Halloween Horror Nights 33 (UOR) - Reviews, Photos, & Videos

[theuberguberman]

It's kind of reassuring that I'm not crazy for thinking this year felt "off." I've only been going since 2019, so I don't have as much to compare to as a lot of you, but HHN29 set the bar extremely high for me. I've yet to love zones as much as that year (they haven't even come close since). Even though I enjoyed the houses this year, they just didn't hit the same as all the previous years I've gone. I kept telling my husband something felt "off" about this year and I couldn't place it. Aside from Duality, the zones were fine. There was no dud of a house. F&B wasn't as good as previous years, but not bad enough to blame it on that. We came after the hurricane took out the lagoon show for HHN in the past, so this isn't the first time without that for us either. I still can't exactly place WHAT made this year feel off... it just did. But it's nice to know it's not just me. (I only get to go for a couple nights a year, so it can't be burnout )

 

[UniversalRBLX]

But it's nice to know it's not just me. (I only get to go for a couple nights a year, so it can't be burnout )

Yeah - At first I thought it might just be burnout from attending every year, but I was feeling burned out by week 2 with how quickly I started to realize how "off" this year felt. I kept giving it chances, but it never turned the corner.

 

[Boodini]

So I attended the event three times this year, once at the start of September, the start of October, and the final night. Overall a solid year all things considered, even with some of the choices and challenges making it happen. I’m like many who feel nothing was outright bad but also there’s little to consider outstanding.

10. Triplets of Terror: I regret missing this on the final night because I’m sure I would’ve had a new perspective. It’s a house that I’ll remember wanting more from for sure. Some energetic performers and a unique setting but it was just too brief. I feel like the podcast room could’ve been ditched since it’s already so short, but I understand doing a cohesive fast-forward was what they wanted to do. I’m glad there were some big fans of this one though, that’s always nice to see.

9. Eternal Bloodlines: I never went through with a full cast. I went four times and I know I didn’t see it all which is a shame. I feel the story could’ve been simpler and the globe-trotting aspect should’ve been replaced with the castle alone for a more focused experience like Legends Collide, but I do respect the design choices. There’s some good ping-pong scares and a cool finale but it just felt a little too much with too little happening if that makes sense.

8. Monstruos: Maybe it’s the familiarity with the Hollywood house, I’m not sure, but I tend to forget about this one which makes me feel bad because it’s a fine house. The performers were great, especially the stiltwalkers. I can’t deny the intensity here, but I just never got into it.

7. A Quiet Place: This house didn’t seem to change much on repeat visits, and that’s by its own design. That said, it was enjoyable every time. The soundscape was very intense and the puppets were always fun to see come to life.

6. Slaughter Sinema 2: Although not as scary as the first, it was still a good time. I really don’t have much else to say, it was a solid sequel.

5. Museum: What a weird house. I can’t think of a house with this many strange decisions put into it, and although not all great, I found myself enjoying it a lot. I think this cast improved the most throughout the season, some were really fast and in your face the last night, which helped the haunt tremendously.

4. Ghostbusters: A lot of fun. Tons of variety of characters and scares gave the house a lot of personality and energy, plus the massive scale of it all was cool to see.

3. Major Sweets: Makes me excited to see future F&F houses, because this blew the previous ones out of the water. Claustrophobic and fast-paced with interactive elements makes this a stand-out for sure.

2. Goblin’s Feast: Not much to say that hasn’t been said. Awesome sets, costumes, and performances. My only gripe is that I wish it had one or two more scenes.

1. Insidious: Very good. Fantastic cast. I can’t think of anything I would want more from this house. A well-deserved HOTY.

I didn’t see the zones enough to rank them, but with the exception of Duality (whose scareactors were still great), they were pretty good.

I can agree somewhat that the year did feel a little different, but it was still HHN through and through. I had massive fun every night and every TM working the event gets a big thank you from me. Next year will be an interesting beast with Epic on the way, so I’m curious to see what vibes 2025 brings, especially with Aiello back. And finally a big shoutout to all scareactors, you are all incredible and make HHN what it is every year!

 

[HHNForever]

My HHN 33 Rankings-

1. Insidious-
For me, along with most this was a very clear and definitive #1. Given the more unpredictable boo holes, intensity of the cast among having tight hallways in parts of the house, this is what I look for in a haunted maze. I believe Universal needs a couple houses that have this feel per year.

2. Ghostbusters-
This house had beautiful scenery, and a couple rooms had some VERY good scares. This house exceeded my expectations compared to the movie.

3. A Quiet Place-
Having 3 IPs in a row for me, is surprising, however from #3 down, I feel that the quality drops and this and my #4 is almost interchangeable depending on the day. Good sets, good puppets, Universal swung and although they didn’t nail this, it was overall pretty good.

4. Slaughter Sinema 2-
Did this strike the same lightning in a bottle as the first house? Not to me, some of the transitions were long leading to the next room and I feel that there was wasted space in sections in this house. (The first room in Heavy Metal Hell 3D for example) however, a few of the rooms keep it up here at #4.

5. Museum-
If you had told me that I would rank this remotely anywhere near the middle a month ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. My first week trip was in mid September, when I left that week after running this house 4 times, I was disappointed in the execution to say the least… I came back mid October for a week, ran it another 4 times and my last run through I saw some adjustments that made me see the potential. Fast forward to my most recent trip, where I was here to close out the last week of the event, I had 5 good to great run throughs of this house. To be fair though, I didn’t really love any of these bottom 6 houses…

6. Monstrous-
I did this house 10+ times and I don’t know if it was bad luck, timing or all of the above… but my first two trips much like museum, it just didn’t click for me. Luckily, my last trip I got a very intense couple run throughs with a great cast and it put it in the middle for me.

7. Goblins Feast-
Beautiful sets, big sets as well for a tent house. This ranks towards the bottom for me for a couple of reasons, the concept, where some people love the concept of this house, I didn’t love it or hate it. It was just fine. I had a couple “good” walk throughs but I never really got a walk through where I left and got more than one decent scare. However I will say, I loved the scents in this house.

8. Major Sweets-
This was a decent house to me, it broke the F&F “curse” of bad houses. Too many stretches of nothing however, the scares were far apart. Otherwise I like the guest activated triggers and there are a couple scenes in this house that are really fun.

9. Universal Monsters-
This is the first complete miss for me when they’ve done Universal Monsters at HHN. Similar to others ranked low, the resets took long to get their scares in order, add that in with the big sets left so much space where there was just nothing going on. I also don’t love where many of the boo holes were set up, it left them further away and took away the intensity of the house for me.

10. Triplets of Terror-
I wanted to like this one going into it. It was the most unknown prior to the event start. However after running this house 10+ times, I never loved it or even liked it much per se. The concept could’ve been good, but like I have said in a few of my bottom houses, the “scares” weren’t really scares. When you go through many of the rooms there were many scenes but the actors are performing 5-6 feet away. I don’t know if I truly ever got a good scare in this house throughout the whole event, I know that there’s more to houses than the scare factor, but I feel this one missed on many factors.

I’m not going to go too far in depth on the scare-zones, I enjoyed Torture Faire and Demon Queens at times, but they just didn’t hit overall. To me, I wouldn’t normally that as much as I’m more of a house person, but given the fact that I didn’t particularly like 4-5 of the houses this year, the scare zones weigh it down a little bit more overall.

Nightmare Fuel was great, the performers do an amazing job every time and it is a necessity to have a stage show to help with the crowds. We need another show to absorb some of the crowds, the lagoon show will help a little if it makes its return next year.

Was it my favorite year by any means? No. But it’s still the best Halloween event, so let’s hope that they take the feedback they’re receiving and make some adjustments to make HHN34 a great year.