So I was able to fly out here and do two nights with Express of HHN! I did stay and scream for the first night and then stayed at IoA for a little bit and entered HHN close to seven the second night. Going to go right into it and review the houses in order of what I accomplished. Since this is pretty late into the event’s run, I don’t think people care about spoilers at this point. Let’s get into it!
Stranger Things: So after hearing how quickly the S&S line builds I figured it would be wise to do this first. I was pleasantly surprised how good some of the scares were in here. While I think Hollywood’s ST was its strongest of the three, I think the second ST was just slightly better than this rendition. Overall I do like this version a lot more than Hollywood’s as it represented the scenes a lot better and actually included scenes I wanted to see (I GOT MY METALLICA SCENE!!!!! \m/). I was a little disappointed to not see a facade of the Creel house as at least Hollywood tried to, but overall, this was great! They did a good with it.
Overall: B+
The Exorcist: Believer: Haven’t seen the movie, don’t care to watch it, but felt fairly similar to Hollywood minus “the red walls” they had. Had a crap run-through at first but got a much better second run-through of it. (That first demon hiding behind the opened door got me good!) Liked it slightly more than HHN Hollywood’s as I thought that rendition was pretty good. Not bad.
Overall: B
Dueling Dragons - Chose Thy Fate: We his this one next as this had the shortest wait time and this was my most-anticipated. I’ve always wanted to see a Medieval castle theme for HHN and I really loved the old Dueling Dragons coaster. With that being said, the set design was fantastic and the tall facade of the Enchanted Oak was a sight to behold! Very intense and very cool! Only thing is, it would’ve been nice to see some more…erm, dragons in this house. Like, I understand the fire and ice characters are actually the dragons in human form to make it more practical for a haunt, but they couldn’t include a scene where a dragon puppet head jumps out? I think that would’ve been doable. Have a dragon head for each ending. Also, speaking of the ending, I wish the ending was more of the approach that Knott’s took with Paranormal Inc. Was hoping to see a slightly longer section that had different scenes than just have the same ending but a different color. Oh well. Still an awesome house! I think just having the dragon puppet and a slightly longer and more different alternate endings would’ve taken this to another level.
Overall: A-
Yeti: Campground Kills: After really loving the 2019 Yeti house, I was pretty excited for this one. It used a lot of similar gags to the Yukon one (The Yeti arm) and featured some cool visuals like the lake scene. I got a lot of vibes from FVJ from HHN 25, especially the cabin scenes. I think if we get Friday the 13th next year, this house would provide a pretty good feel of what it would be like. This was pretty god, but I think I liked Yukon better from 2019. Also in both runthroughs, I couldn't get the bear to dance. Booooooooo!
Overall: B-
Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count: This turned out to be my least-anticipated after hearing how bad it was.Maybe it’s because my expectations were set so low after hearing how bad it was but I thought it was…just okay at worst. It certainly wasn’t great. Absolutely the weakest house of the event, but I did like some things in here. I did like how they used the Chucky doll that lunged at you in the first half.I could see what they were going for and it just didn’t work. Hollywood’s was absolutely better. Kinda wished they included a couple of lunging dolls like they did here to make Hollywood’s just a liiiiitle better and more scary. Didn’t love this one though. Also what’s up with that black hallway at the end? Lol
Overall: D+
Dr. Oddfellow - Twisted Origins: Did this after hitting up Mummy and Gringott’s. Man I HATE that walk. So I liked how they made the whole tent the house is in the actual facade. I got a lot of Knott’s Scary Farm vibes in here. Reminded me a lot of Mesmer from KSF. I also got some vibes from Puppet Theater in here. Liked the scares from the lion and the headless guy. Those were great. Pretty fun house.
Overall: B-
Darkest Deal: Okay, this is my favorite house here. I really liked how there was a linear story here and the atmosphere was fantastic. What I love about the tent houses is how they really push the limits for the kind of scope they can pull off with the sets. Loved the set design with the Great Depression settings and the soundtrack. Also was surprised how intense this was! (The piano scare!) This is absolutely my favorite of the event.
Overall: A+
The Last of Us: Also with this one, I hate the walk. They literally have us walk from MIB and hike all the way through ET. Anyway I haven’t played the games but this was pretty cool. Loved how massive the sets were compared to Hollywood. Again I enjoyed this more than Hollywood’s version even though I enjoyed that one as well.
Overall: B+
Universal Monsters: Unmasked: I’ve always really enjoyed the Universal Monsters houses at HHN, so I was excited for this one as well. Right off the bat, the facade was amazing. Loved the sprinkles of rainfall I felt once I got inside. It really sold the illusion I was outside. There were some fantastic sets in here and they did a stellar Invisible Man scene. Fantastic house.
Overall: A-
Bloodmoon: Dark Offerings: So this is the best house in the scenic department in my book. It reminded me of Dead Man’s Pier with the larger-than-life sets and it was spectacular! I loved how tall the sets were and made it feel like you were in a legitimate village! I always enjoy houses like this and DMP that put you into another world. There were some pretty good scares in here as well. One of my favorites for sure!
Overall: A-
Nightmare Fuel: Revenge Dream: Didn’t see it. Don’t care for it. Just not my thing.
Scarezones: I’m not going to do an in-depth review of each zone, but they were good this year. There wasn’t anything that “Whoa this is AMAZING!” but there were some cool things in each zone. The talent was great in all of them. If I had to pick a favorite, I think the Vamp ’69 was mine. The music was great.
Overall, this is a really solid year and might be my favorite of the 30’s era of HHN. Absolutely better than last year but just a hair better than 30. Last year had several okay/just good houses and a couple of great ones while this year’s was mostly great with one dud. With the glaring exception of Chucky, I think Orlando has done the IPs better than Hollywood. I think ST, TLOU and Monsters are a lot better in Orlando and Exorcist just a hair better.
Just like Hollywood, I crowd management was…..okay I guess. This is coming from someone who had Express for both nights. What really sucked was line/house flow management. The biggest offenders were the Parade building and Sprung Tent queues. For example, we were going to do Monsters before hitting up TLOU, but not being a local to this park, I completely forgot about the Dream Works Land construction and asked the attendant in front of Monsters where TLOU was. He told me it was by MIB and I totally missed it when going through Oddfellow’s and Darkest Deal! He advised me to hit up TLOU first before Monsters because he informed me that TLOU would exit where Monsters would enter. So thankful for him! Props to him for saving me time and energy! That hike from TLOU is ridiculous. I personally don’t mind walking but it took literally 10-15 minutes behind slow as heck people just to fully exit the house.
And that exit path from the sprung tents was really annoying. It crunched up constantly and each time I exited, the line to exit would literally stop and cause a huge backup. People were getting pretty mad from the stoppage. Imagine you had a drink or two and it starts to hit you. You can’t leave. You’re stuck. There is a slow line to exit. I thought Hollywood’s line management was bad, but I can’t recall the last time I had to wait to exit a house. Geez.
Oh, and while I didn’t get to try much of the novelty HHN food, I tried the pizza fries (Always great) and Fritos taco bag by the Jungle SZ. Man, that was good stuff! Strongly recommend it!
Stranger Things: So after hearing how quickly the S&S line builds I figured it would be wise to do this first. I was pleasantly surprised how good some of the scares were in here. While I think Hollywood’s ST was its strongest of the three, I think the second ST was just slightly better than this rendition. Overall I do like this version a lot more than Hollywood’s as it represented the scenes a lot better and actually included scenes I wanted to see (I GOT MY METALLICA SCENE!!!!! \m/). I was a little disappointed to not see a facade of the Creel house as at least Hollywood tried to, but overall, this was great! They did a good with it.
Overall: B+
The Exorcist: Believer: Haven’t seen the movie, don’t care to watch it, but felt fairly similar to Hollywood minus “the red walls” they had. Had a crap run-through at first but got a much better second run-through of it. (That first demon hiding behind the opened door got me good!) Liked it slightly more than HHN Hollywood’s as I thought that rendition was pretty good. Not bad.
Overall: B
Dueling Dragons - Chose Thy Fate: We his this one next as this had the shortest wait time and this was my most-anticipated. I’ve always wanted to see a Medieval castle theme for HHN and I really loved the old Dueling Dragons coaster. With that being said, the set design was fantastic and the tall facade of the Enchanted Oak was a sight to behold! Very intense and very cool! Only thing is, it would’ve been nice to see some more…erm, dragons in this house. Like, I understand the fire and ice characters are actually the dragons in human form to make it more practical for a haunt, but they couldn’t include a scene where a dragon puppet head jumps out? I think that would’ve been doable. Have a dragon head for each ending. Also, speaking of the ending, I wish the ending was more of the approach that Knott’s took with Paranormal Inc. Was hoping to see a slightly longer section that had different scenes than just have the same ending but a different color. Oh well. Still an awesome house! I think just having the dragon puppet and a slightly longer and more different alternate endings would’ve taken this to another level.
Overall: A-
Yeti: Campground Kills: After really loving the 2019 Yeti house, I was pretty excited for this one. It used a lot of similar gags to the Yukon one (The Yeti arm) and featured some cool visuals like the lake scene. I got a lot of vibes from FVJ from HHN 25, especially the cabin scenes. I think if we get Friday the 13th next year, this house would provide a pretty good feel of what it would be like. This was pretty god, but I think I liked Yukon better from 2019. Also in both runthroughs, I couldn't get the bear to dance. Booooooooo!
Overall: B-
Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count: This turned out to be my least-anticipated after hearing how bad it was.Maybe it’s because my expectations were set so low after hearing how bad it was but I thought it was…just okay at worst. It certainly wasn’t great. Absolutely the weakest house of the event, but I did like some things in here. I did like how they used the Chucky doll that lunged at you in the first half.I could see what they were going for and it just didn’t work. Hollywood’s was absolutely better. Kinda wished they included a couple of lunging dolls like they did here to make Hollywood’s just a liiiiitle better and more scary. Didn’t love this one though. Also what’s up with that black hallway at the end? Lol
Overall: D+
Dr. Oddfellow - Twisted Origins: Did this after hitting up Mummy and Gringott’s. Man I HATE that walk. So I liked how they made the whole tent the house is in the actual facade. I got a lot of Knott’s Scary Farm vibes in here. Reminded me a lot of Mesmer from KSF. I also got some vibes from Puppet Theater in here. Liked the scares from the lion and the headless guy. Those were great. Pretty fun house.
Overall: B-
Darkest Deal: Okay, this is my favorite house here. I really liked how there was a linear story here and the atmosphere was fantastic. What I love about the tent houses is how they really push the limits for the kind of scope they can pull off with the sets. Loved the set design with the Great Depression settings and the soundtrack. Also was surprised how intense this was! (The piano scare!) This is absolutely my favorite of the event.
Overall: A+
The Last of Us: Also with this one, I hate the walk. They literally have us walk from MIB and hike all the way through ET. Anyway I haven’t played the games but this was pretty cool. Loved how massive the sets were compared to Hollywood. Again I enjoyed this more than Hollywood’s version even though I enjoyed that one as well.
Overall: B+
Universal Monsters: Unmasked: I’ve always really enjoyed the Universal Monsters houses at HHN, so I was excited for this one as well. Right off the bat, the facade was amazing. Loved the sprinkles of rainfall I felt once I got inside. It really sold the illusion I was outside. There were some fantastic sets in here and they did a stellar Invisible Man scene. Fantastic house.
Overall: A-
Bloodmoon: Dark Offerings: So this is the best house in the scenic department in my book. It reminded me of Dead Man’s Pier with the larger-than-life sets and it was spectacular! I loved how tall the sets were and made it feel like you were in a legitimate village! I always enjoy houses like this and DMP that put you into another world. There were some pretty good scares in here as well. One of my favorites for sure!
Overall: A-
Nightmare Fuel: Revenge Dream: Didn’t see it. Don’t care for it. Just not my thing.
Scarezones: I’m not going to do an in-depth review of each zone, but they were good this year. There wasn’t anything that “Whoa this is AMAZING!” but there were some cool things in each zone. The talent was great in all of them. If I had to pick a favorite, I think the Vamp ’69 was mine. The music was great.
Overall, this is a really solid year and might be my favorite of the 30’s era of HHN. Absolutely better than last year but just a hair better than 30. Last year had several okay/just good houses and a couple of great ones while this year’s was mostly great with one dud. With the glaring exception of Chucky, I think Orlando has done the IPs better than Hollywood. I think ST, TLOU and Monsters are a lot better in Orlando and Exorcist just a hair better.
Just like Hollywood, I crowd management was…..okay I guess. This is coming from someone who had Express for both nights. What really sucked was line/house flow management. The biggest offenders were the Parade building and Sprung Tent queues. For example, we were going to do Monsters before hitting up TLOU, but not being a local to this park, I completely forgot about the Dream Works Land construction and asked the attendant in front of Monsters where TLOU was. He told me it was by MIB and I totally missed it when going through Oddfellow’s and Darkest Deal! He advised me to hit up TLOU first before Monsters because he informed me that TLOU would exit where Monsters would enter. So thankful for him! Props to him for saving me time and energy! That hike from TLOU is ridiculous. I personally don’t mind walking but it took literally 10-15 minutes behind slow as heck people just to fully exit the house.
And that exit path from the sprung tents was really annoying. It crunched up constantly and each time I exited, the line to exit would literally stop and cause a huge backup. People were getting pretty mad from the stoppage. Imagine you had a drink or two and it starts to hit you. You can’t leave. You’re stuck. There is a slow line to exit. I thought Hollywood’s line management was bad, but I can’t recall the last time I had to wait to exit a house. Geez.
Oh, and while I didn’t get to try much of the novelty HHN food, I tried the pizza fries (Always great) and Fritos taco bag by the Jungle SZ. Man, that was good stuff! Strongly recommend it!