heart from the event

I wouldn't be surprised if they had special advertisements on the Latino channels down there, especially the channel that FDTD appears on. Anyone here watch those channels?