Request: Anybody going to Universal Hollywood's Horror Nights?

[Silvered]

So, I have a request for anybody going to Universal Hollywood's Horror Nights.

I'm a student at UCF's Rosen School of Hospitality in Orlando. In my intro class, my group is doing a project on Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights and we thought it would be interesting to compare it to California's. Is anybody going who would be willing to answer questions and/or donate pictures? I'd be eternally grateful.

Also, has anyone been in previous years who would be willing to tell me about their experience and again, donate pictures. The more details the better! Like, how much of the park does it take up, how big are the houses, how many characters are there, how commercial are the characters/houses/scare zones (movie properties verse original), the prices of tickets/souvenirs etc. Anything and everything you can tell me, I would appreciate immensely.

Thank you ahead of time.

Thank you for the title fix!

[Silvered]

Is anybody going? I hate to bump this so soon, but I need the information soon or tell my group that I can't get it. I'd really appreciate it, even if you don't get pics, just narratives of your experience would be amazing.

And not just this year! If you've been to HHN in Hollywood any year, I want to hear about it!

[Soulchild]

Ok...prepare for a really long post!

We went to HHN 2 weeks ago in So Cal. I didn't bring a camera, so I don't have any pictures, sorry. It was my first time at Universal for Halloween, but I've been the Knott's Scary Farm many, many times, so my "review" will read more like a comparison between the two.

HHN in Hollywood is fairly small compared to Knotts, which has nearly double the amount of mazes. We lined up and got there when it opened, which was a good thing because the lines were super short and by the end of the night lines were be over an hour long. When we first entered I was pretty impressed by the costumes and props of the "monsters" walking around. Overall the characters were well themed, I think I remembered Freddy Cougar posed as a statue waiting for an unsuspecting guest, where as in Knotts the characters were more generic monsters with masks. I give HHN the advantage in authenticity of props and characters, but compared to Knotts there just weren't as many of the characters walking around.

HHN had specific "scare zones" where characters were supposed to be confined to, outside of the actual mazes, each with different themes. I don't remember all the themes off the top of my head but there were at least 4 scare zones, and one of them was definitely clown themed. I felt like the scare zones were scarier than the actual mazes because it seemed like there were more characters stalking around there than in the mazes. In hind sight I really liked the scare zones better than the mazes, it was pretty fun walking through those.

The thing I thought was really creative and sets HHN apart from Knotts Scary Farm was the tram ride. The regular backlot tour tram ride was transformed into a sort of maze. Instead of driving through the movie sets the tram actually drove you up to the Bates Motel (from Psycho the movie) and dropped you off. From there you had to walk through parts of the backlot where monsters and characters would pop out at you. The tram ride was supposedly Chucky themed, and he was there with his "army" to kill you with chain saws. Literally each of the characters had a chain saw and would run around waving that thing. The experience wasn't *that* scary, they really needed more characters. There was this one part where you were walking on a dirt trail and it was practically pitch black, but there were not monsters there, it would have been a perfect place to hide and scare someone! I think they really could have optimized the tram ride experience. Good idea, but fell short.

The mazes were kind of blah. There were 5; a Saw themed one, Nightmare on Elm St., Friday the 13th, Rob Zombies House of 1000 Corpses and Vampyre. We hit up the tram ride then to the Saw one. Since it was fairly early in the night we practically walked right up to the front of the line, but that also meant there were less people in front of us and we would get the brunt of the characters popping out at us But that wasn't even the case. We didn't get any one coming to scare us much, which was disappointing. The Saw maze was really well themed, each room was like a scene from each of the movies. there was characters being tortured with blood squirting, they would even squirt water at you as you passed. At some parts characters would run into a room screaming at you to save them. Again, love the props, everything looked like the movies, but lacked the scare factor.

Rob Zombie was really neat, because they gave you 3-D glasses and you had to enter the maze with them. I really liked the effects on the walls, they painted stuff in red that would only show up if you were wearing the glasses, and the writing actually kind of popped out at you. That maze seemed a little scarier than the Saw maze, partly because there were more characters running around and partly because the glasses made everything a little disorientating. If it weren't for the hour long line I would have gone back.

We got stuck on the King Kong 3-D ride, which wasted a good 45 minutes of our time. The ride is really just part of the regular backlot tour, and they didn't do anything special to it for Halloween. But by the time we got unstuck the crowds came and all the lines were 70+ minutes long each for the mazes. So we decided not to hit up Elm Street or Friday the 13th.

But we did go to Vampyre, which only had a 15 minute wait. Vampyre is actually a regular maze that runs year round as a part of Universal Studios, so we didn't have high expectations for it, and judging by the length of the line other people didn't either. But it turned out to be my favorite maze. The building was huge, twice as long as other mazes and it felt like there were more characters in that maze scaring people.

We also watched the Bill and Ted show; basically a parody of all things happening in our culture. It was really funny and you could tell Universal used some of their stunt people. The costumes and the special effects were great, I wouldn't expect less from Universal.

All in all HHN was really well themed compared to the movies they represented. The props and the costumes were definitely less generic compared to other places like Knotts. HHN used actual movie characters, Freddy, Jason, Chucky etc. However, they really, really need more mazes and characters so that the lines and crowds disperse a bit.

I wasn't really looking at any of the souvenirs, but we got our entrance ticket pretty cheap through a season pass holding friend. I think they were about $35?

I hope this answers your questions, I also put in a bit of a review in here too. PM me if you want me to answer other questions... Good luck with your project! (Did I mention this was long???)