HHN HollyWeird: Into the Black Walls…Featuring Actual Scares!
Unlike Orlando’s event, Hollywood features enough scares to offer a detailed review of each haunt, rather than an overview of plexi-shaming.
How Hollywood’s event hasn’t caught on to the extend of Orlando’s blows my mind. Of the two years I’ve attended, I’ve ended up with the same reaction: this Horror Nights is far more intense! The scares are louder, more aggressive, and in your face! Perhaps it’s because there are legit actors in Hollywood that are trained in stage combat. Or maybe it’s because the HHNH cast doesn’t also work at Disney, so there aren’t any cutesy princesses working the nightmare shift. Or or or, it could be that Hollywood trains their scareactors to actually scare and not rely only on triggers or be photo ops/promo pieces for Instagram in the streets. Whatever it is, this event has real potential and if Universal put the resources into Hollywood that they put into Orlando, Hollywood’s Horror Nights would reign supreme.
I’m going to start with the weakest aspect of the event: the Jaberwockeez show. What the hell was that? And how long did you say this show has been here? Yikes. I guess this serves some purpose in eating people up from the maze lines, but does Universal realize how many comedy writers in Los Angeles would LOVE to write a show for Horror Nights? Hell, Paul Scheer used to do an annual Bill and Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure spoof here at UCB. You’re telling me you’d rather have Jaberwockeez over literally ANYTHING else? I guess I liked the Daft Punk bit with the lights, but other than that…uhh…breakdancing mimes gotta go.
Another lackluster aspect of Hollywood’s event are the scarezones. Although the event advertises three, I’d say it’s more like one full scare zone, a half scarezone, and a roaming horde. Scream Queenz is the real winner at the exit of Bride of Frankenstein Lives with set pieces and lots of scareactors in a small space. At the entrance of the park is a chainsaw roaming horde called Chainsaw Rangers and just beyond that in New York is a small zone called Demon City.
While none of these zones compare to the massive set pieces Orlando has to offer, their cast greatly makes up for the lack of immersion. I had actors putting props in my face, attempting to impale me with a chainsaw, and a Frankenstein stilt walker lunge down to growl in my face! Even better, the scareactors in the streets had the discipline not to goof off, stop for photos, or break character. The solution for scarezones? Give Orlando’s sets to Hollywood’s performers, then you’d have a hell of a scarezone.
Another note about atmosphere: Hogsmeade was gorgeously spooky. Even without scareactors, I loved walking through this area at night with the illuminated castle and music. If I could choose anything to add to a Hogsmeade scarezone, it’d be roaming Death Eaters and in-canon murders. Give me a Death Eater blowing up Fred Weasley, Molly Weasley standing over Bellatrix’s corpse, Lavender Brown being devoured by a werewolf…how could Jo say no?
Before moving on to the event’s main event, let’s take a stop at the Terror Tram: Purge Purge Purge! Ugh, the Purge. But, Terror Tram Purge?! Not bad. This experience diminished each time I went through it. The first run I was highly impressed with the amount of actors fully owning their roles out to scare the crap out of you. I had lots of good fake out scares and freaked out through the camouflage tunnel when one of the brush actors got me good. There are also some highly dedicated actors here including the Purge Raver by the plane crash always going HARD each time I saw her. But, as of last week, I noticed lots of actors missing and waning energy from the cast. Still, walking through the War of the Worlds set at night is a highly unique experience in itself.
Alright, now it’s time for the real treat…houses! Wait, mazes! We’re on the West Coast now, Dorothy, call it a f-ing maze! Okay, mazes. I’m going to rank each of them except Walking Dead, which I only did once. Still got an incredible scare in WD’s prison scene, which is more to say than 4/5ths of Orlando’s houses this year.
6 . Texas Chainsaw Massacre - This house featured the most egregious use of a black wall. You’re supposed to be leaving the Sawyer house and going to the gas station. Wtf? Why isn’t this covered in trees, brush, limbs, severed heads, ANYTHING? Still, I had some great scares in this house. Pretty similar to 2016, but some stuff got me real good. The guy banging on the crypt in the cemetery. The last leatherface faking me out thinking I had just seen him scare the group in front of us - he reset and hit that trigger again real quick to scare the sh- out of me! And props to the actor out front always bringing the energy when you walk in!
5 . The Exorcist - This house was actually my number one for the first week. I somehow managed to get every scare my first three runs. But then…well if you aren’t getting hit by those very aggressive Pazuzus nonstop, you start to look around and get bored. Look, at least these black walls have scares hidden within them. I also noticed some lighting differences after my first couple weeks - more light seemed to be in the soundstage which made subsequent runs less intense. Still, I had plenty of thrills jumping when that chair moved, ducking Pazuzus, and trying to avoid the vomiting Regan…only to have stopped exactly where she sprays the water.
4 . Halloween 4 - Surprisingly, this house was at the bottom of my list and moved up over time. Before getting inside the house, I have to say it is very cool to walk through an empty Water World at night! Inside, I love that there are no black walls and every inch of the maze is utilized. The “bus window trick (idk what really to call it) works great here and is a tactic Orlando should have utilized if they were really trying to be COVID safe. I probably had my biggest scare of Hollywood here in the diner when I forgot there’s a Michael after the dummy getting shot. Jesus! I nearly fell over when he popped out with that knife. And even though it’s a dumb final, I really like the black light hall of mirrors Michael Myers room. Either I always forget where they are positioned or they switch up their spots because I’ve always gotten a good scare at the end of every run.
3 . Pandora’s Box - This house is batsh- crazy and I love it! Lots of in your face scares. Holy crap! The stilt walker that’ll lunge down at you full speed is insane! I don’t know how that person does it! Black walls? Yes, but lots of black light scenes and props to offset them - not nearly as flagrant as Exorcist or TCM. Cool use of puppets in this one too - Medusa, the lion fashioned from an AWiL werewolf, and the spider! Man, the guy with the spider bites/welts on the right after the spider got me every time. I also really like how they pulse this house and open the door in the first scene, which btw has the best scenic design of any room at HHNH.
2 . Haunting of Hill House - Man, they did this house dirty with that facade. I can’t believe they would cheap out on something already fabricated for Orlando. “Hey Orlando gets a crazy immersive facade, what should we do for Hollywood? Uh…have them walk through a billboard?” Perfect example of how this event needs more investment. Anyways, I liked the scares in this maze far better than Orlando’s house. The bent neck lady scares were super effective and the maze has a lot of actors getting right in your face. Something about scareactors attacking you from above really gets me. Plus, the last scare of this house is an amazing fake out playing on that “bus window ad” effect. This one got consistently better over time and has remained a highlight through the event.
1 . Bride of Frankenstein Lives!! - This one might be the event’s shortest maze, but manages to pack in a lot of detail and scares! Hard to top with the amazing scenic work and GOAT cast. One night the first Bride was CRYING over the Monster’s slayed body. Legit tears. Sobbing. Holy crap. I’ve never seen a scareactor that invested in their role. This is always the most consistent house for me, with the other actors going for blood. I’ve also noticed them finding new ways to scare. During the red light transition scene before the graveyard, I had a Bride of Dracula pop out at the group in front of me. Little did I know she stayed out, lurking in the fog to snarl in my ear as I walked by blinded by the fog and light. Seriously creepy! This house really proves you don’t need a ton of space to tell a great story and scare the hell out of people. It also has the best soundtrack of a maze I’ve been in! Love the guitar solos and narration as you move through the story.
It’s hard not to compare Orlando and Hollywood, and while those black walls are real, Hollywood proved itself to me in a year when Orlando’s scares were severely neutered. If you want to be dazzled by set design, attend Orlando. If you want to be truly scared, go to Hollywood.