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Halloween in Florida - Part 1: Halloween Horror Nights.

Lofty

CF Legend
Hey all,

I'm gonna go and do a review of just the Halloween Horror Nights, Howl-O-Scream & Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Events in Florida. For YEARS, I've been wanting to go to these events and see if they live up to the hype they receive. So, this year, myself and Maddie decided to bite the bullet and go for it, so on the 20th October, we boarded our flight to Orlando for a fun-packed 2 weeks in lovely weather.

Halloween Horror Nights 22

Well, well reputed as the "Best Halloween Event", I was looking forward to it so much. This year was vastly different to past year's in terms of the actual experience. They never had "scare zones" (which are open areas that are themed to specific story lines with wondering scare actors in case anybody is wondering), instead, they had an overall take over of the whole park, leaving no safe-zones. So, throughout every turn, you'd bump into one of several different groups of monsters/maniacs that would try to scare you (and succeeded I may add). In my opinion, the overall street experiences Didn't work. This was the first year they'd tried it and the whole operation seemed totally messy and muddled up. You was being scared by a "Beast", then turn around and be chased by a Chainsaw Wielding Maniac. It didn't make sense, at all, which was a shame.

Street Experience Video:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZB0SpfiolA[/youtube]

I'll review each house in order of best to worst (in my opinion) & I will link to full POV's of each of the houses that were filmed by someone who was part of our group on the Youtuber meet up.


Haunted Houses

1) Gothic.
gothic1.jpg

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKGa-ynnQwI[/youtube]

One word to sum the whole attraction up would be: Incredible. It was a fantastic trip through a dilapidating church that's been inhabited by "protectors", all these compromising of anything from giant flying gargoyles to hunch-back bell ringer. It was absolutely amazing with some really good use of different levels, some attacks came from the floor, then the next second a flying human-bat would flutter over your head. It really was one of my favourites.


2) Dead End
hhn-dead-end-universal-831.jpg

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcYubHJ6lfM[/youtube]

Dead End told the story about *that* house at the end of the street that all the kids made horrific stories about, but what if the tales became true? Basically, you entered a GREAT facade of a broken down house and came into contact with numerous ghosts and creatures throughout. It was jam-packed with fantastic illusions and scares throughout. Some very clever lighting and different levels of paths made for a fantastic fun maze. It wasn't overly scary, but it was very well received by everyone that we spoke to who'd managed to get in.


3) House of Horrors
boo_house_horrors_1.jpg

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpxEVWRjFD8[/youtube]

House of Horrors was Universal's most infamous monsters brought to life. You entered a projection room of an old cinema and literally, "entered the screen", what comes after is a mind-blowing mix of UV lighting and a very clever disorientating layout. When the lightning struck, the black and white sets lit up in a very visually stunning way, the WHOLE attraction was black and white, it made for a great, unique experience. There was a lot of wind effects throughout too, really plunging you into an old black and white horror movie. I really loved this, being a fan of the origins of horror in movies, it was a great, solid attraction.


4) Alice Cooper: Welcome to my Nightmare.
640px-Alice_Cooper_Welcome_to_My_Nightmare.jpg

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT6GKadQSJ8[/youtube]

This was one of four of the IP attractions that didn't belong to Universal alone. I really wasn't looking forward to this, I'll be honest, it's one that I just wasn't excited about because I'm not really into his music. The best part was, it was GREAT. Really good. Once inside, you see a lot of scenes that represent his music (the songs are also playing so you know what it is). Think Poison as being a nurse with hypodermic needles sticking from her mouth as teeth as she is plunging unknown liquids into a man, and also two masked scary school kids for "Schools Out". It was VERY clever the way they had tied everything in. It was very enjoyable and didn't dry up no matter how many times you went in.

Now, this is where the mazes start to go a bit downhill, which is a shame, Maddie also felt this was that these last three, although being the "main ones" so to speak, were the weakest of the whole event.

5) Penn & Teller: New'kd Las Vegas.
Penn_and_Teller_New(kd)_Las_Vegas_3-D.jpeg

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sssLQi7OxbY[/youtube]

When the news that Penn & Teller were designing one of the mazes, me and Maddie were stupidly happy that we get to experience something they'd put their mind into. BUT, when we got there and were speaking to the PR department, it turns out, they didn't actually have all that much say in the matter, which was a bit of a let down, but still, we didn't let it bother us and went in with an open mind. Now, this maze was a 3D attraction, the term is thrown around a lot without explaining it; Basically, you're given some 3D glasses before you enter, then once inside, the paintings and costumes etc are all VERY bright colours, causing them to stand forward against the black walls, floors etc. It really does work. Now, P&T:NLV was just dull, to put it blatant. It really didn't work. It was meant to be the "Fun" maze of the year (HHN always adds a "fun" attraction thats more humorous for the whole family to enjoy), The sad thing was, it wasn't actually all that funny. It was left in a limbo between not scary and not funny, it just didn't do much at all, which is a complete shame. It just left you wondering through viewing brightly coloured paintings and seeing a mutilated chef, Elvis and hookers. It was just boring and bizarre. Sad.


6) Welcome to Silent Hill.
SHS.jpg

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ0DhEux0Gc[/youtube]

As a bit of a fan of the Silent Hill films & games, this was probably one of the most anticipated maze for me, I was very excited and seen s it was the first of the whole holiday, it REALLY left us both disheartened. You came into contact with a lot of the famous characters of the story, their costumes were great, theming was amazing, lighting was fantastic, but the overall experience was TINY and just left you thinning there could have been more. You were literally out the other side within 8 minutes or so, that's if the assize groups (one conga line) didn't stop halfway through. Due to the sheer amount of people that go to the event, every single attraction sometimes just STOPS, so you're stood, in the dark, doing nothing, waiting for it to move again, this happened EVERY time in Silent Hill, due to the funnelling of guests and different corridor widths, it was a BAD design flaw, and really hindered the overall enjoyment.


7) Walking Dead: Dead Inside.
640px-The_Walking_Dead_Dead_Inside.jpeg

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6OczGPZhLo[/youtube]

It was ****. That's all...


No, I'm not joking, it was just BAD. This was the maze the whole event was themed to and was the worst out of the whole lot. It was just SO bad. Nothing happened throughout, the zombies just walked at you slowly, obviously this was the nature of the zombies in hand, but, when you're at a Halloween Event and want to be scared, some spazzy walking idiot will not scare you. It just really failed at everything and due to it being REALLY open, even in the darkest of night, it was really bright in there. It was just so, so, so, so BAD.


Shows

Bill & Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure.

For anybody that knows anything about this show, you're going to get the same old concept but up to date elements. The whole show is a comedic look at the past year's pop culture items. So with Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber, The Avengers, Sweet Brown, Fun & The Hunger Games to name a few, it really is something for the whole audience. The show's story was that Bill & Ted were writing both going to write a report about how "America is the most totally awesome country ever" - (Don't get me started on that one), but they end up becoming opponents in the class presidential elections. It was really random, but everything in the show was **** hilarious. It really was well worth a watch, we watched it like 3 times. We really loved it.I'd advise anybody to go and watch it WHEN it returns.


20 Penny Circus: Fully Exposed.

I'm not even going to explain it, from start to finish the "innuendoes" compromised of "I'm going to do you", "Let me put it in you" etc. It was a complete shambles and the time Me & Maddie saw it, they **** up and spoiled the illusion that ended the show, it was rather laughable, we'd not recommend anybody seeing it. NOBODY applauded at the end, everyone got up and walked off. It was utter ****.

So, the "Best Halloween Event" was a good solid event, but, it just didn't live up to it's records, at all. We managed to get to the event for 5 days overall, the first 2 we thought the whole event was good, until we went to Howl-O-Scream, which turned out to be AMAZING, then the next 3 times were just kind of laughable in comparison.


Part 2 to come, Howl-O-Scream <3 <3 <3
 

marc

CF Legend
Been looking forward to this so will make sure I read it :)

I had heard the universal event was not that great this year which is a real shame, let's hope they go back to more if what they are known for.
 

davidm

Strata Poster
YAY a report!

For me the mazes would be Gothic/Dead End > Walking Dead > Silent Hill > Universal > P&T > Alice. Agree with the shows though; Bill&Ted I really enjoyed, the other one, notsomuch.

Clearly you did the mazes multiple times and you know what to look for so not dissing your opinion ; just odd about the dislike of the Walking Dead while I really liked that - only rating Gothic/DeadEnd as better because of their sound-stage/bigger budget feel!

Interested to see the HoS comparison.... can see where we are headed for that though! :)
 

Lofty

CF Legend
david morton said:
YAY a report!

For me the mazes would be Gothic/Dead End > Walking Dead > Silent Hill > Universal > P&T > Alice. Agree with the shows though; Bill&Ted I really enjoyed, the other one, notsomuch.

Clearly you did the mazes multiple times and you know what to look for so not dissing your opinion ; just odd about the dislike of the Walking Dead while I really liked that - only rating Gothic/DeadEnd as better because of their sound-stage/bigger budget feel!

Interested to see the HoS comparison.... can see where we are headed for that though! :)
No, don't worry about dissing my opinion, although I am always looking for specific things, It's still opinion based :)
Yeah, overall, we managed to do like each house at least 3 times. We really couldn't like Walking Dead, every time we went in it was just so.. Dead /****. I kind of wanted to enjoy it, but I couldn't.

Glad you liked Gothic & Dead End. Loved them both, they were amazing. It shows Universal's true potential with their own attractions that they create from scratch. I think instead of relying on outside contract to pull their guests in, they need to really make more Universal IP attractions.

When was you there David?
 

davidm

Strata Poster
Lofty said:
When was you there David?
End Sep-Start Oct

What I found a bit odd was that the same maze could play very differently; the first time through the Universal House of Horrors I though it was rubbish, nothing happened; couple of monsters thats all. Second time through (a different night) thought it was great, really clever... guess it all just varies on the crowd/the cast/the mood!
 

Lofty

CF Legend
You would have been there the exact same time as Me & Maddie. We went on the 20th and returned on the 4th. Ha. Yes, it's like that anywhere, who you're with makes all that difference, it's a big surprise that for the "Best Halloween Event", the queues were half as bad as I was expecting for opening weekend. Well, until it was actual Halloween when they had to open for 2 extra hours and Walking Dead had a 3 hour queue...
 
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