HHN (Hollywood) Trip Report

[CKY Lunatic]

I have been a monster at Halloween Haunt for the last 3 years, and have loved the event for the last 10 years. But before you all think that I am going to trash HHN just because of that, I want you to know that I was REALLY looking forward to the event and hoping that it would be as good as I have heard that Orlando’s event was. But anyway, onto the review…

 

We arrived to the park at about 6:30pm and the lines at the front for security were HUGE and unorganized. The first line we got in didn’t move for 5 minutes, so we went to another line and got through in less than 10 minutes. We got inside and there was one of those monsters that looks like a statue standing with the fountain statues at the front. He didn’t seem to be going for many scares, but it was still kinda cool. We started walking in and there were 2 “hot” girls in cages dancing.

 

There were a good amount of Streets Monsters, but they weren’t very entertaining. We went straight for the Terror Tram and there was only about a 5 minute wait. While in line, there was this “Flasher” monster that told my brother “Your hair reminds me of my pubes!”. Then we got on the tram and the “Tony Montoya” (from Scarface) monster was walking around. We got in the tram and my brother was sitting on the outside facing toward the inside of the car and Tony snuck up right behind and gave my brother an awesome scare, and then continued to imitate his reaction while the entire line laughed at my brother’s humiliation. It was awesome.

 

The tour started, and they played the history of “The Director”. I thought it was really well done. The tram stopped in the middle of a really dark area, and we were all expecting monsters to pop out of the bushes and torment the tram, but instead, we just started moving again. I think that was the first let-down of the night, they could have had some awesome scares there.

 

We got to our stop, and got to walk past Who-Ville, Bates Motel, The Psycho House and the War of the Worlds set. It was AWESOME to be able to walk through there, and the area was crawling with monsters, but unfortunately, not many of them went for scares. I think they played the parts (acting wise) very well, but they weren’t very good at scaring. In the middle of the WotW set, I turned around to take a picture, but then turned back to a monster being right in front of me and got my only scare of the night (unfortunately it was a pretty mediocre scare). Chucky was at the end, and he got swarmed by guests so quickly. I tried to get a picture with him, but I ended up being behind a ton of other people cause I couldn’t even push my way in there.

 

After that, we got back on the tram and headed back. We went into the Mummy tunnel (which I enjoy) and The Director was supposedly in there. You could hear him talking and then a chainsaw started and the tram was sprayed with “blood”. After that, they took us back and unloaded us. I was hoping we got to go to the lower lot, but it was still a fun tour. I text messaged my friend and told him that this event was awesome and said “Do NOT miss this event!” (I later took back what I said). 8/10

 

After that, we walked around for a bit and decided to get in line for The Asylum. Some stupid guest told us that the line was for Shrek 4-D and we stupidly believed her for about 5 seconds, and then got back in line. The line control didn’t know what they were doing, they just screwed it up, and I’m sure that 50 or more people got in line in front of us after we were standing in the rope area. There was a camera crew in line doing a scream contest…meh. The line took about 40 minutes to go through, and then we finally got to the entrance.

 

The set design/costumes of this maze were GREAT. The talent was not. I think one person out of our entire group (11 people) may have gotten one mediocre scare the entire time. Most of the monsters in there were going for “dummy” scares where they pretend to be fake and then jump out at you. It seemed like there were only a couple monsters in there that actually tried. The maze was pretty long, but that might have been because it was so crowded in there. I’m rating this maze for talent and set design separately to be fair. Talent: 1.5/10 Set Design: 10/10

 

After that, we headed to what we were all looking forward to the most: Chucky’s Insult Emporium. The show started off really good and we were all laughing so hard. But then it seemed like he ran out of scripted jokes and started using the same ones over again and killing time by saying “For crying out loud” over and over. Chucky abruptly ended the show saying he needed to go rub one out, and it was over. I heard a few boos from the audience. 6/10

 

After that we almost went into the Carnival of Carnage (I think that’s what it was called), but we missed the show. After hearing that it sucked really bad, I was really happy we missed it (although I’m sure it was better than Slaughterworld-I’ll get to that in a bit).

 

We headed down to the lower lot. The escalators were fun-everybody was sliding coins and trash down the railings and all the guests were getting into it (I know, I'm like a little kid, cause I'm easily entertained). My cousin hadn’t been on Mummy yet, but the line was ridiculous, so we passed on it. We got our free ponchos and got in line for Jurassic Park in the Dark. It was about a 30 minute wait. There were some annoying guys in line that kept yelling and clapping really loud. Once we got to front of the line, my friend Mike's poncho had ripped about halfway down, so he decided that mine should be ripped too. We spent the rest of the wait in line ripping eachother’s ponchos apart. By the time we got on the ride, my hood was disconnected, my poncho was ripped completely down the front, and I was missing random other parts. Mike's was almost as bad as mine. Then the ride started, and we continued ripping eachother’s ponchos. By the end of the ride, my poncho only covered my legs. All the other people on the boat were laughing at us, it was great. I thought “In the Dark” meant that they weren’t gonna have any of the lights on, but they did. Oh well, JP was as awesome as ever, I love dinosaurs. 10/10

 

After that, we made our way back up to the top and over to the final showing of Slaughterworld. On the way there, we passed through the Western themed streets zone. It should have been called “Photo-Op Central”, because none of the monsters were scaring, they were all just posing for pictures (Don’t get me wrong, posing for pictures is awesome, but scaring should be top priority).

 

We got in line for Slaughterworld (or “Water World with a few horribly lame sexual jokes” as I like to call it). Before the show, we watched the guys spraying people with water which is always fun. Then the show started, and everything was EXACTLY the same. The only changes were a few stupid over-used jokes and that the plane didn’t work (I’m sure it was a technical glitch-I’m not holding that against the show, but it was still funny that all the sound effects/explosions worked, but there was no plane). The “twist” was stupid and I would have rather seen the normal show. I think I laughed once. It seemed like they decided to have Slaughterworld when they initially planned the event, but forgot to write the show until 2 days beforehand. 0/10

 

While walking out, there was a rolled up carpet in the way of everybody, and we all almost fell flat on our faces after tripping over it. My cousin moved it out of the way so nobody would get killed.

 

On the way out of the park, one of the survey guys talked to my friend about our experience. My friend gave a pretty bad survey to him, but was still fair. He asked if we had been to Knott’s Scary Farm and if we liked it better than HHN and he of course said that KSF was better.

 

Overall, I give the event 5/10. This definitely has potential, and I will try it again if they get some more mazes and get rid of Slaughterworld and the ex-Lore of the Vampire talent.

 

Anyway, that’s the end of my review. Hopefully I will write my KSF review soon. Thanks for reading.

[Bush985]

It stinks that its so hard to do everything in one night. Thats once of the nice things about Haunt, you can do all the Haunted Attractions in a decent amount of time. I think with all these bad reviews so far, I'm going to pass on this years HHN. Maybe they will add a few more attractions next year, which will greatly help reduce lines.

 

-RD

[SharkTums]

I don't quite get all of these people complaining about 'scares'. Sorry, but I've never been scared at Haunt or HHN. I don't think they're supposed to Scare you as much as you think they are. I saw a lot more people having fun interacting with the characters, taking cool pictures, etc. I think that the Haunt people take themselves WAY too seriously.

[The Cheat]

At haunt we are paid to scare people, not take pictures or anything else.

 

They're not supposed to scare you as much as you think they are?

 

Then whats the point of going? When I go to a halloween event that has the word horror, or halloween, or haunt and isnt at disney then I full on expect to get scared. Id rather see someone pop out at me than throw beads. I also hate it when I walk through a scare zone and those only about 5 monsters scaring and the other 25 are taking pictures with guests. Case in point: Lore of the Vampire. That maze might actually be a little bit more scary if they didnt have a photo op about halfway through the maze.

[Jew]

I like to think of it as "old school" and "new school."

 

Old school is Haunt. Nothing over the top, just pretty good sets and lots of talent scaring/harassing people using things like shaker cans, sliding, hiding behind corners, slider gloves, etc., etc.

 

New school is HHN. It's more of a production than a traditional haunted house. There's more detailed sets and the goal is more to engulf you in the scary/grotesque/horrorifying atmosphere more than it is to straight out startle/scare you.

 

To me, both are cool. Both have their place, and what works for one haunt may not work for another. I actually think that the perfect event would balance the two. It would be totally awesome if, for example, the Doctors in Haunt's Asylum got to "kill" a "guest" every 20 minutes (or whatever it is) like they do on the Terror Tram. On the flip side, I also think that the Terror Tram could use more traditional scares to balance it out.

 

It's boring to me to see a bunch of monsters just taking pictures/interacting with guests, so I agree with Shaun and Andy in that regard. But I also agree with Elissa that interacting/taking pictures/making fun of guests/etc. are all a vital part of the experience too. Again, it's all about balancing that with scares IMO.

[CKY Lunatic]

 

 

 

It's boring to me to see a bunch of monsters just taking pictures/interacting with guests, so I agree with Shaun and Andy in that regard. But I also agree with Elissa that interacting/taking pictures/making fun of guests/etc. are all a vital part of the experience too. Again, it's all about balancing that with scares IMO.

Couldn't have said it better myself.