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Halloween Horror Nights Events 2004
Halloween Horror Nights 14... I was sort of disappointed in it. Two parks was good, but it caused everything to be way too spread out. The houses being spread out is fine with me, but there wasn't enough between the houses. There should have been a lot more scare zones, and even if there wasn't a scarezone in a spot, there should have been monsters scaring you everywhere. Speaking of scarezones, what was with the lack of fog and scareactors in them. They were almost all empty. And what about the foam. For the past 3 years, the foam has been one of my favorites during HHN. And this year, there is no foam. I also felt that not much was scary this year either. This includes the scare zones, and the haunted houses. The only place that I got scared was in the Horror in Wax house because it was hard to see in spots. And I would say that the haunted houses were old and over used concepts, with not much new and original. The first 3 haunted houses that I went though I felt like they were put together at the last minute. So overall, the main problem with HHN this year was that it lacked a scary atmosphere and scares to begin with...
Scare Zones
Port of Evil- Last year the Port of Evil had lots of fog. Big fans blowing the fog around. Monsters everywhere. Drummers. Fire. Compared to last year, I want to know what happened to the Port of Evil. When you first went through the front gate last year, you saw a big creepy stilt walker character with a great costume. This year, there was two women wearing glow in the dark spandex on platforms. I wouldn't consider that scary. It had some fog, but not enough, and it was just normal fog with no huge fans blowing it around or anything like last year. Walking though the Port of Evil, I only saw 3 or 4 monsters before I got to the end of the street, and the worst part was, none of them really did much to scare anyone. They just kind of stood there and stared. A friend that I went with mentioned something very true that the costumes looked like tuskan raiders from star wars. Not exactly original. At the end of the street, there was a big metal pile of electrical equipment. It did nothing besides from sit there. It didn't really compare to last years flaming skull surrounded by drummers and dancers. Around this center piece, there were a few stilt walkers with microphones that made fun of people. They had a very sci-fi look as well, and didn't compare to the great costumes that the stiltwalkers had in this area last year.
Then I left this area and moved on. No one attempted to scare me once here. The atmosphere wasn't scary. It was like walking through Tommorrowland when it first opened at the Magic Kingdom when they had a bunch of sci-fi charcters walking around.
Overall Rating: 1 Stars
Scare Rating: 0 Stars
Field of Screams- I headed though Field of Screams right after I got through Port of Evil. When I first saw it, my hopes for HHN were greatly improved after my bad first impression. It was an area covered with real corn stalks. There were large scare crows in the corn, and it had a really cool look to it. There was a real rural look to it, that is, if you looked away from the big neon Hard Rock Live sign that was right next door. There were a bunch of rednecks chasing you with chain saws, as well as some farmers interacting with you as you walked by, and then here and there you saw some corn monsters. The scareactors seemed to be really trying to scare you here, and overall the theme was good. I personally didn't find it to be all that scary, but someone that I was with was terrified. The biggest problem with this scarezone was that there was not enough fog and too much ambient light. For a better theme, it should have been placed farther away from Citywalk and the soundstages so all of that light wouldn't be shineing into the cornfield, kind of making it a lot less scary, but overall, I would say it was the best scarezone in the park.
Overall Rating: 4 stars
Scare Rating: 3 stars
Midway of the Bizzare- This year the Midway of the Bizzare was set in the former site of the bone yard. It split into a path with several sets in the middle of the path going diagonally across the yard. Around the path, all of the parade floats were parked when a parade wasn't going on. I found this area to be set up a lot like "Darkhearts Fear Fair" at Busch Garden's Howl o Scream, but not put together as well. I found the overall theming to be nice, with a bunch of giant heads all over (They looked like they are from previous parade floats). There was thick fog, but only in small spots, and it wasn't used to HHN's advantage. The biggest problem with this area was lack of scareactors. The first time I went throught the only person in the area was a girl with a flexible leg on a platform bending her leg in weird directions. And that was it. The second time I went through, it was the same person and a carnie. There were no evil clowns. There was really not much. I was actually expecting them to have more sideshow acts here too. Shows like the Lizardman or the rat lady (both of which were not at HHN this year). The lack of people working here was the biggest problem with this area. And if there's no people, no one can scare you. My rating would have been higher though if they had actual midway shows here.
overall Rating: 2 stars Scare Rating: 0 stars
Fright Yard- The second favorite scare zone in the park this year, and I actually think it is tied with Field of Screams. It was very long, which was good, and had some good effects like fire, lighting effects, and the most fog in one area of the park this year. It was supposed to be in an urban area with gangs chasing you. The theme fit very well in the area that it was located. The soundstages looked like an urban industrial park. But, it should have expanded all the way into New York to make a huge scare zone. Most of the scareactors were people with chainsaws, and they blended in well with the fog. This had to be the scariest scare zone in my opinion. This area did remind me of a scarezone at Busch Gardens though that they had last year. It was supposed to be gangs or something. Only at Busch Gardens there were scareactors that went slideing along the ground with metal kneepads that sent sparks flying up at people. I really don't have too many compaints with this section of the park. Suprising.
Overall Rating: 4 Stars
Scare Rating: 3 Stars
Other Unlisted Scare Zones- These were the scare zones that weren't listed on the map, and there were two the night that I went. One was in the Lost Continent and the other was in Marvel Superhero Island. I'm going to start out with the one in the Lost continent. It had the same goblin type monsters that were in this section last year, and that was about it. One of them actually scared me because I wasn't expecting any attempt to scare me in this section of the park. But other than that, there wasn't much too this area.
In Marvel Superhero Island, I would say that if there was a kids area in the park, this was it. The only monsters in the streets were Frankenstine and his Bride on stilts. All of the other characters were all sorts of stiltwalkers. It was basically a spacefiller using up the left over stiltwalker costumes from Mardi Gras. Overhead on a screen, they played scooby doo cartoons. Not much to this area.
Overall Rating: 1 Stars
Scare Rating: 0 Stars
Haunted Houses
Horror in Wax- In my opinion, this was the scariest haunted house in the park, but not the best. It was actually number 3 on my list of the 7 haunted houses. The house was in a soundstage, and the first one you past when you entered the park. When I first got there it had a half hour wait. I came back at the end of the night and it was walk on and I went through twice. It was supposed to be a wax museum. You went through various scenes showing classic monster movie characters, and then went through a few scenes where they were supposed to be making was figures by dipping people in wax. Here there were monsters with melted wax coming off of them, and then you went into a final scene filled with fog and strobe lights where monsters just seemed to pop up out of nowhere. Like I said before, I felt this was the scariest house in HHN, but it wasn't anything new or original. In previous years, and at other haunted houses outside of HHN, houses have been a lot scarier than this. I feel guilty for giving it a scare rating of 4 out of 5 stars because I sort of feel it was too generous.It was all monsters that everyones already seen, and there wasn't anything unique about the house.
Overall Rating: 3 Stars
Scare Rating: 4 Stars
Ghost Town- An average haunted house. It was the first one I went though when I got to HHN, and when I first walked into the soundstage and saw the set that they had, I was impressed that they put so much work into a house. But after the first scene, I can't say I can remember much about the house. Nothing stood out and it ran together with other houses. It was basically used ideas again that have been hin dozens of other houses in the past. Thinking about it, the only things that I can think of about this house was a kitchen scene, a butcher scene where you pushed your way through dead cow parts hanging from the ceiling, and a stable scene that used the same "poop" smell from Psyco Scareapy last year. And again, I didn't get one good scare in this house. The scareactors just kind of stood there and stared.
Overall Rating: 2 Stars
Scare Rating: 1 Stars
Horror Nights Nightmares- Before going though this house, I had a feeling it wouldn't be the best, but I was expecting more than what it actually was. You walked in and went though some long hallways with film hanging on the walls in spots. The "Do you want to be in pictures" song was playing, and after going through the long hallways with nothing in them, you got to a movie theatre scene. This room had a movie screen on the back wall with an animatronic of a person getting electricuted in a bathtub in front of it. I did not see a Director character in the house. There were a bunch of movie theatre usher type characters telling how you would be great for movies, and then you moved into The Caretaker's section. This area seemed very short compared to the Director's area to me, and had The Caretaker behind a counter scaring people, but not doing much. Then it was on to Jack. There were a whole bunch of Jacks that popped out at you from behind large boxes. I was expecting something to pop out at you whenever the "Pop goes the Wesiel" song got to pop, but nothing happened. Then there was Eddie's scene which wasn't much but an Eddie with a chainsaw. After that, the house was over. I was expecting more than it was, since The Caretaker's Screamhouses and The Director's All Night Die In from previous years were so good. Again, it was used ideas without anything new. I would have much rather had another mascot this year with a uniform theme throughout HHN instead of one house with old mascots. I didn't find this one scary either.
Overall Rating: 2 Stars
Scare Rating: 1 Stars
Deadtropolis- I felt a lot of the haunted houses this year were bad, but out of all of them, I though Deadtropolis was the worst. This house had a bit of a line, but I waited anyway since it was all the way at the end of the park. It's preshow shown on the TVs outside was good. It was probably the best thing about the house. It took a news person from a local news station doing a fake report about how some scientific experiment was making dead people come back to life or something like that. There were also some very graphic scenes of zombies ripping peoples guts out and eating them. In between this there were scenes from movies like the ring as well as some others. Once I got into the house though, there wasn't really anything that good about it. The best scene in the house was an animatronic guy throwing up. Another scene was a subway car that seemed to be rocking back and forth very, very, very slightly. It may have been my imagination. If they had it rocking a lot, then it might have had something going for it. The final scene was a tunnel with water dripping down from a sheet of plastic with a bunch of holes in it. I kind of understood the concept of this, trying to get people to run through it so they don't get wet, and then getting scared by a scareactor at the end of the tunnel, but it didn't work. It was a hot night, and I don't think anyone minded getting wet. Other than that, there really wasn't much to the house. From the preshow, I expected a lot of gore, but there wasn't any inside. It was just mostly hallways with not much in them except for people with white makeup on.
Overall Rating: 1 Stars
Scare Rating: 1 Stars
Castle Vampyr- I don't get why they just couldn't have called this house Castle Vampire. That's how I figured it was pronounced from the way Universal spelled it, but every employee that I heard say the house's name pronounced it Castle Vam-pier. Like what you fish off of. I can not think of a reason why. The house itself started out with a preshow shown on the outside which seemed to be like a documentary of some guy who knew all about vampires, and found some castle inhabited by them. Then you went into the soundstage. You entered a room with gargoyles and stone fountains. A lot of work went into making this house. From there you went into another room with steps going to nowhere with a vampire on them. You continued though the very well themed castle having a vampire jump out at you every so often, and the theme stayed very cohesive, that is, until the vampires decided to go clubbing. This room was well lit with lots and lots of strobe lights, had techno music playing, and had dancing vampires. It really made no sense with the rest of the house. And then it was back to the well themed portion of the house. You ended by walking up stairs (a new thing in a HHN house), and going across a platform where scareactors hanging from cables from the ceiling swung around the sides of the platform trying to scare you. It was a very unique scare, but I was expecting more than this one little section of upstairs. As I was walking up the steps, I was thinking that it would be the best house at HHN because it was 2 floors, and was twice as long as all of the other houses. I was wrong, and the house ended with a final vampire jumping out at you on the bottom of the steps. Overall, the themeing was great in this house, but it lacked in scares. I didn't get scared any, but a friend that I was with was terrified, so I guess I don't get scared easily.
Overall Rating: 3 Stars
Scare Rating: 2 Stars
Hellgate Prison- If each haunted house had an individual admission charge, this would be the only one worth paying for in my opinion. But, even though it was the best house at Halloween horror Nights, it didn't compare to some of the other houses that I have been through in the past, both at HHN, and elsewhere. Hellgate Prison was set in a jail, as you probably could have guessed, and the house starts out with you waiting on line, watching the preshow video. You got to hear from the warden of the jail who told you what goes in his prison. You saw little clips from movies set in prisons to show what it's like inside of Hellgate prison, and then you got to watch it all over again. It seemed to be a very short video. You then entered the soundstage. The first room had prisoners behind glass talking on phones to you. They made fun of you, yelled at you, and just weren't very nice. You walked though more very well done prison scenes, until you got to what I thought to be the climax of the house, which was an animatronic guy on an electric chair. You entered on one side of the chair, and walked around to the otherside. For a haunted house, I felt this was a better animatronic then you normally see. Universal had their security people in this scene yelling at everyone to keep on moving, because everyone was stopping, waiting for the animatronic to start again. After this scene, it seemed to be the prison escape area where all of the inmates were out of their cells, all yelling at you. This area was mostly chain link fences. Overall, this house was defitinly the best at Halloween Horror Nights, but it did lack in scares. If compared to Busch Garden's original Escape from Insanity house, which was set up very similarly, and with sort of the same of holding dangerous people captive, that was so much scarier than this, but otherwise Hellgate prison was good.
Overall Rating: 4 Stars
Scare Rating: 3 Stars
Disorientoium- This house was not scary at all, and could have been a lot better, but I liked it a lot. I might even say that it was my second favorite house after Hellgate Prison. It was more like a classic funhouse than a haunted house, and I enjoy those a lot. It was located in the soundstage built especially for HHN two years ago behind Marvel Superhero Island. I went to it before I went to see Bill and Ted, and it had a 20 minute wait. I decided to come back after the show and went on Dr. Doom in the meantime. When I got back to the house, I probably waited less than 2 minutes to get in. The first thing in the house is a spinning vortex tunnel. Universal finally got their vortex tunnels right, because this year it really felt like you were tilting way to one side. After that there were long hallways with inflateable walls that got closer and closer together as you walked through. My only complaint in this section was that in the first section of this, one side of the wall wasn't on, so it sort of lost it's effect, but the rest of them were on. It could have been darker here too. Some other rooms was a black and white room with lots of strobe lights with people that blended into the walls, and then a room with flurencent color dots all over with people that blended in here as well. Then there was a house of mirror area that had some treaks and foons in it. Kind of creepy because you didn't know which one was real, or which one was a reflection. Overall, this was a good house. Not scary, not great, but good.
Overall Rating: 4 Stars
Scare Rating: 1 Stars
Shows/Parades/Rides
Bill and Teds Excellent Halloween Adventure- This show was always stupid, but I feel that this year it peaked at being the stupidest yet. It started with Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen coming in with one of them being drunk. She gave all of the warnings, and then someone from the eating disorder hospital came after them, and We Will Rock You started. It was interupted by the people from Qweer Eye for the Straight Guy getting up out of the audience and yelling to stop the music and going into a dance number to a different song. Then We Will Rock you started again, and Bush and Kerry came in through Bill and Ted's phone booth. Then Dr. Evil came in and said he's going to be president by kidnapping the presidental canidates (I guess he didn't know that there are a total of 8 canidates running for president this election). Then a bunch of pointless characters came in like Darth Vader, the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz, Michael Jackson, and a few others came in to help Dr. Evil. Then Bill and Ted and characters like Harry Potter, Hellboy, Superman (as in the movie version, not Smallville), Garfield, Catwomen, and some that I'm sure I'm forgetting came in. There were stupid jokes, and then Bush and Kerry started punching each other, and then the show ended in the dancing part at the end. It was the worst conclusion to a show I've ever seen. Nothing was resolved. They just started dancing. Like I said, as far as Bill and Ted shows go, which are always stupid, this is the worst I've seen.
Rating: One Star
Festival of the Dead Parade- The only advantage of having HHN spilt between two parks was getting the parade back. The parade was a little short, but other than that, it was great. They had some good stilt walkers, some good giant skeleton puppets, and lots and lots of beads and coins. It wasn't as good as a mardi gras parade, but this wasn't at Mardi Gras, so it can't be compared. It was a little dark, and needed music, but other than that. It's really the only thing here that I don't have enough complaints about and I'll give it five out of five stars.
Rating: 5 stars
Revenge of the Mummy- this is always there, but it's the first time I've gone on the Mummy, so heres what I think about it. What was Univeral thinking when they replaced Kongfrontation with this garbage? It's an awful ride! The ride starts out, and the first thing I though was that the car was bumpy for such a new ride. Then you entered the first scene where the mummy jumps out and sucks someone's soul out of them, which was actually very good with really good animatronics for Universal's standards, and then you moved to the second scene which had the mummy's face at the end of the room on a screen. He said you could join him and get treasure, and the room lights up and you see a bunch of gold stuff. And then non moveing mummys pop up and just stand there, while fire explodes around them, and your car speeds up and outruns a wall that is lowering in front of you. From this point on, the ride falls apart. If it continued in the style of the first 2 rooms, it would have been a great ride, but... The next room you stopped in a dead end. Scarab beetles started pouring out of a hole in the wall and all over the walls (which were really screens). My question is why did they stop there? It would be a perfect spot to put air hoses under the seats to tickle your legs and on the headrests to go on your head so it would feel like the scarabs were crawling all over you, but there was nothing. Then the car starts moving backwards. At first I though that this was going to be great. A backwards roller coaster, and then once out of the scarab room, you stop, and turn around while you see glowing stuff on the wall in front of you. You then enter an inclined tunnel where you go about halfway up at a slow speed while the mummy is talking in front of you, and then you speed up through his mouth and into the first coaster portion. While you were speeding around in the very short coaster part, you saw glow in the dark mummy's flashing by you which reminded me of rockin roller coaster. The coaster didn't even have any good stuff in it. No loops. No drops. Only one little spot of air time. And that was it. You entered a station area that could easily be recoginized as fake, where you hear someone with a high pitched voice telling you that the ride is over. You see their shadow behind a window, and then you see the mummys shadow killing the person, and then the mummy breaks the glass and you see another animatronic that wasn't as good as the first mummy. The ceiling catches on fire, and you go down a little hill through some smoke, and then you go into a room where you see Brendon Fraiser on a screen where he is yelling about how he wants a cup of coffey. And then the ride is over. I want to know who came up with that ending. It makes no sense what so ever, and like this years Bill and Ted show, the ride doesn't really have a conclusion. It just ends. Wheres the part where you defeat the evil mummy? It's not there. And the story is terrible too. No one has a clue whats going on the first time they ride through. It took 3 rides around for me to figure it out. The ride needs a preshow that tells you exactly what's going on that you have to watch before you get on the ride. And what about all that stuff that Universal said the ride would have before it opened? Wheres the mummy that jumps on your roller coaster car? From a ride from Universal that competes with Disney and is capable of making rides like Spiderman, they should be ashamed for making this garbage. I have a feeling that Disney's new themed Roller coaster is going to win this round of rides in the Disney/Universal competition.
