HHN 24: The Walking Dead: End of The Line

[Cole]

This mention of a "dark age" of HHN is a little over stretched. We're still talking about a world class halloween event regardless if it's not AS good as years before. Perspective people.

World class sure but quality outside of theming wise? I promise you in the future when we have amazing houses and scare zones we will all look back at this like we do the dark ages of universal (escape, shrek, rockit) am I being overdramatic? Probably but I love this event as much as you all do and since we are in "the walking dead era" I'm frankly disappointed

 

[USO92]

World class sure but quality outside of theming wise? I promise you in the future when we have amazing houses and scare zones we will all look back at this like we do the dark ages of universal (escape, shrek, rockit)

You do realize that when you say dark ages of Universal you are referring to a time where Universal was losing money, scratching and clawing (RRR, RotM, Shrek) to draw people in, and could have gone bankrupt without Comcast and Potter? You are comparing that to two years of "disappointing" Halloween Horror Nights due to some unsatisfaction. My friend you have no foundation to stand upon in your argument. Universal is not backpedaling with HHN...They are not losing money...In fact the only reason they continue the way they are is because they are making money. They are not scratching and clawing to bring people in. I understand what you are saying but you have no valid argument when you compare an unsatisfactory few years to a time that was devastating to Universal Orlando Resort.

Don't be melodramatic about this. The world is not on fire and HHN is in no way on the brink of destruction. Keep calm and scare on my friend.

 

[Dr. Raymond Holmes]

I havent said much within in the last couple days.. I never seen a single episode of TWD but I wish they made an original house the size they might make this maze.

 

[JungleSkip]

amazing houses

Last year's houses were pretty damn amazing. As were 2011's. I agree that the destruction of HHN is much ado about nothing. Now, the event has changed focus, no doubt. It's far more property driven, which I get some people don't like and I get that argument. But "dark ages" is a gross overstatement for those that remember the real bad times at UOR.

 

[Cole]

yeah sorry, "the walking dead era" would be a better name. But back on topic, do any of you think more actors will equal to more scares? Could a open set with 10 to 12 zombies be as frightening in your mind then a hallway with them popping out at you?

 

[Shucker]

Dark Ages, really???? So it hasn't been the best years in your opinion and all of a sudden its the dark ages. If you look at the HHN facebook where many were saying that everyone is posting terrible comments about about WD, there is about 100 total people complaining, but close to 5,000 likes when you combine the two WD announcements. I get it, the good old days were better. I liked Epcot 20 years ago better, but I am not going to say its the dark ages because there is characters in Norway.

I dont really care about the complaining so much since everyone has strong opinions because they like it so much, but I do want people that are new and thinking about going to HHN for the first time, that it really is an awesome event. If you have never been it will really blow you away with movie quality sets and great shows. The cast of RHPS last year was amazing.

Ignorance my be bliss, but so is perspective.

 

[JungleSkip]

I liked Epcot 20 years ago better, but I am not going to say its the dark ages because there is characters in Norway. .

No, there are a lot of other reasons why it's the EPCOT dark ages.

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

 

[MrRoamer]

Definitely don't think we are anywhere near a dark ages scenario. If you think about it these past few years have had some other reasons for feeling less planned out. As always I am no insider, but I have been going to HHN since 99 and have seen it change over the years along with observations of the parks as a whole.

1) Amity is gone and has been constantly under construction. Amity was always home to one of the houses and usually had at least one scarezone or special thing going on there
2) A big chunk of minor transitional landscape has been under construction. Springfield and Transformers construction has definitely made things more difficult for complex scare zones (possibly even a house)
3) Crowds have grown significantly vs even just a few years ago.
4) It has become a big deal

If you think about those three items you can see why scarezones have been non-existent or less impressive than before. Plus there are some people that have been wanting the scareactors to be hidden throughout the park rather than in just a few isolated areas (I am one of those). The crowds are way bigger than they have been and take up quite a bit more space than before, plus they are more diverse than before (and younger :-X).

Granted we have seen some lackluster houses recently or ones that had tons of potential and just weren't executed as well as they should have been, but I also think we have seen some most excellent ones.

 

[TylerDurden]

Dark Ages, really???? So it hasn't been the best years in your opinion and all of a sudden its the dark ages. If you look at the HHN facebook where many were saying that everyone is posting terrible comments about about WD, there is about 100 total people complaining, but close to 5,000 likes when you combine the two WD announcements. I get it, the good old days were better. I liked Epcot 20 years ago better, but I am not going to say its the dark ages because there is characters in Norway.

I dont really care about the complaining so much since everyone has strong opinions because they like it so much, but I do want people that are new and thinking about going to HHN for the first time, that it really is an awesome event. If you have never been it will really blow you away with movie quality sets and great shows. The cast of RHPS last year was amazing.

Ignorance my be bliss, but so is perspective.

Um...a bit of an overreaction maybe? He literally just said in the post above yours that he misspoke. Relax.

The thing is, no matter how much we talk negatively about the event, almost all of us show up anyway. And the general public come in droves. Thats Universals goal here, and thats why Ive defended Walking Dead in the past. I just think its odd that they need to make TWD get the biggest house in history as a way to "sweeten the pot", and a PR video defending the decision...theyre acknowledging a level of distatse for it thats clearly wider spread than this message board alone. Or maybe we're reading it wrong and its all just a big marketing gimmick (rather than a justification). Either way, lets be glad there are 7 more houses to be announced.

 

[ralphoutloud]

The Walking Dead is all well and good, but Universal maybe caught what the main issue was last year. Zombies are great...but not when there are just 3 of them mulling around the street.

Zombies are only effective when you feel overwhelmed by them. They are not strong, powerful, fast or any other strong characteristic, their only menacing factor comes in numbers. I hope this house will solve that issue. The finale of last years house was utterly pathetic in the prison.

Not only with zombies but if feels 2012 and 2013 had a SEVERE cut in actors because there have been so many deadspots not just in the awful streets but the houses as well.

Finally, the zombies would be more effective if there was actual makeup and prosthetic work occurring. Universal Orlando can simply not do zombies well and it's been a problem since Zombie Gras...unmatched skin tones to awful masks where we can see natural faces and eyes beneath the corny $40 latex masks they're using have made the zombies so unbelievably unscary. The WD zombies on the Terror Tram in Hollywood blew every SA on the street in Orlando last year out of the water.

Fixing the makeup/prosthetic issue and increasing the numbers would surely make TWD or any zombie property more effective.

 

[graspthesun]

yeah sorry, "the walking dead era" would be a better name. But back on topic, do any of you think more actors will equal to more scares? Could a open set with 10 to 12 zombies be as frightening in your mind then a hallway with them popping out at you?

I wouldn't necessarily read bigger as larger in scale. They may be referring to length. Its likely a combination of both. Think a cellblock and a grocery store for scale and then the tunnel and the woods for length.

 

[Cole]

I wouldn't necessarily read bigger as larger in scale. They may be referring to length. Its likely a combination of both. Think a cellblock and a grocery store for scale and then the tunnel and the woods for length.

i'm sure there will be some giant "resident evil final room" sets where something like terminus could fit. Right now I expect this house to be more immersive then actually scary but hey, if they can put like 10 actors in one tiny room then I might be totally wrong and hopefully I am

 

[Shucker]

Fixing the makeup/prosthetic issue and increasing the numbers would surely make TWD or any zombie property more effective.

Completely agree. Some were better than others, but some have been really bad.

- - - Updated - - -

Um...a bit of an overreaction maybe? He literally just said in the post above yours that he misspoke. Relax.

Didn't think I said anything that was overreacting, but whatever. I wont use as many question marks next time.

 

[Lucky Planet]

I am kind of shocked that we are still getting 8 houses. they could have easily just made 7. And if the mega house is going to have so much inside it, does that mean we are going to get another "House of Horrors" type of house?

 

[Cole]

I am kind of shocked that we are still getting 8 houses. they could have easily just made 7. And if the mega house is going to have so much inside it, does that mean we are going to get another "House of Horrors" type of house?

Probably, there will always be a "budget" house per say but with a ton of focus coming to make this walking dead house as immersive as possible then yeah some houses are going to get pay cuts.

I honestly rather have one crappy house than for them to cut the budget for the scare zones. Want the zones to come back triumphant instead of slightly better

 

[Lucky Planet]

with the amount of ips they keep getting I dont think scarezones will ever come back triumphant again. Im not saying we wont get good zones but the focus now is all on getting those ips.
besides with the parade running I dont see how we could get the kind of zones we got before

 

[Clive]

Last year's houses were pretty damn amazing. As were 2011's. I agree that the destruction of HHN is much ado about nothing. Now, the event has changed focus, no doubt. It's far more property driven, which I get some people don't like and I get that argument. But "dark ages" is a gross overstatement for those that remember the real bad times at UOR.

I disagree... outside AWIL (which was also overrated), Cabin, and Evil Dead, the houses were pretty uninspired or outright bad. It's not so much a destruction of a HHN but a slipping of standards - again, this doesn't mean the whole property-driven thing. We had that in 2007 and 2009, and those years were fantastic. The difference is both in presentation (lots of creative theme/world building to those events to justify the properties) and actual execution (simply better, scarier, more realistic houses). See the quote below for an example of how the nitty gritty standards of the event have fallen... it's hard to really pick up on if you've only been attending a few years.

The Walking Dead is all well and good, but Universal maybe caught what the main issue was last year. Zombies are great...but not when there are just 3 of them mulling around the street.

Zombies are only effective when you feel overwhelmed by them. They are not strong, powerful, fast or any other strong characteristic, their only menacing factor comes in numbers. I hope this house will solve that issue. The finale of last years house was utterly pathetic in the prison.

Not only with zombies but if feels 2012 and 2013 had a SEVERE cut in actors because there have been so many deadspots not just in the awful streets but the houses as well.

Finally, the zombies would be more effective if there was actual makeup and prosthetic work occurring. Universal Orlando can simply not do zombies well and it's been a problem since Zombie Gras...unmatched skin tones to awful masks where we can see natural faces and eyes beneath the corny $40 latex masks they're using have made the zombies so unbelievably unscary. The WD zombies on the Terror Tram in Hollywood blew every SA on the street in Orlando last year out of the water.

Fixing the makeup/prosthetic issue and increasing the numbers would surely make TWD or any zombie property more effective.

This, so much this. The difference between Orlando and Hollywood's makeup/prosthetic work the past several years has been nothing short of staggering. And it wasn't always this way... think back to 2008's insane amount of prosthetic and top-tier costuming. Quite the drop-off in quality.

 

[Brian G.]

I will say when I went to Hollywood HHN's in 2012, I found a lot of the houses to better than their Orlando counterparts. The Texas Chainsaw maze was legit frightening enough to where my fiance had to stop and go to the side for a breather. But I don't wanna make this thread into a "Vs." conversation.

 

[Cole]

with the amount of ips they keep getting I dont think scarezones will ever come back triumphant again. Im not saying we wont get good zones but the focus now is all on getting those ips.
besides with the parade running I dont see how we could get the kind of zones we got before

I really don't see anything besides the purge becoming a scare zone. I'm expecting mostly original scare zones for this year

 

[melodiousdiscord]

I've heard a couple people say that a Walking Dead scarezone/street experience will be part of the house. Any ideas on whether some of it will actually be outside?