Halloween Horror Nights 2007: Carnival of Carnage

[bobafett]

OMFG! Just checked out the video on The Thing house and I have to say that from what little I saw of the effects and props that are being used, this is going to be the IT house.It looks like that they really put alot of thought and effort into the house. Like I said before, I am saving that house for last, just in case I s@#! myself. It is going to be really good. Did anyone else think that the white guy in the cryo-freeze chamber resembled Kurt Russell a little? Maybe a little tribute to him and his character in the movie? Didn't previews start tonight(the 27th)? I am writing this Friday the 28th at 5:46am EST because I just got off of work. How was it? Please report back.One month exactly till I get to go!

[Florida420]

Like I said before, I am saving that house for last, just in case I s@#! myself.

 

Unless you have the pass, I wouldn't save that house for last, the tent houses have the longest lines.

But if you have a pass, do it as one of your first, so if you like it you can use your pass to go later, and pass up all the suckers (like me)

 

Well I'm off to HOS in about 5 min, sadly no HHN for another 3 weeks.

 

Everyone wish me luck that my car makes it, it's been driving a bit funny lately.

 

 

I love you all

now I'm gonna go get my scare on!!

[Slacking]

Went to Employee Preview last night.

 

Overall the houses were quite good, but the streets were barren and lacking. Saw no shows, but hit all 8 houses.

 

Nightmare on Elm Street is amazing. Awesome theme, sets, and cast. In the second half, the cast was amazing.

 

Psychoscarepy was amazing too. Fun theme, and the cast was awesome.

 

Vampyr was boring. The first scene pretty much looked like Club Muse on a higher budget. Sure the women were hot, but I want more scaring and less dancing. Huge disappointment.

 

Dead Silence was a disappointment. I am an easy scare and was able to walk through w/o even flinching. It was sad. Cool visuals and effects, but I'm sorry, the cast and their scares are what make the house.

 

All the houses have potential, and I am looking foward to see how they improve by the end of the month.

[jackskellington101]

Went to Employee Preview last night.

 

Overall the houses were quite good, but the streets were barren and lacking.

 

Do they do streets during the Employee Preview normally? Since I've never been an employee, I have no idea.

[Slacking]

Went to Employee Preview last night.

 

Overall the houses were quite good, but the streets were barren and lacking.

 

Do they do streets during the Employee Preview normally? Since I've never been an employee, I have no idea.

 

Yeah they do, it was a dress rehearsal for everyone.

 

But, the streets were very sparse, here is what I saw:

 

NY- a couple scareactors roaming, some on bicycles not really interacting, and one in a bumper car type vehicle. Underwhelming for such a large area.

 

Hollywood- Granted, I did not see this, but supposedly they had motorcycles here.

 

San Francisco- Chainsaw Drill Team

 

Central Park area- an actual carnival themed scarezone. About on par with last year's Harvest of the Souls, maybe a bit weaker.

 

That was all I observed.

[freestylenut]

Dead Silence the movie was bad??? Different strokes for different folks I guess as I found it to be one of the BEST horror movies in the last 5 years. The mood, the atmosphere, the music...reminded me of the good 'ol days of horror where it wasn't an all out gore fest or a torture flick.

 

Needless to say its the house I'm MOST looking forward to.

[bobafett]

^^Hey slacking, you didn't say anything about The Thing house? How was it? Please report back. And yes florida420 I do have express passes! Got those bad boys back in July when I booked my trip. Anyone else who went or is going tonight please report and send in photos. Thanks!

[Slacking]

^^Hey slacking, you didn't say anything about The Thing house? How was it? Please report back. And yes florida420 I do have express passes! Got those bad boys back in July when I booked my trip. Anyone else who went or is going tonight please report and send in photos. Thanks!

 

The Thing house pretty cool, my 3rd favorite of the night.

 

The sets were neat, and the actors were totally into it. could have used a few more scares, but I'm sure they will improve on that once the event kicks into full gear. The puppets were quite cool too.

[bobafett]

^Thanks Slacking! I really am looking forward to this event, just a shame that I have to wait a month before I get there. oh well at least it will be closer to Halloween when I go and I'll be celebrating my wedding anniversary down there in Florida(the 29th of October).

[Thrasher]

I just got back from opening night. Ill try not to post any spoilers but if you are "omgwtfnospoilers!!!1!1!" then you should probably just go ahead and skip this post.

 

I wont post a huge Photo TR because for the most part, none of my pictures of anything really came out. As was said earlier (on the last page), the houses that I did see were awesome. The streets on the other hand, were very bare and uninteresting. They tried to spruce it up with an orange light here and a chainsaw guy there, but the lack of scare zones this year really made a difference in the overall feel of the event.

 

Annual Passholder Event:

What? This is what I kept asking myself for about two hours. The 'event' was largely unorganized and a complete failure. I showed at 5pm on the dot but they didnt even start letting people in till 5:30, meanwhile making everyone stand in the hot sun. I felt sorry for the HHNVault guys that were dressed all in black. There were two lines that were supposedly for different purposes, but theres was nobody directing people and no signage. They were handing out either orange wrsitbands or red 'VIP' wristbands. They were also handing out blue ones but nobody knew the difference. The description said that the event would be held in the Amity area, but it was more like the Fear Factor contestant line area. They were supposedly giving out souveneir cups but it was more like waterbottles, and you had to play some silly throwing dart game to get it. The Friday the 13th house was the first to open to the passholders and it sucked because the sun was still up. I could see everything and all the scare-actors and it was horrible.

 

Bill & Ted:

I got priority seating for the first show as part of the Annual Passholder event. There were two lines leading intot he venue on one side and 1 line leading into the venue on the opposite. The two lines were Express pass and AP event, and the other was general admission. There was much confusion at this point as to which line anybody was supposed to be in because again, no signage and tons of 'staff' standing around not directing.

 

The show itself was bad. It was a few major steps down from the past two years i've seen it. The only jokes that were funny were when they referenced the crowd as being drunk, which always stirs a rowdy response. The performances themselves were good, but seemed forced and the whole show seemed to lack content.

 

The best part about seeing the first show of Bill & Ted is that by the end, it is dark enough to hit the houses in the tents.

 

The Thing (8:00pm - 30min Wait)

This was the best themed of the houses I visited on opening night, but the talent was nowhere to be seen. Maybe I happened to catch it at a bad time, but throughout the house I saw maybe 5 scare-actors total, which left me with all the time to admire the truly amazing set.

 

Jacks Clown-O-Vision (8:45pm - 75min Wait)

In my opinion, the houses in the tent locations really imporved from last years event. This house was also amazing with the 3-D glasses and the wonderful hand-painted scenic. The talent was great as well and really got into their characters.

 

Dinner was a Nathans hot-dog and soda.

 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (10:10 - 75min Wait)

This house was a real imporvement over the house that stood in its place last year. The house had a lot of detail for a house thats considered to be 'outdoors'. They dressed up the outside of the building to look like the house form the movies and had bits of the movie projected onto the outer wall. This was especially key because I have not seen the movies, and it showed me just enough to understand what was going on.

 

Vampyr (11:30pm - No Wait)

I was suprised at the wait because I had walked past this house and the whole of delancy street (re-formed into the queue) was entirely full. I liked this house even though it seemed as if the entire cast wasnt present. The house used a new location in the park (stong alley and surrounding buildings). The house was staged really well and flowed nicely with one, unified theme.

 

Dead Silence (Midnight - 30mins)

I was basically the last person to get in line for this house before they closed the queue. The house was the first of the ones in the soundstages and was awesome. I cant wait to see the other two on my next trip. I had recently seen this movie and they did very well in recreating the themeing and overall feel of the movie. There is also one section that is truly amazing and you will no doubt see it on your trip. Lets just say it reminded me of the 'extreme house' concept that was thrown around last year.

 

That was it. I know at the end of last years event, there were people saying that some guests were drinking too much and causing problems, but from what I saw, none of that was present tonight. I thought that the bars were better placed then last years so that the lines dont extend into the main paths, and the security was stepped up considerably.

[bobafett]

Thanks for the report! Opening nights jitters for everyone I guess. By the time I get down there(the end of October) hopefully all the kinks will be worked out.

[splzero]

I went last night too. I don't know if its because im spoiled with HHN's but it seemed like this year wasn't very scary. My girlfriend has butterfly's in her stomach from thinking about going. She went 2 years ago and said it was way to many people jumping out at you. when we went last night she said that it didnt have enough people out on the streets it seemed like they had "unofficial" scare zones with about 1/8 amount of people as normal scare zones. and she also made the comment about not enough people in the haunted houses. I'm hoping that maybe they just didnt schedule enough people for the first weekend and that it will get better as it goes on.

[youthink?]

Thrasher did you go through Freddy's house?

[Thrasher]

No I didnt because for some reason I thought the park was open till 2am instead of midnight. The houses I didnt get to see were NOES and PsychoScareapy. I have a frequent fear pass so I will be going next weekend to finish up those two houses.

[youthink?]

Oh I see. Hopefully by then they'll have screamsters on the midways!

[drewelap]

ok i only went through Nightmare, Chainsaw, and The Thing, and i must say that i was slightly disapointed with nightmare. I realy only recognized the first 3 scenes and everything else was just dark. Plus I only saw Freddy maybe 3 times. I couldnt really see him to much so i cant really say how legit the face makeup was.

 

Chainsaw was scarrier than Nightmare was. I mean you could really smell the carnage throughout the house and it was sick! Plus the ending was great.

 

The Thing was WAYYY better then the others. It was random, and creepy, and for being in a small tent, it felt very long. I had to force my friend through becuase she was terrified.

 

Bill and Ted's was funny but not as good as last year's. I liked how the theme was celebrity screw ups though. Oh and if they werent allowed to use captain jack sparrow and elizabeth swan in the show, then how were they allowed to use them last year? This time in the show "Capt Jack" is spoofed with "blades of glory". Idk

[thefitness]

No I didnt because for some reason I thought the park was open till 2am instead of midnight. The houses I didnt get to see were NOES and PsychoScareapy. I have a frequent fear pass so I will be going next weekend to finish up those two houses.

 

 

I wasn't able to make it into NOES either...stupid 12am closing!

 

However I did get into PsychoScareapy, it was my favorite house. Dead Silence and The Thing were close behind.

 

I'll post more detailed reviews later.

[JT3000]

It's still too early to properly judge all of the houses, but I'm ready to nominate The Thing for House of the Year. They already have that one down to an art. The others need improvement.

[bblfgrd]

The site has been updated again with the dead silence tent and Jack's tent. Still working on how to get into Jack's tent...

[jackskellington101]

^ Take a look at our ringmaster and use that to you're advantage. The biggest thing is when making your paints, don't forget the blood. Hope that helps.

[JT3000]

This is the solution.

 

http://www.horrornights.be/images/funhouse_answer.jpg

[drewelap]

whats the solution for the texas chainsaw massacre one? Oh and the solution for the Dead Silence one is "Michael"

[jackskellington101]

The Texas Chainsaw puzzle is flip (the switch on the bottom), pump (the gas pump twice), choke (the red switch), rip (pull the rip cord three times), rev (the switch), kill (the kill button).

[freestylenut]

*SOME SPOILERS*

 

I went to HHN Sunday 10/7 WITH an express pass.

 

The good news...I did all the haunted houses.

 

The bad...Jack's Funhouse "broke down" for an hour...because of this it messed up my ENTIRE plan schedule and we had to miss ONE show, which happened to be Jack's Carnival of Carnage...if anyone who saw it can give post a spoiler review here or PM me on it, I'd appreciate it.

 

LOVED:

 

-Dead Silence (my fav, maybe I'm biased cause I love the movie)

-Elm Street

-Texas Chainsaw Massacre (gave me ONE of ONLY TWO legitimate scares all night)

-Friday The 13th (loved the 80s Harry Manfredini score playing throughout the house)

-The Thing (great props/sets).

 

DIDN'T CARE FOR:

 

-Psychoscarepy (Christmas isn't scary)

-Vampyre (they did it better when it was near Twister a few years back. Seemd to take a cue from After Hours at HOS at BGA.)

-Jack's Funhouse (not only was THIS house the one that messed up my schedule, it wasn't even that good. Too bright and TOO much like 3D at HOS as well.)

 

-B&T show was good...but I've seen better. Too many TV references (I swear the audience didn't recognize Sylar from Heroes as no one reacted...an NBC shameless plug).

 

-Freakshow freaked me out. The EVP part was my OTHER scare of the night. There was some kind of fight or something at the show I was at it distracted a lot of us for about 5 minutes.

 

-Rocky Horror kicks a$$! I LOVE the music and this was right up my alley.

 

I HATE, repeat HATE Universal's midnight closings on offpeak nights. What gives???!!!??? If I had done Jack's Funhouse when I planned it, I would've been able to see everything HHN, but one goof (Universal's fault by the way) and I miss a show.

 

Again, the place was mad crowded and it was humid as heck...it made for an uncomfortable evening.

 

If U've never been, HIGH recommend. Now on MY 14th year...I might start skipping a year or two.

[thefitness]

^There are several videos of Jack's show on youtube.