This event may as well be called Halloween Horror Nights 23: People in Cages because that sums up about half of the houses. That isn't to say though that this event was without its gems...
Walking Dead- Like people? Like cages? Boy does HHN has a house for you! Welcome to West Georgia Correctional Facility, aka "The Prison," where zombies are everywhere except anywhere outside of their cages. The set pieces were decent (albeit probably mostly reused from Psychoscarepy and elswhere) but not great and this wasn't billed as the "fun" house, either; it was billed as scary which it was not. Decent sets, good scareactors working with the cards they were dealt, boring otherwise. 2 out of 5 (by the way, I have no real rubric for these scores so don't take them too seriously)
Cabin in the Woods- Starts off strong with an impressive facade of the cabin itself and then...well, you guessed it, a lot of people in cages. It was fun, the taxidermy wolf head was there so that was pretty cool, and many of the monsters (including the Merman) drop in for an appearance, though, disappointingly, there was no Unicorn. For all you older-school HHN easter-egg hunters, Jack the Clown is totally in this house. Look for him. Great makeup/costumes, good set designs, and very true to the story with some okay scares. Definitely more focused on the scenery than scares when I went through but there was so much to see and take in (compared to a generic prison--see above) that not being scared s***less every two seconds actually worked in my favor. 4 out of 5.
Havoc--Something About a Train: So I forgot the actual name to this house but what it boils down to is a whole bunch of Dogs are being transported in a train. In cages. Oi. Anyway, the set pieces were actually really neat. You do feel like you're moving through a train with the lights rushing past, air smacking you when transfering between cars, and the tight quarters to meander through. Unfortunately, being authentically trainy had some severe drawbacks. The biggest flaw in this setup was the fact that you were literally in a train-sized path, meaning the couple Scareactors NOT in cages have few-to-no places to hide from you thus derailing (and I just remembered it was called DoW: Derailed) any chances of getting scares. 'A' for atmosphere. 'F' for scares. 'Y' for Yawn. 1 out of 5.
An American Werewolf in London: For those who have seen this movie, it is literally a frame-for frame recreation. There was little if any open dialogue going on here from the scaractors but instead voice-over tracks straight from the film! They have every scene from the Slaughtered Lamb to the porn theater and every scene was spectacular. Now usually I associate beautiful houses with low scares but not here. Oh no no no. The Wolf is freaking terrifying and pretty much all over the place. The puppetteering is absolutely amazing and it looks JUST like the Wolf from the classic film. Oh, and the ending is hysterically accurate as well so brace yourself. 5 out of 5.
Resident Evil: Words can't express how happy I was to see a true-to-form VIDEOGAME house based on such a nostalgic franchise. It takes you through the first two games (meaning both Leon and Jill coesist in the same house due to RE 1 and 2 running simultaneously in the same timeline). It's Leon's first day as a Raccoon City police officer and his work is cut out for him. They do a marvelous job recreating scenes from the game (and even pull a bit from the novels, it seemed like). The Licker, Nemesis, and the rest of the gang are after you and, I'd be lying to say a certain stupid zombiedog didn't scare the everloving crap out of me. You know when you're playing a scary game and something megascary happens so you just hit pause and say "nope" like a million times in a row? You'll definitely need one of those moments in this house. And get it. 4 of 5.
La Llorona: Perhaps if I hadn't watched the epic walkthrough video of this house over at Uni Hollywood I might have given this house more credit. But I did so I won't. It's really just a dramatically cheapened version of a far better house out West. The sets were pretty spectacular in the beginning but came crashing down somewhere towards the middle. I think I saw an undead alligator person in there somewhere. Anyway, La Llorona's masks are about as scary as Lady Lucks (though perhaps a littttttttle bit higher quality. But only a little). I don't know... I went into this house expecting something awesome kind of like how Disneyland people used wander into WDW's Toontown only to be extremely disappointing in such a half-hearted recreation of something so good. 2 out of 5.
Afterlife: I thought the premise here was a man is convicted on several brutal counts of murder and gets the chair where, as he journeys into the afterlife, he must face every single pissed off spirit of those he had killed on Earth. Awesome! Except it more like he died and went instead to a watered down version of the Inbetween, complete with the EXACT SAME DEMONS FROM THE INBETWEEN! The only "new" costume I noticed was the serial killer himself wandering about like a child lost in Walmart. Nothing fun about this house at all, not during my first experience anyhow. 0 out of 5.
So there you have it. I did every maze but Evil Dead and it was like every year--some very high highnotes and some very low lownotes. Oh yea, the streets were pitiful. Walking Dead just isn't scary. It's gross. It's intriguing. But it just not haunted house/street worthy much less EVERYstreetworthy. Hershel's barn was pretty cool, I'll hand them that. My personal favorite house was Resident Evil but I think overall Werewolf will walk away "Best House," unless Evil Dead is somehow mindblowingly outstanding. By the way, if anyone knows a TM and is a Florida resident...FF+ passes are only $85. Awesome, no?