HHN '18: Employee Preview Night

[Freak]

Looking forward to tomorrow, but I re-read the EP Night thread from last year. I remember how Aaron's opinions were similar to mine. Everyone was over-the-moon with the Shinning and I ended up hating it. I'm looking forward to seeing what I think of everything.

 

[rageofthegods]

Can someone direct me to these POVs? Can't find any on YouTube and there's a few things I'd like to eyeball...

Here's the one for UCM:

Spoiler: Video walkthrough of UCM

That channel also has walkthroughs for all the other ones except the Terror Tram.

 

[hhnlover]

I can’t believe how good Unfriended and Truth or Dare looked to be, from now on I’m just trusting whatever John does

i honestly loved the way they did it in the maze. it's actually in my #5 of best houses so far
#1 poltergeist
#2 stranger things
#3 classic monsters [too much of long black halls in a scene]
#4 trick r treat
#5 blumhouse of horrors [ not saying i hate the house, if this was put in a meh year like 2017 then this will be in the 2 spot but there's 4 other amazing mazes this year]
#6 halloween 4 [didn't have the charm of 2015's or 16's]
#7 first purge [i mean they tried, again not saying it's bad, it was alright]

 

[horrornights789]

The channel that@rageofthegods shared has videos of all the mazes, and I found another pretty good walkthrough of H4.

Spoiler: H4 Spoilers

What a weird but fun maze. Everything flows pretty well but it doesn’t match the movie that much in terms of plot continuity. Really shocked they didn’t include the attic and rooftop scene, costume store, School, as well as Brady’s death since those seemed the most translateable scenes from the movie. Seems like a mashup of 15’s maze and H4. Basically the maze goes Penney’s(Gas Station & Diner) -> Streets of Haddonfield(Clothe Sheets and Scarecrows)-> Sheriff’s House(Rifle Kill and Jamie’s Bedroom) -> Power Station ->Insidious type finale with Micheal and the H4 theme blaring

At least that’s what I could gather from the video.

 

[rageofthegods]

The channel that@rageofthegods shared has videos of all the mazes, and I found another pretty good walkthrough of H4.

Spoiler: H4 Spoilers

What a weird but fun maze. Everything flows pretty well but it doesn’t match the movie that much in terms of plot continuity. Really shocked they didn’t include the attic and rooftop scene, costume store, School, as well as Brady’s death since those seemed the most translateable scenes from the movie. Seems like a mashup of 15’s maze and H4. Basically the maze goes Penney’s(Gas Station & Diner) -> Streets of Haddonfield(Clothe Sheets and Scarecrows)-> Sheriff’s House(Rifle Kill and Jamie’s Bedroom) -> Power Station ->Insidious type finale with Micheal and the H4 theme blaring

At least that’s what I could gather from the video.

It's entirely possible that it was space concerns, more than anything. The sets that were there were huge and Waterworld isn't a big venue at all. I'm sad about some of the cuts/finale, but some of the other mazes look so good that I can't be too upset (Halloween 4 is not a hill I'm prepared to die on).

 

[Clive]

Looking at the videos, they overdid it on two elements:

Spoiler: Maze Spoilers

1) Insidious-like black wall box gauntlet finales (seen in Halloween, Trick r Treat, Blumhouse, Universal Monsters, First Purge)
2) Projector-Wall Effect (seen in Universal Monsters, Blumhouse, Poltergeist, and Stranger Things)

Yeesh.

 

[rageofthegods]

Looking at the videos, they overdid it on two elements:

[spoilers]
1) Insidious-like black wall box gauntlet finales (seen in Halloween, Trick r Treat, Blumhouse, Universal Monsters, First Purge)
2) Projector-Wall Effect (seen in Universal Monsters, Blumhouse, Poltergeist, and Stranger Things)

Yeesh.
[/spoilers]

I'd almost argue that the "Hollywood formula" now is that the scene right before the Exorcist style gauntlet is actually the finale, while the hallway afterwards is the "one last scare."

If you think about it that way, the mazes make a lot more sense:

Spoiler: Spoilers for the endings of each maze

+Poltergeist ending: Coffin room
+Halloween 4: Power Station with Michael everywhere
+UCM: "WE BELONG DEEEEAAAAAD!"
+Trick R Treat: The zombie children horde (and also the film's title)
+First Purge: The blown up apartment (which looks like a legitimately pretty good scene, actually.)
+Stranger Things: The Classroom with Eleven
+Blumhouse: The Girl's house, sort of?

 

[Clive]

I'd almost argue that the "Hollywood formula" now is that the scene right before the Exorcist style gauntlet is actually the finale, while the hallway afterwards is the "one last scare."

If you think about it that way, the mazes make a lot more sense:

Spoiler: Spoilers for the endings of each maze

+Poltergeist ending: Coffin room
+Halloween 4: Power Station with Michael everywhere
+UCM: "WE BELONG DEEEEAAAAAD!"
+Trick R Treat: The zombie children horde (and also the film's title)
+First Purge: The blown up apartment (which looks like a legitimately pretty good scene, actually.)
+Stranger Things: The Classroom with Eleven
+Blumhouse: The Girl's house, sort of?

I'd agree, but when you stretch it to a gauntlet, it stops being "one final scare" - it becomes a whole new scene entirely. Either commit to one or build out an actual final scene.

 

[rageofthegods]

I'd agree, but when you stretch it to a gauntlet, it stops being "one final scare" - it becomes a whole new scene entirely. Either commit to one or build out an actual final scene.

I actually think a short little gauntlet after a climactic scene really works, but I will agree that it'd be nice to have some theming in the future.

Really, once Hollywood moved to 7 mazes after 2016, it almost feels like they didn't have enough walls/lights/paint/whatever to properly fill out each maze, so the black walls and gauntlets come in. I honestly think they did a good job of working around that this year with the ending gauntlets and chainlink fences, but I only expect the mazes to get more fleshed out as time goes on.

 

[Freak]

I really hope they hold off on adding houses for a while because they really not to chill with the black walls. They need the budget to fill those out.

Also how was the alcohol situation? Same as last year?

 

[ush.hacker]

All these people rating a maze they haven't walked through yet, smh

There wasnt alcohol served last night.

 

[rageofthegods]

One very nitpicky thing I noticed from the videos:

They really should make the Invisible Man's glasses+nose blacklight, because it's really hard to see otherwise.

EDIT: Just one more thing I noticed about UCM: Almost the whole maze has ceilings!

 

[Wesker69]

The black wallz of doom had better just be relegated to the little introduction rooms or I'm going to be sorely disappointed

Halloween 4 is more surprising, re: Black Walls. Again, gonna have to see it for myself, but that's a little disappointing.

The black wallz of doom are definitely a maze killer for both Halloween & Monsters. It definitely is a budget cut situation. In regards to Halloween, after the previous 2 finales being so great, this year is very underwhelming for its finale. As for Monsters, the black wall segments really take you out of the moment because the rest of the maze is so well themed.

One very nitpicky thing I noticed from the videos:
They really should make the Invisible Man's glasses+nose blacklight, because it's really hard to see otherwise.

While the glasses aren't noticeable, I will say that the Invisible Man looked amazing in person under the black light, but it was just all cameo & no scare. Like seriously, if they had done the multiple mannequin gag with the invisible man (complete with a black out/blacklight strobe gimmick to make him "disappear"), that scene would've been scary as hell.

 

[DTH]

Question for those that have gone:
Which maze do you think will suffer the most from light bleed and we should wait until it's nighttime to go through?

 

[Clive]

Question for those that have gone:
Which maze do you think will suffer the most from light bleed and we should wait until it's nighttime to go through?

Poltergeist kinda depends on darkness for some of its bits. Ditto with Trick r Treat.

 

[DTH]

Dang it, I wanted to hit Poltergeist second. Maybe I can postpone it after HOB and First Purge. I'll check wait times tonight and see if that's possible before I try it tomorrow.

 

[Clive]

Dang it, I wanted to hit Poltergeist second. Maybe I can postpone it after HOB and First Purge. I'll check wait times tonight and see if that's possible before I try it tomorrow.

You'll probably be fine, it's decently covered... but if we're being nitpicky.

 

[rageofthegods]

Dang it, I wanted to hit Poltergeist second. Maybe I can postpone it after HOB and First Purge. I'll check wait times tonight and see if that's possible before I try it tomorrow.

Blumhouse has some pretty major video effects too, if we're being honest. Maybe consider hitting Purge first once you get to the backlot.

 

[Rideguy70]

There's always a lot of talk about budget cuts in Hollywood... does Orlando have the same problem? I never hear about it there, but I don't really visit their threads as much since I'm typically not able to attend.

 

[rageofthegods]

There's always a lot of talk about budget cuts in Hollywood... does Orlando have the same problem? I never hear about it there, but I don't really visit their threads as much since I'm typically not able to attend.

I think it's generally accepted that Orlando's HHN budget is much higher than Hollywood's. They also have other advantages too, like more space in the park (Hollywood's soundstages are often taken up by shooting, whereas Orlando's are usually more available. Plus, Orlando is just a bigger park, although we do have the backlot.)

EDIT: It should be noted that Orlando was probably also hit with budget cuts and theme changes at the last minute last year; there were reports that many rooms were recycled in The Harvest, for example.