Halloween Horror Nights gets bigger but not better Hollywood

Halloween Horror Nights gets bigger but not better at Universal Studios Hollywood

After years of getting better, Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood got bigger this year — and it’s still not big enough.

Crowds overwhelmed the already cramped theme park during my visit on opening weekend, resulting in hour-plus wait times and bumper-to-bumper traffic inside the most popular haunted mazes.

Compared with its haunt rivals, Universal’s hallmark has been its movie studio-quality mazes with brand-name monsters. This year, Universal chose quantity over quality, increasing the number of mazes while repeating themes from years past.

Universal Studios Hollywood Halloween Horror Nights
2010 mazes & scare zones | ‘Elm Street’ maze preview | 2009 review | Chainsaw-wielding pigs

Knott’s Berry Farm Halloween Haunt
2010 mazes | 2010 scare zones | 2010 shows | 2009 review

After several years of steady improvement, Universal’s Horror Nights is fast approaching the popularity of larger, more established Halloween events — only without the capacity to handle the horror hordes and the potential for growth hindered by the park’s space constraints. Dropping the “Rocky Horror” stage show from the 2010 lineup pushed thousands more people into the already crowded park.

Over the years I’ve come to expect the best from Halloween Horror Nights. Unfortunately, HHN 2010 fell short of my high expectations.

My favorite mazes, from best to worst:

1) Rob Zombie’s “House of 1,000 Corpses” maze was the lone standout — and fan favorite as evidenced by the lengthy queue. The vibrant colors made the 3-D effects pop and pulse like an acid trip gone bad.

2) The “Friday the 13th” maze featured the best kills of the night with a gruesome grindstone scene and clever cleavered corpse sight gag. But like “Nightmare” and “Saw,” too much of the didn’t-I-see-this-last-year?

3) Two dozen Freddy Kruegers provided an abundance of startle scares in the “Nightmare on Elm Street” maze. The highlight of the maze was following a Japanese TV crew whose female reporter leaped out of her skin in every room, much to the delight of viewers back home.

4) While the “Saw” maze looked great and included some great scares, far too many of the kills repeated scenes from years past (including a boiler room scene lifted from an old “Elm Street” maze). The girl sawing her arm off gave me chills.

5) Each year, the House of Horrors maze always fails to impress and this year’s generic “Vampyres” overlay is no different. The pack of screaming 16-year-old girls in front of us provided the only entertainment.

Out on the streets, an abundance of generically themed scare zones failed to frighten, although the chainsaw-wielding Klownz proved to be an exception. Equally disappointing was the Terror Tram, which proved heavy on Chucky video clips and light on scares.

The always brainless and witless “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure” roasted the usual celebrity suspects (Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson and the “Twilight” stars) plus a few pan-flashers (Snooki, Justin Bieber and YouTube’s Bed Intruder meme) but ran about 20 minutes too long.

vids from halloween horror nights 20 orlando

Halloween Horror Night 20 Construction pics more and more to come

Looks great more to come i am trying to get all i can for this years hhn 20 but trying to keep it legal because i don't want to get band but i will get some stuff out if you have any pics send them i will give your credit if you want if not i will be hush about it i don't take pics down and will not so enjoy every one

update on hhn 19

links to hhn 19 forum's

http://forum.hhnvault.com/index.php?showforum=106

http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=800161

http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=126469058232&share_id=69577359970

http://www.orlandounited.com/forums/showthread.php?p=68878

http://www.screamscape.com/html/universal_orlando.htm

Step inside Halloween Horror Nights houses

Michael Roddy, Universal Orlando show producer, gave us a sneak peak of some Halloween Horror Nights elements. (The event starts Sept. 25.)

First, a rundown on the three houses built within Universal Studios' soundstages -- The Wolfman, Dracula: legacy of Blood and Frankenstein: Creation of the Damned..

"Without a doubt, from a design standpoint, these are three of the most immersive mazes we've ever designed," Roddy says.

+ "Our Frankenstein story takes place after "Bride of Frankenstein," so the laboratory and the castle have been destroyed, and Victor Frankenstein has been rebuilding it. So as you walk into this, it’s a crumbling facade of a castle, but you also see the he’s been putting the building back together using the same type of haphazard materials that is suggestive of the creature itself.”

+ “When you go over to Dracula, it’s actually Castle Dracula. It’s this big, gothic, beautiful, castle turret. As you walk through you’re actually in rooms filled with these beautiful, ornate tapestries and gothic arches and statuary. And of course you have all of Dracula’s brides, who are these feral creatures that are bloodthirsty.”

+ “In Wolfman, we were able to visit the [Universal] Pictures Group. We saw the movie. We were basically given access to all their designs, and this is a big-budget version. They have spent a lot of money, a lot of amazing production value has gone into it. It’s been taken completely serious. So then you ‘re going to walk through the actual forest with wolfman, past gypsy camp, into all these environments while being chased by this lycanthrope.”

The SAW house will include a bathroom scene, Roddy says, along with the reverse-bear trap, the hair pull and a hand in a jar of acid. (This might be a good time to note that Universal considers Horror Nights to be a PG-13 event.)

"You're actually going to walk into Jigsaw's lair," Roddy explains. "As you walk in, it's an industrial building, almost nondescripte. As you enter, you're immediately in his workshop. You'll see all of the TVs and the cameras, and you'll come 'face-to-monitor' with Billy, who'll give you your task, which is to make it through this maze."

Here's another warning, this one from Roddy: "If you are terrified by those [Saw] films, then the maze will shut you down."

"We'll never touch you, we' never hurt you, but when you leae, you're going to feel like you've been put through the wringer, mentally," he says. Feel better?

Meanwhile, over at the Silver Screams house, Roddy explains that the its mishmash theme reflects the backstory of the Usher character.

"You'll see how he became this vengeful ghostly spirit. You'll see his favorite movies like Phantom of the Opera, you'll walk through envinorment of Shaun of the Dead, you'll walk through My Bloody Valentine, and a host of others that are, again, Universal brands but we didn't think justify an entire maze," Roddy says.

We'll be seeing more of the Usher. Although advertising for the event banks of the Ripped from the Silver Screen campaign, the Usher will be on the Facebook page and Horror Nights Web site.

"You'll definitely feel his presence throughout the entire event," Roddy says. He is your gateway to the event when you get here. ... We're considering him an icon that will stand toe-to-toe with all of the others that you have known."

The scare zone called Horrorwood Die-In will also have a variety of film characters. The usual Mel's Drive-In area will be transformed into a drive-in, complete with cars and big screen showing movies and those "Let's all go to the lobby" sort of shorts.

"Then all of a sudden, you'll come face-to-face with these characters that have literally come off the screen," Roddy says.

Expect Norman Bates, the character from The Thing and assorted zombies. "It's going to be a blast," he says.

Tradition HHN favorites are back, including the Chainsaw Drill Team, the Bill & Ted show and others. "Rat Lady is our good-luck charm."