Halloween Horror Nights 33 (UOR) - Speculation & Rumors

[ultimateforce]

HHN 28 changed my life to such a degree I completely changed my career to work in theme park design. If these clout chasers were so serious they could just apply to work at a scenic company.

 

[Brian G.]

Question for everyone in here, and I apologize as it’s not directly related to speculation. I’m trying to decide whether to go to Orlando or Hollywood this year. I don’t have the means to do both. I’ve been to Orlando in 16, 17, 18, 22 and 23. Never been to Hollywood. My wife and I make a trip out of it and do other things like a Disney Park, etc.. Just curious if it’s worth it to go out to California for the first time or stay with what we know in Orlando. Any insight is appreciated.

I really like Hollywood's event. It has a bit of grit to it.

But Orlando's event is definitely on another level. What's most important to you when it comes to what a haunt event offers?

 

[TVUpbm]

I think a big problem stems from an oversaturation of vloggers/bloggers. If everything does the same thing, how do you separate yourself? LEAK IT ALL.

Of course, not everyone is connected, so they'll just share what the milkman heard and not worry about accountability.

My issue continues to be that Universal™ no longer provides any kind of public hints / hype towards HHN, so any rumors can only be some degree of leaked proprietary information (excluding, maybe, trying to stretch the code names in the construction permits into speculation.)

It's no wonder people read too much into random replies from the HorrorNightsORL Twitter account at this point

 

[Brian G.]

My issue continues to be that Universal™ no longer provides any kind of public hints / hype towards HHN, so any rumors can only be some degree of leaked proprietary information (excluding, maybe, trying to stretch the code names in the construction permits into speculation.)

It's no wonder people read too much into random replies from the HorrorNightsORL Twitter account at this point

They never really did until it got into haunt season, though - which was around the Summer.

 

[Wesker69]

Also it was a completely different creative team back then too (RIP Rick Spencer)

 

[TheCodeMan95]

HHN 28 changed my life to such a degree I completely changed my career to work in theme park design. If these clout chasers were so serious they could just apply to work at a scenic company.

Living my dream lol

It may just be me, but I swear the vloggers got even worse with it last year. People like Kevin Heimbach and PCDev talking about how "they have sources, and Stranger Things will NOT be coming this year"

 

[Horror Lover]

Question for everyone in here, and I apologize as it’s not directly related to speculation. I’m trying to decide whether to go to Orlando or Hollywood this year. I don’t have the means to do both. I’ve been to Orlando in 16, 17, 18, 22 and 23. Never been to Hollywood. My wife and I make a trip out of it and do other things like a Disney Park, etc.. Just curious if it’s worth it to go out to California for the first time or stay with what we know in Orlando. Any insight is appreciated.

It's worth checking HHN Hollywood out at least once for Terror Tram.. you get to see iconic horror movie sets up close like the Bates Motel, the Psycho House and the Jupiter's Claim sets from Nope, if you're into film history..

 

[Legacy]

My issue continues to be that Universal™ no longer provides any kind of public hints / hype towards HHN, so any rumors can only be some degree of leaked proprietary information (excluding, maybe, trying to stretch the code names in the construction permits into speculation.)

It's no wonder people read too much into random replies from the HorrorNightsORL Twitter account at this point

My challenge of this take is that Universal hasn’t done hints in over a decade. Most of the current crop of fans weren’t around when Universal did do hints, so it’s not really a situation where “new” fans are replacing something they experienced. They’re replicating something they’ve seen fans do that garners attention.

Confession - I was the original Ifrit in 2012 on Instagram. I started the Ifrit because Universal hadn’t done clues since 2009 AND because August Wind/Emeric Balasco (the original fan clue giver) stopped giving clues after 2010. I was connected into the community already and actively followed HHN throughout the aughts. More so, the “Ifrit” was actually a collective of insiders (including Dr. Jimmy). Heather (mystiquephreeq - RIP) took over the Ifrit when the persona shifted to Twitter. All of those involved actively followed Universal when they actually did clues.

So, what we’re seeing a lot of now are fans who started attending AFTER 2012 replicating what fans do. They’ve done the research and know Universal did clues for a very short period of time (2004-2009) but they didn’t actually experience them. And I realize this sounds like a generation gap, but it is. I do not believe the “new” insiders popping up have the same motivations, because there is (typically) much less concern for accuracy.

 

[OhHaiInternet95]

Heather (mystiquephreeq - RIP)

Very sad to hear, I always enjoyed her posts. What happened to her, if I'm allowed to ask?

 

[Legacy]

Very sad to hear, I always enjoyed her posts. What happened to her, if I'm allowed to ask?

Still don’t know the details. It wasn’t expected though.

 

[Horror Lover]

My challenge of this take is that Universal hasn’t done hints in over a decade. Most of the current crop of fans weren’t around when Universal did do hints, so it’s not really a situation where “new” fans are replacing something they experienced. They’re replicating something they’ve seen fans do that garners attention.

Confession - I was the original Ifrit in 2012 on Instagram. I started the Ifrit because Universal hadn’t done clues since 2009 AND because August Wind/Emeric Balasco (the original fan clue giver) stopped giving clues after 2010. I was connected into the community already and actively followed HHN throughout the aughts. More so, the “Ifrit” was actually a collective of insiders (including Dr. Jimmy). Heather (mystiquephreeq - RIP) took over the Ifrit when the persona shifted to Twitter. All of those involved actively followed Universal when they actually did clues.

So, what we’re seeing a lot of now are fans who started attending AFTER 2012 replicating what fans do. They’ve done the research and know Universal did clues for a very short period of time (2004-2009) but they didn’t actually experience them. And I realize this sounds like a generation gap, but it is. I do not believe the “new” insiders popping up have the same motivations, because there is (typically) much less concern for accuracy.

You did a great job at fooling us and throwing us off in regards to the Ifrit's true identity.. especially when you seemed annoyed that Ifrit would leak info before you could come up with your specific clues for said info..

 

[Legacy]

You did a great job at fooling us and throwing us off in regards to the Ifrit's true identity.. especially when you seemed annoyed that Ifrit would leak info before you could come up with your specific clues for said info..

TBH - Even though Heather and I worked together on the clues, she would always push to publish them before I really wanted her to. So my annoyance wasn’t really an act.

 

[Wesker69]

Heather was impatient lol, but she was amazing

 

[Tobias]

My challenge of this take is that Universal hasn’t done hints in over a decade. Most of the current crop of fans weren’t around when Universal did do hints, so it’s not really a situation where “new” fans are replacing something they experienced. They’re replicating something they’ve seen fans do that garners attention.

Confession - I was the original Ifrit in 2012 on Instagram. I started the Ifrit because Universal hadn’t done clues since 2009 AND because August Wind/Emeric Balasco (the original fan clue giver) stopped giving clues after 2010. I was connected into the community already and actively followed HHN throughout the aughts. More so, the “Ifrit” was actually a collective of insiders (including Dr. Jimmy). Heather (mystiquephreeq - RIP) took over the Ifrit when the persona shifted to Twitter. All of those involved actively followed Universal when they actually did clues.

So, what we’re seeing a lot of now are fans who started attending AFTER 2012 replicating what fans do. They’ve done the research and know Universal did clues for a very short period of time (2004-2009) but they didn’t actually experience them. And I realize this sounds like a generation gap, but it is. I do not believe the “new” insiders popping up have the same motivations, because there is (typically) much less concern for accuracy.

Well, you learn something new every day. Well done on Ifrit, even though I found myself a little annoyed at the long-windedness of their clues, that was probably the intent, wasn't it?

And agreed, considering the newer folk don't have as much concern for accuracy, it makes it a tad more obvious they're doing it for the attention. Whatever will get eyes on them, regardless of if the rumors are correct or not. Combine that with the folks who're more focused on the hype of speculation, and you get a whirlwind of muddled misinformation.

Something which probably didn't help the matters is when Chucky was announced on Halloween, clearly an outlier in terms of announcements, but it makes folks think that things can be hinted at much earlier than usual, even if that's not the wisest of ideas and led to the self-inflicted chaos of last year.

 

[Legacy]

Well, you learn something new every day. Well done on Ifrit, even though I found myself a little annoyed at the long-windedness of their clues, that was probably the intent, wasn't it?

And agreed, considering the newer folk don't have as much concern for accuracy, it makes it a tad more obvious they're doing it for the attention. Whatever will get eyes on them, regardless of if the rumors are correct or not. Combine that with the folks who're more focused on the hype of speculation, and you get a whirlwind of muddled misinformation.

Something which probably didn't help the matters is when Chucky was announced on Halloween, clearly an outlier in terms of announcements, but it makes folks think that things can be hinted at much earlier than usual, even if that's not the wisest of ideas and led to the self-inflicted chaos of last year.

Yeah, the Ifrit character was intentionally pompous and arrogant. Always was. The structure of their clues, and the way it would engage fans, was all part of its personality.

I started doing clues as “myself” (as far as “Legacy” is “me”) because the Ifrit character was a lot to maintain. Heather adored the character though, and was a natural in the best possible way.

 

[Wesker69]

It was something that helped distract her from real world (& personal medical) problems. It was a fun escape for her.

I still have the 2009 HOS shirt she surprised me with. It was the Vampire year, so.... yea I wore it on the first day of rehearsals for Scary Farm 2022 (since I was in Bloodline).

 

[TheCodeMan95]

As a "new" fan (2016), I'm very sad to have missed this era of spec. It's nice to know that the spec season wasn't always hindered by people posting things like "THE THING COMING TO HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS" followed by an article about how Mike Aiello likes The Thing.

 

[Wesker69]

"THE THING COMING TO HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS" followed by an article about how Mike Aiello likes The Thing.

Well.... thats more or less how the sequel house happened in 2007 & they jumped on the prequel film for a house in 2011 for promo hype.. but yea.

Fun Fact: the 2011 house featured the carrot monster from the original "Thing From Another World" movie as the final scare

 

[hunnylvr]

We will almost certainly get an ITM article titled "New Ghostbusters Attraction Coming to Universal Orlando!"

I've never used a step counter at HHN before, but I may do it this year just to see how many 10s of miles we walk lol

I use a step counter, and it's INSANE. Keep in mind, I ALWAYS have the express pass which actually helps eliminate a ton of steps that people without it have to endure (those crazy queue lines.. jesus!). However, even with Express, we've walked around 23,000 steps each night which translates to almost 10 miles.

 

[hunnylvr]

Question for everyone in here, and I apologize as it’s not directly related to speculation. I’m trying to decide whether to go to Orlando or Hollywood this year. I don’t have the means to do both. I’ve been to Orlando in 16, 17, 18, 22 and 23. Never been to Hollywood. My wife and I make a trip out of it and do other things like a Disney Park, etc.. Just curious if it’s worth it to go out to California for the first time or stay with what we know in Orlando. Any insight is appreciated.

Honestly, I'd stick with Orlando. I live in Chicago, and I travel multiple weekends for HHN in Orlando. Over the years, we thought we'd mix it up and take one of those weekends and go to LA to see the Hollywood version of HHN. I'm not trying to upset anyone - but I think Orlando is WAY better. I've done Hollywood 3 times now, and I think I'm done doing it. Orlando has a better vibe, the layout is better and keeps you immersed (Hollywood is setup where you have to go down these massive escalators to get from one section to another, and, for us, it really crapped on the vibe), and then you have the originals that Orlando comes up with which Hollywood doesn't. You want the most for your $$.. go with Orlando.