HHN Hollywood VS. Knotts Scary Farm (Ratings and Reviews)

[mudger]

Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood

 

Overall the quality of the mazes at HHN was suprisingly good. The tram ride (Horror Tram) was quite a relief from the typical walkthrough maze. Although it did feel a little short and the scares weren't as personal, the overall ambience and themeing from actual horror sets made all the difference. The Asylum was the second of three mazes and was equally impressive. Theme and scares were abundant and the quality of acting was, shall I say, superior to that of the "other" asylum. I found myself jumping quite a few times and other times marveling at the sets. House of Horrors was sort of a let down mostly because it was no different than the Van-Helsing house, save a few freddy kreugers and werewolves. Although the scares were there and the themes were good I felt a little ripped off considering I had paid for an experience other than the norm. The scare zones were extremely well themed and haunted. In Comparison to Knott's I felt that they were done with much more finesse and detail. Instead of having shaker cans in my face I had an actual monster who stayed in character with snorts, taunts, and just overall creepiness. Maybe real actors make better monsters? In conclusion, with a few more mazes and a little more effort Universal will be right in the running with Knott's.

 

Top 3 Mazes + Scare Zones

 

Asylum: Overall: 12

Ambience: 4

Talent: 4

Scares: 4

 

 

Horror Tram: Overall: 10

Ambience: 5

Talent: 3 (would be a 2 but tram operator was hilarious)

Scares: 2

 

 

House of Horrors: Overall: 8

Ambience: 3

Talent: 2

Scares: 3

 

 

Scare Zones: Overall: 10

Ambience: 4

Talent: 3

Scares: 3

 

 

Total: 40 out of 60

 

 

Knotts Scary Farm

 

The king of all haunts, I went in expecting maybe a little too much and came out somewhat dissapointed. Although in some aspects it met and exceeded my prediciton, I still left the park feeling unsatisfied. With over ten mazes Knott's clearly has the upperhand in quantity but most of them suffer in quality. Out of all twelve mazes I only got scared in three of them. That means i spent 20-30 minutes of walking through mazes in total, without a single scare. Perhaps the best maze "The Grudge 2," was scary for reasons other than someone behind a corner. The maze was not only extremely well themed, probably due to a large budget courtesy of Sony pictures, but it was well acted. Another equally impressive maze, "13 Axe Murder Manor," was well detailed and well acted. I often had to stop myself in the middle of the maze in awe of the awesome sets, twirling bookcases, huge open scenes and lots of gore. If this maze fell short in anything it was its scarcity of actors. A surprise to me was "Red Moon Massacre." I often hear people saying that they should change the maze because its been a resident maze/ride for so long. After my ride was over I realized exactly why it hasn't and SHOULD NOT change. In all honesty, I jumped more in this maze than any other maze in Knotts and Universal. The ambience of the ride is so well done that it makes you feel like your literally in a log, riding in a river through woods haunted with werewolves. With nobody in sight to "steal" a scare from you its easy to be startled. The actors were also excellent as they hit every scare with precision. I applaude Knotts for not changing a thing to this ride, because they shouldn't. One thing that left me wanting more were the scare zones. Although the sliders were amazing and some of the actors were in character and just downright professional scarers, something was awry. I realized that in comparison to Universal, Knotts was extremely bright. Throughout most of the park all the lights were on and it really took away from the ambience. Although Knotts did have some shortcomings they still came out on top, congrats to them once again.

 

Top 3 Mazes + Scare Zones

 

The Grudge 2: Overall: 11

Ambience: 5

Talent: 3

Scares: 3

 

 

13 Axe Murder Mansion: Overall: 11

Ambience: 5

Talent: 3

Scares: 3

 

 

Red Moon Massacre: Overall: 12

Ambience: 5

Talent: 3

Scares: 4

 

 

Scare Zones: Overall: 10

Ambience: 3 (too much light)

Talent: 4

Scares: 3

 

 

Total: 44 out of 60

 

 

Knotts needs to beef up their mazes and scares. In fact, I think they should get rid of 3 mazes and use the resources to create a new maze and add additional actors to the old ones. Yes, Knotts is still the best, but Universal is breathing down their neck.[/b]

[robbalvey]

Wow! What a great report! It really felt "honest."

 

I've seen a lot of bashing of the HHN event by "Haunt fans" but I agree that Universal Hollywood really put on a decent event. All they needed was "more."

 

Thanks for the post and hopefully we'll see more of your reports here!

 

--Robb

[ebl]

I've not been to the Hollywood event, but the Orlando one---to me at least---was very similar, only five times as crowded. The mazes there were very good. But I enjoy Haunt as well. I take each event as they come.

 

Eric

[Jew]

Instead of having shaker cans in my face I had an actual monster who stayed in character with snorts, taunts, and just overall creepiness.

 

Maybe it's just because I work Haunt and get to see/do a lot more than the typical guest...but I've only seen one or two shaker cans this year at Haunt. Hell, we even took one away from the monster trying to use it in the Asylum. And where do you think the snorting idea came from? Haunt monsters have it perfected!

 

Haunt fans/monsters get defensive about that because being around Haunt more than the typical person gives them a better opportunity to see that Haunt is not all about shaker cans. I haven't used a shaker can since I was a Bunny in C3 (where it is actually a great scare tactic since the whole point was to blend in and startle) and currently spend my whole night taunting, running around in character, and scaring the f*ck out of people. And I'm definitely not the only one. So that's why you hear Haunt fans/monsters speaking up about that.

 

And again...where the hell is this no shaker can thing coming from? Practically every monster I saw on the upper lot had one and wasn't using it very well at all! I thought the atmosphere was great, and also think HHN has a very bright future, but I was horribly disappointed with most of the talent. When they were good, they were GOOD. But for every awesome guy I saw (like the Norman Bates characters), I saw 5 with shaker cans just walking around and shaking them in peoples faces. Then I saw five more with chainsaws (which there are WAY too many of at HHN) doing nothing but running their saw.

[robbalvey]

I've not been to the Hollywood event, but the Orlando one---to me at least---was very similar, only five times as crowded. The mazes there were very good. But I enjoy Haunt as well. I take each event as they come.

 

Eric

My reccomendation for next time you do HHN Orlando - Don't go on a Saturday!

 

--Robb

[smells_like_team_disney]

I haven't been to either HHN, but from what I've heard from everyone it seems that Universal definitely delivers in the quality and just needs to expand to Haunt proportions. I haven't really met anyone who thought this year's HHN was the inferior event, just that they need more. It seems to me it's a huge hit with the public and opinions are pretty polarizing compared to what I heard about the event years ago. Everyone I knew who went to the HHN in Hollywood of the late 90s/early 00s was disappointed, saying that Knott's Haunt is much better. IMHO, Knott's Haunt feels tired and outdated. Did anyone on these boards ever attend the earlier years of Hollywood's HHN?

[CoasterGoblin]

I ended up going to Halloween Horror Nights on Halloween and had a great time! If I had gone on a busy night I don't know how I would have liked it but I got to do the Terror Tram 3 times, The Asylum 2 times, House of Horrors (half of it- due to wanting to go see Slaughterworld), Slaughterworld, Carnival of Carnage, Chucky, Fear Factor Dead Celibrity, Jurassic Park, and The Mummy. Got to see about the last 5 minutes of The Mutaytor as well.

 

The Terror Tram and Asylum were both top notch.. as good as Knott's Halloween Haunt at its best.. and I might almost like it more than what Knott's has to offer because I'd rather see people 'acting' than trying to scare me since I don't really get scared at these events. I can see where people would rather get scared though and if you wanted that you’d definitely want to go to Knott’s.

 

The shows were really lacking. I only liked the Carnival of Carnage and Chucky (partially). The Mutaytor looked cool but since I saw it several times walking by I wanted to check out the other shows.. which was a mistake mostly. Slaughterworld was mostly a waste especially since I saw Waterworld recently. Fear Factor was abysmal I’d go so far as to say Dead Idol Live at Haunt this year was superior to it.. at least they had live singing which requires talent. Knott’s always has some shows that have high repeat value (notably Hacks the past couple of years). There was nothing that I saw at HHN that I’d want to see again.

 

Random thoughts:

 

-George the Giant in the Carnival of Carnage show was paired with Zamora the Torture King at Halloween Haunt the first few years I started going to Haunt religiously. I think he was a much better co-host to Zamora than Miss Electra is.

 

-HHN is in your face and loud like an MTV music video whereas Knott’s is more like an independent film.. if that makes any sense. The Terror Tram had extremely loud music/noise before leaving, Chucky is vulgar, Slaughterworld and Fear Factor seemed to have risqué jokes for the sake of it. Compare the ‘freak show’ at HHN and Knott’s and you’ll see it’s more elegant with the lighting and music.. but Zamora at Knott’s seems like a much better ‘freak’ but very low key. The differences between the look and feel of the two events are quite obvious to me.

 

-I was hoping to see more props like some of the stuff seen in recent Knott’s mazes (giant dragon, giant pig with bouncing head, coffin rocking on the ground, bubbling vials, electric chair guy, spinning books hanging from ceiling, everything inside Grudge 2, etc).

 

-I went to Haunt 3 times this season and saw no more than 2 shaker cans. I can’t even count how many shaker cans I saw at HHN it was easily over a dozen. Not that it makes a difference to me at all.. it just seems some people act like shaker cans = bad.

 

-I really liked a guy in one of the scarezones who stood at a light pole just staring at people while licking his chops as if he wanted to eat you. We walked by him 2 or 3 times in various times of the night and he was doing it each time.. pretty cool.

 

-The acting in the Terror Tram was pretty cool. I read there was even more acting in general at HHN earlier this month.. I think I might have liked it even more if that was the case. I didn’t see one staged killing.

 

-Overheard some disappointed people as they got to the end of a queue and found out they were in line for a show. Some people were probably expecting a lot more mazes.. and I’d expect many people were disappointed. Hard to tell really.

 

-Loved the price of food hope they keep that up!

 

-I was slightly disappointed in how short the Terror Tram was and that there weren’t any attempts to scare us while in the tram.

 

-Jurassic Park in the dark didn’t seem dark at all to me.. there were lights everywhere.

 

-I think they need at least 5 more Asylum quality mazes, at least 2 killer shows, and many more nights to reduce the torture of sold out nights to get to the point where I’d consider telling people to check this event out instead of Halloween Haunt.

 

Overall I’m glad I went and as long as they change things up a bit every year I will definitely be checking this event out! I think competition is great and I hope Cedar Fair feels the need to spend more money on Halloween Haunt!

[Chase]

Looks like Knott's took the win.

 

Next up, HHN: Sweet 16 vs. Knott's Scary Farm