HHN: How Would You Rate the Houses?

[inkkognito]

After finally experiencing all of the houses, here is my rating and my reasons:

#1 Psychoscareapy: Home for the Holidays. I have a perverse sense of humor to which this house totally appears. Come on, you gotta love a house with an evil, bloody version of the Christmas Story leg lamp and one of those annoying wire frame deer with red lights on its throat.

#2 and #3: The Freddie Kreuger House and Mary Shaw are tied here for me. I am a BIG Freddie fan, but I love the effects in Mary Shaw, like having to cross the "high" catwalk.

#4: Jack's Fun House: The 3-D glasses, bright colors, and general disorientation are a great effect.

#5: Vampyre: This isn't a bad one at all; it's just that the other four are so good.

#6: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Not a bad one, just nothing special. I preferred the scareactors with chainsaws wandering around outside. They have a real talent for sneaking up on unsuspecting souls and then revving those suckers!

#7: Friday the 13th. I'm rating this one low mainly because there were very few scareactors in the first half, so the first part seemed rather flat.

#8: The Thing: Assimilation. Not a bad house, but not the sort that appeals to me. It was more scene based, and I like houses that depend more on darkness, disorientation, and lots of scareactors.

 

[jpeppers]

We went last Wednesday and again on Sunday night. Last night we were half way through the Friday the 13th house before we saw our first scareactor and only saw 4 the whole house. We left early in the evening both nights as the crowds were huge and the houses were not that impressive and we did have express on Sunday but lost interest by about 10:00. This was our 4th year in a row so we do have something to compare it too and feel it was a lot better product when it was in IOA, mainly because the rides helped absorb the crowds and the theming was so much better. I did enjoy the shows though and enjoyed HHN overall but it feels like they aren't trying as hard since they know we will go anyway. I just remember the old scare zones with women in cages and people dressed as plants and blending into the environment and people on bungie cords flying at you. We did do Howl-O-Scream for the second year in a row on Thursday and although I think they got most of there ideas for scare zones from Universal they are utilizing them very well and it is a great show. The lines are very small as opposed to HHN and the scares were great. The houses are at least twice as long as at HHN and better and the rides help with the crowds. I love Universal and I am an AP holder living in the state of Washington but I have no problem saying that Howl-O-Scream was the highlight of our trip. I'm sure everyone won't share my opinion but it is what I experienced.

 

[jpeppers]

2

 

[the Dark Marauder]

#1: The Thing. Amazing detail, and this house had the best scare of the night/of many years. When you walk through that one fog room and the demon-dog jups out from the right, I actually screamed "HOLY $HT!!!!" and jumped back. Most scares make me go "whoa, okay!" and back off, then laugh. That demon-dog actually SCARED me. Awesome

#2: Nightmare on Elm Street: Very well done, great set up--sleeping medicine. Ha!

#3: Jack's Funhouse. I liked the clowny/twisted/creepy atmosphere. Very fun house!

#4: Psychoscareapy. Very well designed, and the ending...

#5: Club Vampyr. I liked how they split the house into two sections and used the alleyway as a scare spot.

#6: Friday the 13th. Good start, but flopped after the first few rooms.

#7: Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Boring.

#8: Dead Silence (Mary Shaw). More boring than TCM.

 

[Spidey7]

You guys are making me so jealous that I can't go this year. Guess I'm going to have to try extra hard to make it next year. Sounds like a blast. I love haunted houses, and these sound like the best.

 

[princessgirl2238]

1.) Dead Silence- this one scared the crap out of me so much
2.) NMOES
3.) The Thing
4.)TCM
5.) Psycoscarpy
6.)Jack
7.) Vampeir

 

[BigTiggerGuy]

#1- Psychoscarapy- Not the scariest by any means but amazing theming!
#2- NMOES- The mirror part with Freddy was great and also the boiler room
#3- TCM- Only because Leatherface actually chased us out at the end and through the hanging bed sheets. Felt just like the movie.
#4- Dead Silence- Great details but the Mary Shaws looked pretty fake
#5- The Thing- The part with the dog was awesome but most of the scareactors were just soldiers with guns.
#6- Friday the 13th- Jason got me a couple of times and the body bags hanging down were pretty cool but all in all not great
#7- Jack's House- More like a funhouse than anything else....and I am terrified of clowns! Last year's Jack house was much better
#8- Vampyr- Basically just a bunch of good looking people sitting around looking good. Very few scares however the second part after the alley was much better than the first part

 

[CriminyCrafft]

*****WARNING - SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!*****

1 - Psychoscareapy. Super cool, amazing theming, and I did get scared a few times, mostly by the girl who stuck her hand down from the ceiling and the fat guy who said "FRESH BAKED COOKIES?"

2 - NOES. I loved the Sleep-Well bit, the mirrors, and the part where you're temporarily blinded and then Freddy is staring you right in the face.

3 - Dead Silence. Amazing theming and good scares, but I agree that the Mary Shaws looked very fake.

4 - TCM. The Leatherfaces were so big and intimidating, and I loved the ending.

5 - The Thing. Very cool theming and a few scares, but I did this one four times and I definitely went through at least three rooms with no scareactors or scares.

6 - Vampyr. I definitely got a few good scares in and thought it was well-themed.

7 - Friday the 13th. Again, I did this one five times and at least twice when I went through there were no scareactors in like four of the rooms. On 10/25 it was different than 10/24 and they added bloody camp counselors popping out to scare you, which I thought was strange.

8 - Jack's Funhouse. Fun and cool, just not too scary for me.

 

[Jozymouse]

jpeppers: I TOTALLY agree with you. Although I have nothing to compare it too, since its was our first time going to HHN, the reason why we wanted to do HHN so much is after seing a TV special about it, back when it was at IOA with houses themed after fairy tales (gone bad).

We paid 65$ for our ticket plus $36 for the express pass and let me tell you it wasnt worth it. Not at all what we expected. We were also excpecting to meet the characters they were advertising (Freddy etc) but they were nowhere to be found (except in the houses of course) We really did enjoy Howl-O-Scream for $28 and no lines. We loved the scare zones and the houses were much longer and had much more people scaring you. At least, we'll know for next time.....

 

[inkkognito]

We returned to HHN last night, and I actually liked The Thing much better this time around. It seemed like there were more scareactors, and maybe I had more time to look at the detail because we went through it twice. They seem to have added more scareactors to Jason, too, because the first half wasn't as deserted this time around.

Jack's Fun House is now vying with Mary Shaw for my third place honors...it gets better each time.

We're returning for our final fling tonight, and it will be interesting to see how the lines compare to last night. Halloween was much deader than I thought (no pun intended), although the Express Passes still served us well...there was no way we would have seen all the shows (expect Jack's) and made it through all the houses too...multiple times for some, since Stay and Scream gave us a jump start.

 

[tinkerdorabelle]

This was our first time. We went Sunday. We liked The Thing and the Clown house the best. The Thing had A LOT of scare actors so that was fun. All the other houses I would rate around the same. Maybe it was when we went, some of the houses had only a few scare actors it seemed. I thought there would be more elaborate costumes and sets, etc. and a little more to it. It was fun though. Honestly if I hadn't had fast pass and was waiting on those lines for those houses, I probably would have been a little disappointed. It was good though, just was expecting a little more given it was Universal Studios. Liked the shows, they were good.

 

[inkkognito]

The Thing jumped up two notches for me tonight. We got to do it a few times because they were letting you jump into the line from the exit of Jack's Fun House (otherwise it's the walk of hell through Barney Land, which is scarier than any of the houses). Somehow it grew on me each time I went through it, so it now surpasses TCM and Jason for me.

 

[jpeppers]

I hate to say it but the whole thing was pretty bad compared to the past. The scares were minimal and I thought the route they took with drinks was interesting considering the past problems with drunks (no discount on Beer for the souvenier glass but a discount with a double shot if you're drinking the hard stuff). I honestly hate being negative but I thought HHN sucked this year compared to previous years and I will probably look for a new vacation activity next year as I feel Universal will continue to provide the same entertainment as long as we pay. I'm sure others will feel different but it is definetely not worth a flight from the west coast to me as it currently is.

 

[inkkognito]

The thing that surprised me with the drinking was that although everyone seemed to be imbibing freely, I didn't see any blatantly obnoxious drunken behavior. This was our first HHN so I have nothing to compare it to, but I had read the horror stories online and was pleasantly surprised that the crowd was well behaved.

It's funny how my ratings of the houses changed over the course of several days and even at times within the same day. Sometimes there seemed to be more scareactors than others within the same houses, which had a big effect on my rating as I'm the sort who likes "jump out" scares best vs. elaborate visuals (although the detail in Psychoscarapy and Mary Shaw were a big part of the attraction in those two for me).

 

[BigTiggerGuy]

For those people wondering why they didn't see Freddy, Jason and Leatherface throughout the park:


I did the lights on tour and our guide explained that New Line is extremely protective of their licensing on the characters. They insisted that they only be seen within the houses and not walking around the park. No photo opportunities would be available. They take it so seriously that the actors playing Freddy, Jason and Leatherface have to cover themselves with blankets when moving from place to place to ensure that nobody gets a surprise photo of them. They also have to leave their license when signing out their costumes to make sure they don't try and take off with the goods!

 

[Jozymouse]

Thanks BigTiggerGuy !

That is very interesting information! At least now i know for sure that i didnt miss them walking around, they were just not there !!!!!!

 

[Cdn Friends of Pooh]

1. Psychoscareapy - This one just appealed to my sick sense of ha-ha

2. Dead Silence - I loved the overall feel of this house...thought it really captured the creepy atmosphere of the movie. The catwalk effect was brilliantly done as well.

3. The Thing - Excellent use of animatronics plus a group of scareactors with a lot of extra motivation.

4. Camp Blood - I'm a big F13 fan so the whole atmosphere of the house was really appealing to me. It all depended on which cast was working it though...cast A was fantastic but cast B was short-staffed which left quite a few gaps in the house

5. TCM - Some of the scenes in this house were absolutely phenominal...it's only rated so low because the others were just that good.

6. Vampyr - I liked the idea but thought it didn't live up to its potential.

7. NOES - I had very high hopes for this house and was extremely disappointed. The facade of the Elm Street house was superb, the scareactors were great, and some of the rooms in this house were also really well done. Unfortunately when the house started off with flashing strobe lights right in my eyes I spent the rest of the house staggering along blindly trying to get my sight back. I only really got to see the house when we did the daytime tour.

8. Jack's 3D Funhouse - There's only so much you can do with a 3D house and none of it is scary...I didn't care at all for the 3D houses at prior events and this was no different.

That's my list...just my own opinions

Lee

 

[tinkerdorabelle]

For those people wondering why they didn't see Freddy, Jason and Leatherface throughout the park:


I did the lights on tour and our guide explained that New Line is extremely protective of their licensing on the characters. They insisted that they only be seen within the houses and not walking around the park. No photo opportunities would be available. They take it so seriously that the actors playing Freddy, Jason and Leatherface have to cover themselves with blankets when moving from place to place to ensure that nobody gets a surprise photo of them. They also have to leave their license when signing out their costumes to make sure they don't try and take off with the goods!

Thats interesting to know. It would have changed the whole experience for us. I think that was part of the problem for us, it was just a little flat. If they were about, it really would have made the whole experience soooooooooo much better. We did NOT see many scare actors out and about except for the chain saw guys in one section and another section when you first walk in around the right side of the park. Before I went I was worried about being too scared!

 

[inkkognito]

It's so ironic that a theme park doing it properly and legally has to jump through so many hoops, but when we would go to the neighborhood haunted houses in Chicago there were more Freddys, Jasons, and Leatherfaces than you could shake a stick at! I guess it would be hard for New Line to send a squad traveling the country every Oct. to shut down the non-licensed use.

 

[Motherfletcher]

The Freddy scareactors had to leave their driver's license when they checked out their mask for the night and got it back when they turned in the mask at the end of the night. Universal/NewLine didn't want to see their masks up on Ebay.

I thought Dead Silence was the best technical house with the cat walk cellar effect.
The Thing was second.

I was on my second RIP tour the last night of HHN on the way to Leatherface when one of the boys in our group said, "I don't care what our Guide says. This is the scariest house, right?"
I told him that the "house" is not what scares you but it's the scareactors within the house that make it scary. I told him that Leatherface was the scariest concept because it was the only house based on an actual event. There is no Freddy, there is no Jason, there is no Jack, there are no vampires or killer puppets but there was a twisted Hewitt family in Texas.

A lot of people are real comfortable in the conga line with someone directly in front of you and someone right on your butt. I prefer to go through the houses with no one in sight ahead of me and no one behind me. I was able to do this at 3 houses this year and Psychoscareapy was the one house that actually startled me. And that came from the girl above and a scareactor walking counterflow on the route. The windows/holes in the walls and side curtains/doors were just too predictable.