So......How was HHN XI?

[Afroman]

I've seen a post for RUN, and it sounds like fun, but what about everything else?

 

[BarryHom]

There was a post earlier on the Bill and Ted show.

 

[Kotar]

We had a great time at HHN last night 10-07 it was a sunday night the weather was overcast and breezy and there was a smaller crowd since it was on a Sun. night open til 12 A.M. ( that'll change starting this upcoming weekend).
Here's how my wife and I rated the Haunted Houses.

#1 Pitch Black- Excellent
#2 Scary Tales- Great
#3 Superstitions-Great
#4 The Mummy Returns: The Curse Continues-Okay to Good
#5 Run- Not Too Good

Bill & Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure was just that, EXCELLENT, so funny.

Nightmares on Parade was alot of fun( I caught a decent amount of beads for my wife S).

We didn't watch the Boogeymen film so have no opinion on it, how could I??

The Street Scare Zones were Awesome as always.The SCAREACTERS are just GREAT.

Jack the clown was pretty funny walking around with his bull horn messing with people, as well as blinding them with his spotlight.

We rode MIB a couple of times in a row since there was hardly any lines.

The only low point of our night was Dangerous D'Illusions Starring Franz Harray. About 8mins into it I asked my wife "do you want to leave"? and she said "yes I'm glad you want to go" It was that bad to the both of us.
we left about 11:30 since the park was gonna close in another half hour.

All in all we had a truly GREAT night, and to top it of it only cost us $20.00 plus tax each.

 

[Afroman]

sounds great!

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

kotar can you elaborate on the haunted mazes?

i really want to know about pitch black

 

[MrNonacho]

I'll throw my two cents in about Pitch Black. I really enjoyed this one, though it wasn't quite perfected. Much of the maze still has no ceiling, so there is a little bit of light coming in, and if the people in front of you are wearing any kind of glowsticks or necklaces it can make a huge difference. Even so, there were a couple of moments where it got pretty much completely dark and confining, and it did get me a little freaked out. At one point there is a bank of bright lights on the ceiling that turn on for a couple of seconds and then turn off again, leaving you even more blind. That was just mean. Fun, but mean . The floors were bouncy/squishy, and the walls were bristly and sometimes spongy. Add in some gross sound effects and presto, you've got a winner.

I hope they bring it back again next year, and improve upon it. Make it darker and keep people moving through it (things came to a standstill inside the maze for a couple minutes several times). Perhaps a little more variety with the wall and floor textures would be good too.

The houses in general this year are much better than last year's, IMHO. The Mummy house and Superstitions were kind of generic, but still had some pretty cool themeing at times and some good distinguishing moments. Scary Tales just floored me with the detail put into it, as well as just the general flow and pacing of it. It's a cool idea and I think they did a great job with it. Run didn't really do much for me, but I still give it points for its uniqueness. Standing there just before being let into the "game" was one of the most memorable moments of the night for me. All the lights, sounds, and the view of the people ahead of you in the chain-link fence section all add up to a lot of anticipation. Unfortunately, and maybe this is because it was pretty slow when we did it, our group was not split up or anything and we didn't get lost in the maze like many people did. I saw a few points where the path could have been changed or blocked but there were no "Manglers" manning those spots. It made the experience pretty straightforward. Still it's a cool idea and the whole theme of a game show, complete with host, was pulled off fairly well.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

thanks nonacho!

did anything jump at you in pitch black?

 

[Kotar]

Spiff
Pitch Black is just that, 80-90% of the time you can't see anything or very little at most. While you can't see there are some pretty cool sounds to mess with your mind, there were times I could not see my wife, the only reason I knew she was there, was that I could feel her holding on to my shirt the whole group we were in got truly lost more than a couple of times. One time while in the dark I thought I had found the way to move on, instead I had found the area where someone in either a glowing skull or glowing Scream mask was waiting to scare us she was less than a foot in front of my face. She leaped at me, and boy that one really scared me since it was soooo totally unexpected.

I don't want to ruin it for anyone by telling too many details.

Scary Tales was pretty fun, it's theme is that it's an old abandoned carnival attraction that was about fairy tales, and now those fairy tales have to turned into nitemarish scarytales, it's scenes were pretty well done. It has decent amount of Scareacters in there to scare you, and to us had just the right amount of light enough to barely see where to go but not enough to spoil all people trying to scare you. Unfortunately I missed this 1 part, (I probably was too busy getting away from someone) anyhow, I was told by an employee in the park that there is a pretty cool animatronic of Pinnochio that is very impressive to watch, I'm gonna be on the look out for it when I go back to HHN.

Pitch Black is located inside the sounstage directly behind The Boneyard and Scary Tales is located next door to pitch black inthe soundstage behind Twister.

Superstitions was also alot of fun, the same applies to it as Scary Tales, in that is has the right amount of lighting and enough Scareacters to get the job done . I really didn't pay attention to the theming, but as I said earlier we had a pretty good time in there.

Superstitions is located inside the building adjacent to where they put on The Blues Brothers, directly across from Finnegan's Bar and Grill.

The Mummy Returns was just okay, not enough Scareacters to scare you, and almost all of it was just a little too well lit, the scenes were pretty good but there just was not enough Scaracters in there or that they weren't spread out evenly where as you knew everytime you were about to be ambushed. Some of the mummies looked excellent.

Run was a disappointment to us both, it's theme was supposed to be a diabolical game with no questions, prizes, and that the only rule is to try to escape without losing your mind. The first part of it wasn't all that bad but not scary enough and almost boring. the other major section was just too lit up from constant strobe lights flickering. To me it was just like going through a chain-link fenced, and mirrored maze, and that you could clearly see all the Scareacterswhen they approached you. Maybe we were disappointed with Run because we thought it was going to something like the gameshow in the Arnold Schwarzeneger movie called The Running Man. So maybe our it was our own fault for setting such high expectations.

The Mummy Returns and Run are both located back in the extra waitng line area for the Earthquake attraction and directly behind Bettlejuice's Graveyard Revue.

The employee that we talked to also told us that Run was copied from a similar type haunted house up in New York last year. Only that the New York's production was set up in something similar to the size of 1 of the sound stages at Universal, now I think I might enjoy that one a whole lot more.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

thanks a lot kotar

i wasnt sure what to expect from pitch black but now that i know i am not going to be mauled in the dark i shouldnt have any problems.

 

[Bob O]

Any one else with any reports, how about Barry??? Unfortunaly i cant attend and am stuck going to six flags fright fest which is no comparison so i like hearing what great things ive misssed. By the way are all the attractions part of your admission???