Halloween Horror Nights 31 (UOR) - Reviews, Photos, & Videos

[Neo]

One pic from each of the 6 houses on the UTH Tour in the spoiler tag. Each is an allowed/cameras up photo.

You are allowed to take a ton of pictures this year and the only areas you aren't are pretty much big surprises and/or "the endings" like Monsters. On our tour, since we didn't pass the facade of Bugs and came in after the outdoor hallway we were told we were avoiding the facade since it was "off limits" was complete BS since you can take all the pics you want walking up to the house and nobody stops you. One room we were asked to not include some IP stuff in our photos and then a random hallway we were told, "No photos in this room....for some reason, not sure why." Almost everything else was fair game other than the false wall/scrimm scares that you could see through with the lights on and stuff. Oh, and the "facades" for Freaky and The Black Phone which were the most boring facades in history and no real loss.

Spoiler

 

[Returning-The-Reaction]

All right, I finally got the chance to head over to Universal to check out this year's event. This is my 17th non-consecutive year of attendance.

Overall, I think this year's houses are mostly underwhelming/disappointing - with one emphatic exception. However, I think the collective scarezones this year are the best the event has produced in many, many years. In fact, I think one of them is the single best zone at Horror Nights since at least HHN25, and possibly even going back to HHN20. Taking the entire event into consideration, it's very top-heavy with most of the weight being carried by about six of the houses/zones.



House Ranking (tiered)

1. Dead Man's Wharf: Winter's Wake -- I mean, come on. Can I really add anything to what's already been said about this absolute beauty? I love the lighthouse and I especially love the smell in here. Totally reminds me of JAWS, including the boathouse, and brings back so many fond memories. The only thing keeping this house from joining my all-time top rated houses? It's just not scary enough. But, a treat to experience nonetheless.
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2. Universal Monsters: Legends Collide -- The set design, while quite repetitive, is top-notch. The smell in here is memorable. Contrary to the majority's experience in this house, the scares have been very hit or miss for me. I'm not a fan of the creature design of any of these monsters. The singular Classic Monster focused houses of HHN 19 are still my favorite Monster houses, followed by 29's house.
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3. Halloween -- All of the repeated scenes from the 24 house are of lesser quality. Most of the new scenes don't really add anything of substance. I do enjoy the Smith's Grove patient escape scene addition. I like the Loomis in here, too. The different sized Michaels whom all seem to scare with varying levels of aggressiveness pale in comparison to the 24 version. It's still a decently scary house, though.
4. Fiesta de Chupacabras -- Cool masks, don't hate the Chupacabra design either. Set design is good. Scareactor timing in here hasn't been good for me. Also, too many times I've gone through and seen unmanned puppets just sitting in the dark.
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5. Descendants of Destruction -- It's okay, I guess. I don't find it particualry imaginative, creative or scary - but I don't hate the house. With low wait times, I won't hesitate to go through again.
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6. The Weeknd: After Hours Nightmare -- Not my cup of tea. I like many of the lighting choices in here. I think some of the actors could use some work on their timing.
7. The Horrors of Blumhouse (3) -- I've had varying experiences through this one. Sometimes, the Freaky actors are really going for it and bringing the intensity, while other times it's the Black Phone actors. I've yet to see consistent energy levels from both sides of the house. After my first time through this house, I was ready to rank it much higher, but I've only had worse experiences each time since.
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8. BUGS: Eaten Alive -- I like the opening scene. But, I don't find bugs scary, I don't find this house humorous, and I especially don't enjoy the walk to get to the house. This house just isn't for me. I probably won't bother again.
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9. Hellblock Horror -- Yikes. This is just a bore for me. No real creative choices. The actors have barely anything to work with. I wasn't a fan of Havoc and this house comes across like a watered down version of those houses. I will say that on one of my walk-throughs, the Yeti violently swiped in my face two or three times through copious amounts of fog. Seemed a bit dangerous, but being caught off guard is something that happens less and less frequently at HHN and I absolutely loved it.
10. Spirits of the Coven -- Yeesh. I was very excited about this concept when I first heard about it. What a massive letdown from what I was hoping for. I can't quite put my finger on why nothing seems to work in here, but it's a huge swing and a miss.



Scarezone Ranking (tiered)

1. Graveyard: Deadly Unrest -- I love every single thing about this zone. THIS is Halloween. A perfect year to feature this zone. All of the actors in here are awesome. Consistently great energy in the creepiest environment the streets have seen in many years. Kudos to everyone involved.
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2. Scarecrow Cursed Soil -- This would be my #1 zone in many, if not most, of the past ten event years. The costumes and masks in here are great. Some solid actors in this zone, too. I wish they had built a better barn. I also wish the actors up on the platforms were slightly less elevated. They are very hard to see after dark. As others have stated, this zone suffers from a lack of space and crowding much of the night.
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3. Sweet Revenge -- A candy-inspired lesser version of 25's Psychoscareapy zone. I don't find this zone scary, creepy or even that much fun. Some fun costumes/masks, though. Odd choices in music/sfx. I could take the zone or leave it.
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4. Conjure the Dark -- Some excellent creature design over here. Still very crowded. Too crowded. Actors aren't aggressive enough for my taste. While I do enjoy heavier music, I'm not sure it fits the vibe of this zone. Again, odd choice for me.
5. Horrors of Halloween -- It's fine. Zones in this location just don't really work. The only one I've ever enjoyed here was Path of the Wicked from 18. I don't know what they could really do to improve this zone/area. Like I said, it's fine. But, not worth going out of one's way to experience.


I haven't had time to check out either show yet.

 

[Jakemeister]

Finally have done everything reviews are as follows. Overall opinion is, that this is a neutral year. It's not bad, but it's not great. Houses overall are very visually appealing, but aren't scary to me. I'm sure my ranking will change...

1. Legends Collide: Really good house, the way the sets flow together cohesively really draws me in. The scares tend to be very consistent across multiple runs, and that's something that isn't the case for everything else. I also am connected with the IP and found the Egyptian set really fun.

2. Descendants: This house is a REALLY great blend of grungy, engaging sets, and good scares. I've ran it twice and my big complaint is that it seems very cast dependent, and I'm not wild about that. If both of my runs were consistent with each other it'd probably be my no. 1

3. Weeknd: Honestly, I'm NOT super connected to the IP, I like the artist music, but don't follow it as much as others do. With that, this is actually a GOOD house. It's solid, consistent, and has innovative scares. I think it's arguably a must hit.

4. Dead Man's Pier: It's good, I don't think its the 2nd coming of our Lord & Savior, Scarecrow the Reaping, but it's good. The sets are elaborate, and it is art, but I've gone through better visually appealing houses at the event this year and at competitor's this year.

5. BUGS: This is the scariest house of the event to me, but it loses a lot of luster during the day time and that really detracts from its over all score. When it works, it's scary, but you have to time that run JUST right to get it to work. Otherwise it's entirely too hokey.

6. Blumhouse: If the whole house was as good as Blackphone it'd be my number 2. But the Freaky portion is pretty average at best, so it really brings the whole house down. Still a really good, intense house.

7. Chupacabra: I like the theme & sets of this house a lot, but just do not find it scary. The thing with my entire middle of the pack from 4-7 is they're all AVERAGE, and I really don't like HHN being average. That's a problem. Even the middle of the pack should be streets ahead of other events, and that's just not the case.

8. Halloween: They did this house before. It has like 2 good scenes. It's not scary, the mask don't fit a lot of the actors well. Halloween 2 was a much better house imo.

9. Hellblock Horror: It's not great, but credit where credit is due. They're out here and they are HUSTLING. Yeti scene alone bumps this up to my ranking.

10. Spirits of the Coven: Am I the only one who starts to think about how long this house is during the house, not because it's scary, but because it's so damn empty? The sets are fine, but it feels LONG, and not in a good way. It's because it's empty. Sorry about your luck

 

[Freak]

Now that I have returned from my trip to Orlando and have *mostly* recovered, here is my review of HHN 31! I was able to get at least two run-throughs of everything and got three runthroughs of Dead Man’s and Monsters. Reviewing in order of everything I’ve done on my first night.

Halloween: Being that I’ve gone to Hollywood’s HHN for a long time, I’ve seen every Michael Myers house that event has done, so this was very low on my anticipation list. Funny enough, this is my first Halloween house for Orlando’s event. While I would normally prefer Hollywood’s more linear approach to the film as well as Orlando’s 2014 house (From what I’ve seen on videos), I do kinda like the liberties they took to change it up. I like how they had a room for the Halloween logo which was a clever use of black walls. I also liked the “room” where you saw the Myers house. It really felt like a mini neighborhood in Pasadena, though I think the actual house was larger than what it actually is in real life since I live fairly close to the real Myers house. But yeah, this one surprised me. Really liked this house despite the Myers fatigue. Might be my favorite house for scares.

Rating: A-

Hellblock Horror: I was fully aware of the whole last-minute replacement situation. Went in with very low expectations and got a great run-through of this. Will admit the house wasn’t as great the second time. I was kinda thrown off by the black walls toward the end, but it kinda worked. It was fine.

Rating: C+

The Horrors of Blumhouse: The venue they placed this house in was….interesting. The whole experience, especially the Freaky section, felt very cramped but I think this worked to the house’s advantage. It made the scares a lot more intense and in-your-face. I’m curious to know how big the space was where Freaky was held because it felt really small. But hey, hit worked with the scares! I also felt like it was very odd how you literally went outside into a separate tent for the Black Phone section. It felt like we had two full-length houses in one. I was impressed with how they house designers were able to stretch the Black Phone into pretty much a full-length house without it feeling lazy and too repetative. I feel like what I’ve seen here would be what a Black Phone house would look like if Hollywood’s event had the space to do this as it felt very “Hollywood”. I do think I prefer this over Hollywood’s version as it’s a lot more intense and fleshed out overall, but I did prefer how Hollywood did Freaky though. Scares were a bit more intense than Hollywood’s for that section, but the environments felt more natural and realistic as opposed to just cramming in a locker hallway knowing darn well a high school locker hallway wouldn’t be that crammed in real life. But I enjoyed this. Would like to see more crammed houses like this again in the future as it helped with scares.

Overall: B

Fiesta de Chupacabras: Apparently this house had been ten years in the making? I remember the speculation for HHN 22’s event how they were building a Chupacabra house only for it to be bull-dozed for Transformers. I will say I loved that forced perspective facade of the Mexican village at the beginning. It gave a great false sense of depth to the size of the village. While I think this was the second most beautifully-designed house at HHN, unfortunately the scares just didn’t do it for me on both of my run-throughs of it. For one thing, the masked villagers didn’t quite make sense for the narrative of the house. What were they doing? Were they all trying to hunt down the Chupacabra? Is everyone a masked killer? It just felt very forced as they apparently had to have some live person scare actors to make up for Chup. Some of the Chupacabra puppets were fine, only one gave me a good scare. There were a few that were some AA Chupacabras, but they looked kinda bad. Remember the werewolf AA on top of a box in Hollywood’s AWiL house in 2014? It moved and looked exactly like that. Again, this house was beautiful scenically, but it just didn’t do it for me. It was okay.

Overall: C (Yes, I actually enjoyed Hellblock more than Chupacabra. Bite me.)

Universal Monsters: Legends Collide: Really liked Hollywood’s rendition, even though that was supposed to be the “sequel” to Orlando’s house here. What a fantastic facade. I’ve wanted to see an ancient Egyptian tomb be repped for a house at HHN as there’s a lot of cool mythology and environments to work with. I know a lot of people complained about the house being 80% of the Mummy but I don’t care. It takes place in the Mummy’s tomb. Of course it’s gonna be mostly the Mummy. I felt like it made sense to have both Dracula and Wolfman towards the last 1/3 of the house. Got some great scares in here and the set design was wonderful. It gave that sense of being in a tomb in Egypt. Really liked this one a lot.

Overall: A-

The Weeknd: After Hours Nightmare: Another IP house that I’ve done in Hollywood already. I noticed that both houses had the exact same rooms, but designed accordingly to the design team of their respective coasts. I probably would’ve enjoyed this more had I not done Hollywood’s but I felt like it was fine. Got a couple of scares, but I felt like it was slightly underwhelming. It didn’t help I suffered from a meh walkthrough both times (Thanks conga line!). Hollywood’s Weeknd house is far superior IMO. Also, the stilt walker(?) frog in the subway room didn’t appear in any of my walkthroughs. Boooo.

Overall: C

Bugs: Eaten Alive!: I know so many people were crazy hyped for this one, only to be kinda let down. I tempered my expectations once the reviews rolled in and once I went through it with that in mind, I enjoyed it. I don’t like bugs, but I’m not paralyzed with fear of them like I know a lot of people are. The whole story felt a little campy and tounge-in-cheek which is probably why a lot of people didn’t like it. I think what I was hoping for were some more AWiL-like bug puppets like a giant grasshopper lunging at me or something; like more scares involving actual bugs. I liked the maggot puppets as they reminded me of those hand puppet scares from Hollywood’s The Thing house from 2011. It was a little more reliant on actual people scare actors than I would’ve preferred but I felt like it was good campy fun.

Overall: B

Descendants of Destruction: I always enjoy the sprung tent houses because the designers always impress me with how much scenic and grand sets they’re able to cram into those small tents. This one was no exception. Gorgeous facade, incredible scenic (That crashed train was a sight to see!) and most importantly, very intense! This is absolutely one of my favorite houses this year!

Overall: A

Spirits of the Coven: What I like about HHN Orlando is how creative they are with their original content. They’re able to take something out of history and put their own “Halloweeny” twist to it. In this case, it was a prohibition-era themed house involving witches. The concept seemed pretty cool, but unfortunately I felt like it *kinda* suffered the same fate as Chupacabra: Beautiful set design and facade, but “eh” on scares. My run-throughs both times were just okay. I likely would’ve enjoyed this more if it wasn’t conga line the whole way. Also, it really strayed from the whole prohibition era speakeasy theme and veered too far into the occult setting. It kinda felt like they wanted to do a simple witch house but also a 20’s prohibition theme, couldn’t decide, and decided to cram both in there. Eh, at least they did better with the 20’s theming than Hollywood did with Horror Hotel. I really wanted to like this one for it’s creativity, but it was just….fine.

Overall: C+

Dead Man’s Pier: Alright, I saved the best for last! I made sure to get three runthroughs of this bad boy. This was my most-anticipated and boy was it fantastic. This might be one of the best houses simply in terms of set design in my seven non-consecutive years going to HHNO. The small courtyard at the beginning, the life-size village facades, the lighthouse that can be seen from the entire layout….the entire house layout is literally a mini seaside village. The wind and rain effects were just the cherry on top of the scary sundae to complete the package. While not the most intense house in my experience, the effort put into this was so spectacular, it’s my favorite house easily. The scuba diver costumes were AWESOME. I always love when HHNO does a grand-scale haunt to impress the eyes and this did not disappoint!

Overall: A (Would give it an A+ if the house was a little more intense)

Scarezones: They’re pretty good as they usually are. I think Sweet Revenge is my overall favorite with the atmosphere and characters. Scarecrow was my favorite just for getting a few quick scares. Pumpkin Lord is awesome. I’m too lazy to look up the name in the Hollywood section, but the costumes were really awesome and unnerving. So yeah, that’s about it.

Shows: Eh, I’m not much of a show guy. Decided to see one show each night. I liked the Ghouls one. Nightmare Fuel just wasn’t my thing. That’s about it. Lol

 

[Freak]

Double post since I ran out of characters:

Overall: As always, HHN Orlando brings the goods, but I’m gonna be real here: this wasn’t my favorite year. Had it not been for the obnoxious and inconsistent plexiglass last year, I would’ve said last year was better. I felt like 27 and 29 were stronger years for me while I would say it’s definitely better than 25 and (absolutely) 23. Was there anything clearly wrong with the event? Well, no. Maybe if I were to nit-pick, I felt it was how much more apparent black walls were this year. Even then, I felt like they were used appropriately and not lazily. Some of them even had some props in the dark so there’s something (Ahem, Bugs). I think the biggest factors for me was the IP line-up was pretty weak and the houses I should’ve loves (Spirits and Chupacabra) felt the weakest to me but the houses I should’ve hated (Halloween and Blumhouse) felt the strongest to me. It felt like that balance of maintaining stellar set design and scares was not set as well as previous years. Maybe I’m just getting used tom Orlando’s event.

Will I be back for HHN next year? I sure hope so! I don’t know what life is going to bring as I’ve got a lot of responsibilities and personal priorities to tend to as I’m getting older, so planning a trip just for this is going to seem unlikely every year. But for now, I’m going to expect not to make it and stick to Hollywood’s event. I still think HHNO is pretty good this year, but again, there were better years.

Overall rankings:

1. Dead Man's Pier
2. Descendants of Destruction
3. Halloween
4. Universal Monsters: Legends Collide
5. The Horrors of Blumhouse
6. Bugs: Eaten Alive!
7. Hellblock Horror
8. Spirits of the Coven
9. The Weeknd: After Hours Nightmare
10. Fiesta de Chupacabras

 

[erider]

After doing all 10 houses with Express last Sunday here is my top 10:
1. Dead man’s Pier (obviously, such a beautifully detailed house)
2. Bugs ( I laughed the whole way though the house, loved the retro feel and just plain fun)
3. Halloween ( big sets, nice to see it in a soundstage)
4. Descendants (nice theming and great scares)
5. Chupacabra (loved the village theming with the fireworks effects)
6. Monsters (this one had excellent scares and a lot of actors in it)
7. Blumhouse (the Black Phone part was really good)
8. Spirits (it was ok, nothing special)
9. Hellblock (it was better then I expected, had a little sci-fi feel to it)
10. The Weeknd (it was neither scary nor beautiful)

 

[Tobias]

For one thing, the masked villagers didn’t quite make sense for the narrative of the house. What were they doing? Were they all trying to hunt down the Chupacabra? Is everyone a masked killer?

To quickly answer your question, the entire festival is a big tourist trap set up by the villagers. In order to avoid the Chupacabra's attacking them, they lure in tourists (aka Us) with the festival and then attack, cut, gore etc. to use their blood and fresh corpses for offerings to the beasts. That's why there's a bunch of buckets of blood/blood markings at various doors.

 

[Freak]

To quickly answer your question, the entire festival is a big tourist trap set up by the villagers. In order to avoid the Chupacabra's attacking them, they lure in tourists (aka Us) with the festival and then attack, cut, gore etc. to use their blood and fresh corpses for offerings to the beasts. That's why there's a bunch of buckets of blood/blood markings at various doors.

That makes a lot more sense now. That's actually a pretty good story. Kinda wished there was a better way to hash it out more clearly. If they were able to do so and improve the chupacabra scares, the house would've been great! The scenic was already stellar.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

That makes a lot more sense now. That's actually a pretty good story. Kinda wished there was a better way to hash it out more clearly. If they were able to do so and improve the chupacabra scares, the house would've been great! The scenic was already stellar.

I saw a tourist victim character my first walk through. I didn't see them again. I'm willing to bet the victims are the first to go when staffing needs to be shuffled around.

 

[Freak]

I saw a tourist victim character my first walk through. I didn't see them again. I'm willing to bet the victims are the first to go when staffing needs to be shuffled around.

I didn’t see any victim scareactors that I recall in my two walkthroughs so that likely explains why the story felt so muddled.

 

[downunder]

For me:
1. Halloween - big fan of the movie, and this was executed well. I like the use of the Michael is closing music in the middle sections. I think that really added to the tension.
2. Dead Man's Pier - loved the sets, not very scary. Had to go through a second time to see the violin playing girl.
3. Legends Collide - good long maze with plenty of great elements.
4. Spirits of the Coven - I liked the sets and immersion of this one.

Those were the stand outs for me, the rest were all fun - even a bad HHN maze is better than most haunts out there. Weeknd was the one I connected with the least as I'm not super familiar with his discography. Though I have liked a few of what I have heard.

 

[Frank Drackman]

just some atmosphere pics form a quiet night

 

[Crypt Keeper]

I think this year is the most fun I've ever had at the event, and I will seriously miss it! But here are my rankings.


House Ranking - I'm not gonna lie, some of these houses were hard to rank!


1. Descendants of Destruction - Set design is top-notch for a Sprung Tent and features some intense scares. The bioluminescent cave finale is one of the coolest scenes I've experienced in a haunted house! The devolved humans are designed perfectly and are genuinely creepy! I love the intensity of this house and it never slows down! HHN has created something really good and I hope they take this house into consideration for designing intense houses! I would love to see this house win HOTY, but there's another one lower on my list that I think will win. The butcher scene, bioluminescent caves, and the subway trains throughout are what seal the deal for me! I absolutely fell in love with this house and wound up doing it 10 times!

2. Bugs: Eaten Alive - It's funny, it's gross, it's BUGS! But on a serious note, the 1950s Sci-Fi theme is awesome to me! The storyline is very intriguing and quite creative in my opinion. The set design is average, but the scares are unique and the house overall is very different from a typical HHN haunted house. I'm a sucker for anything 50's aesthetic, so this one was of course gonna rank high on my list. Did this one 10 times as well!

3. Universal Monsters: Legends Collide - VERY immersive as the set design is immaculate and is much more impressive than I thought it would be. The scares are hidden extremely well in there and slowly become more intense as you go further into Mummy's tomb. Also, that triple scare was crazy! Definitely an upgrade from Bride of Frankenstein Lives.

4. Dead Man's Pier - Wow. Just, wow. This house kind of felt like Carnival Graveyard with the open floor plan style, but I think this house does it a little bit better. It's really atmospheric and immersive! The house itself isn't very scary, but the set design, audio design, and overall story make up for it. Let's just say, I was seriously in shock the entire time. Just the sheer scale blew me away. The ship scene with the girl playing the violin is probably one of the coolest scenes I've experienced in an HHN house! Even though it's number 4 on my list, it's definitely HOTY material.

5. The Weeknd: After Hours Nightmare - This one genuinely shocked me! I had it at either number 9 or 10 on my hype list for the longest time, but it seriously proved me dead wrong. It's different from a typical HHN haunted house, which is cool. It can be kind of confusing if you're not familiar with The Weeknd or the music videos the house is based on. It's very strobe heavy, but it helps play into the storyline of the house! The mirror maze is really trippy and can throw people off easily! The queue is probably one of the best HHN has had, due in part to the soundtrack. The sets are pretty good and the scares are pretty good as well! The frog creature scenes are probably my favorite. Would shock me if Dawn FM doesn't happen next year.

6. Halloween - I know many people have this ranked A LOT lower, but it was genuinely good! The Myers house facade halfway through was pretty impressive and the house, in general, is quite different compared to the 2014 version. There are some pretty cool scares in there and can get you REAL good if you're fixated on something else. It's Michael Myers galore, but it's still a lot of fun! The mirror maze at the end was a nice touch!

7. Hellblock Horror - I went into this thinking it was gonna be complete garbage, but it wound up being pretty good! There are so many different creatures in there and it was fun to point out creatures from the past HHNs! It was obviously put together very quickly, but it seems Universal knew what they wanted and figured out how to create something fast. The set design is surprisingly good but feels a tad bit repetitive. The story, the scares, and the set design are all there, which makes it an awesome haunted house!

8. The Horrors of Blumhouse - This house is definitely an upgrade from the past Horrors of Blumhouse, but my only problem with it is the location. Fast and Furious isn't the best location for a haunted house, as it seems there isn't enough space to work with. The Freaky section isn't bad. It has some pretty cool sets and creative/hidden scares. It just felt a little bit short. The Black Phone section was amazing! It's dark, long, and scary! The Grabber is a pretty cool character to come in contact with! I really appreciate how the house is split into two, which makes it feel like two separate houses.

9. Fiesta De Chupacabras - The facade is insanely impressive! The set design and scares are immaculate in this, but it kind of falls flat. The characters are really cool looking, but the lack of Chupacabra scares was very odd to me. The Chupacabra design is very cool and scary, but the original design they were going for is MUCH better than what we got. This house isn't bad at all in my opinion. Sure it may fall flat toward the end, but it is still a fun haunted house to walk through!

10. Spirits of the Coven - I really like the story of this one! I love the prohibition era it's set in and really does a great job of throwing you into that era. I always love when real history plays a role in the story of a haunted house. It starts off pretty strong but evolves into a confusing mess. The first half is REALLY good, but the underground sections are kind of dull and confusing. It's surprisingly long for being in Soundstage 22. The witch queen at the end is pretty cool, but this house suffers due to the latter half of it. Again, this house isn't bad to me at all! It's still fun to walk through and offers an interesting experience.


Scarezones - It was pretty hard to rank the zones this year! They're all really strong!


1. Sweet Revenge - The whole 1950's theme is what sold it to me. The 1950s music and costumes were crazy cool! The soundtrack is amazing as well. Just the whole vibe of this zone is crazy cool!

2. Scarecrow: Cursed Soil - It seems like the Central Park zones are getting better and better every year! So many different characters in this zone. The farmhouse alone is impressive and just the immersive feel of this zone is incredible!

3. Horrors of Halloween - What a cool zone to walk through first! Offers a sneak peek into this year's event and helps set the mood and overall theme of this year's event! Seeing the Pumpkin Lord and the neon sign again was awesome.

4. Conjure The Dark - This one surprised me. Kind of expected all the characters to be similar to each other, but they are vastly different! The soundtrack is amazing and the little stage show is really cool!

5. Graveyard: Deadly Unrest - It has some really interesting characters and set pieces. A very atmospheric zone, it's kind of quiet and almost gives off a sad vibe. Overall, a really good zone!


Shows

1. Ghoulish! A Halloween Tale - Of course, it's not as good as Marathon of Mayhem, but it was still a lot of fun! The soundtrack and visuals are amazing!

2. Halloween Nightmare Fuel Wildfire - It's very similar to last year's show, but it's still fun to watch.


Overall, this year is amazing! I thought it was going to be hard for Universal to beat HHN 30, but they beat it! The houses and scarezones are very strong this year and are very different from each other! I loved the traditional Halloween theme and will seriously miss this year's event! But now I get to look forward to HHN 32 speculation season! Thank you to Universal for putting on an amazing year!

 

[HalfGlass]

Official rankings after my conclusion of spooky season…

EXCELLENT
1) Halloween
2) Dead Man’s Pier

VERY GOOD
3) Universal Monsters

GOOD
4) Blumhouse (I would say Freaky portion is bad, Black Phone portion is very good)
5) Descendants

AVERAGE
6) Weeknd

BAD
7) Coven

AWFUL
8) Hellblock
9) Chupacabras

UNBELIEVABLY BAD
10) Bugs

Going to echo what @Nick and a few others have said…this year something was missing. It’s not the lack of IPs so much as the lack of scares and uniqueness. I’d argue I enjoyed the event better last year despite the telegraphed scares from the plexiglass. This year was still fun, but a serious drop-down in quality YoY in my opinion.

As I mentioned before though - scare zones are top notch!

 

[Alsands]

Had a great time at HHN this year. I’m going to wait until my second trip to rank the houses but another great year! The scare zones were some of the best I have seen since going to the event. One thing I noticed for me is the more I go through a house the more I appreciate them. Quick thoughts The Weekend was super fun… loved what they did with Halloween , and DMP just wow!

 

[Alsands]

That makes a lot more sense now. That's actually a pretty good story. Kinda wished there was a better way to hash it out more clearly. If they were able to do so and improve the chupacabra scares, the house would've been great! The scenic was already stellar.

Agree , I feel it’s somewhat underrated. Coven starts out great.

 

[krazyhorrorkid]

Not sharing rankings yet,
But boys this year is MID.

Zones are stunning, best they have ever been by a long shot. That's nailed.
But houses seem so weird, lots of 6's and 7's and lots of meh's after walking out of some houses.
Not a bad year, but not the best.

 

[Vyrus]

My rankings from this past Friday night, knowing a lot of the changes that happened due to staffing, so will not rank zones since a lot were pulled into the houses.

A Tier
1. Monsters - great sets and scares, the house was definitely fully staffed and the cast were really into it.
2. The Weeknd - As many have said before, surprisingly fun house, a lot "blinding lights" to really disorient you and great set design.
3. Dean Man's Pier - Strictly ONLY this high due to set design, absolutely STUNNING house, and so beautiful, doing the BTS tour you really get to see the love they put into this house. Downside was the scares were severely lacking.

B Tier
4. Bugs - Great story behind the house, and really a great way to prey on people's actual phobia. The BTS tour was telling even with the lights on during the tour people were having panic attacks and needing to leave.
5. Descendants - Incredible set design for a sprung tent especially fitting 2 whole dang subway cars in there was awesome.
6. Halloween - Hard to go wrong with such an iconic character, fun house, very simple design, the last scene was the best scene in the whole house with the mannequins.

C Tier
7. Hellblock Horror - Knowing this house was put together in only 3 weeks and learning the back story that was put together in that time gave me a better appreciation for the house after the fact.

F Tier
8. Chupacabra - Just didn't do anything for me, unfortunately I missed a couple of the puppet scares and / or were not staffed when going through.
9. Coven - Cool design, house was just ok to me.
10. Blumhouse - Absolutely the worst house this year, and probably one of the worst in a few years, very disjointed and felt like absolutely no love was given into putting the house together.

Overall the year IMHO was very MEH. You could feel how disjointed the whole event felt overall and that it was truly missing an additional LARGE IP that would have helped (Evil Dead). Based on was the BTS guide told me that the house was done, completed ready to go and was torn down to the very floor and rebuilt in 3 weeks.

So this year was a B- effort, and that is only because Monsters was a great house, but none of this years houses can honestly stand up to the top 5 from even last year alone.

 

[Alsands]

Not sharing rankings yet,
But boys this year is MID.

Zones are stunning, best they have ever been by a long shot. That's nailed.
But houses seem so weird, lots of 6's and 7's and lots of meh's after walking out of some houses.
Not a bad year, but not the best.

I know Hellblock was supposed to be Evil Dead . Is it true that Coven was going to be Stranger things ?

If so this is probably why the event felt off this year. These two houses are not great … and this year the lack of major IPs hurt. We all love the originals but the IPs make the event feel bigger.

 

[Freak]

I know Hellblock was supposed to be Evil Dead . Is it true that Coven was going to be Stranger things ?

If so this is probably why the event felt off this year. These two houses are not great … and this year the lack of major IPs hurt. We all love the originals but the IPs make the event feel bigger.

The thing about Coven is that the house itself looks really good. It's just that the scares don't really work. If they just put more effort into the scares, it would've been a stellar house.

I didn't hate Hellblock. I thought it was fine for a last-minute replacement. It was just doomed to suffer from being just that: a last minute replacement.