Horror Nights Review

So here is the Universal Orlando Halloween Horror Nights review by yours truly. Sorry I didn't get this up last night but the ball game went into 14 innings and I couldn't turn away from it. The only time I watch baseball on tv is in the post season. However, I love to go to a Dodger game. On to the review.

Jeff and I, or as Mike and I refer to him (the jewish comedian), got to the gates about 30 minutes before the event was supposed to start. Oh yeah, the nickname for Jeff was his idea. He's Jewish, and he used to make an attempt at stand up comedy. So we stood out there with about 300 other people waiting to get in. Checking out the map and making out a plan. They opened the gates a couple minutes early. We made it through security rather quickly. I did not recognize one person up front there. It also seemed a lot lighter than the presence of guards we had up there last year. Maybe that is because all the green shirts working there to help out.

We went up through the port of entry there at Islands of Adventure. Entrance and exit for the event were through that parks entry gates. The comedian and I wanted to make a right and head towards the stuff on the Studios side of the event to beat the crowds but apparently that side hadn't been cleared and prepared yet. They shuffled everone to the left into Marvel. There was one maze in Marvel, Disorientorium. Let me tell you, although I liked a couple of the effects, this maze is an OSHA nightmare waiting to happen. Talk about potential for guest injury. The primary cause of this being no lighting whatsoever throughout most of this maze. I know I know...haunted houses are supposed to be dark. I do agree. But there needs to be some kind of minimal lighting so you can see where you are going. Particularly when you have your guests going up and down a few ramps in there. The best part of that maze was the psychodelic painted up stobe light room with the techno music. As soon as we walked into that room the guy in front of us said, "The cheat is grounded". I nearly lost it. The other problem I had with this house was lack of scareactors. When we were walking up the queue to go into this thing you could see them coming from there dressing trailor into the house. They opened it up for guests when it wasn't even show ready.

So, after we finally stumbled our way out of that maze we headed back through Marvel across the port of entry to the other side of the event. The only other things to see in Marvel were of course the Hulk Coaster and the Amazing Adventures of Spiderman. I love those two rides but I really wanted to see the event specific attractions and activities. We started making our way into the sections that lay between the two theme parks. It's mostly sound stages and a couple back roads. Along the paths they had set up a couple of decent looking scare zones. I liked that they were made into the walking area so you had to go through them. This particular one was called Field of Screams. It really had potential. If it had been dark. The sun wasn't down and you could see where a few of the scareactors were hiding out waiting for those not paying attention. After meandering through here we made it over to the House of Wax thing. Good idea, one minor problem, it wasn't as bad as the lighting in disorientorium but it was dark enough that you couldn't see the elements of the maze and what looked like a somewhat decent amount of detail. The real pleaser in this one was going through in the middle of a group of Japanese tourists. Those kids scare so easy it was almost painful to laugh that hard. Oh yeah, I saw one of my former supes outside. Not that they would recognize anyways. I'll make a list of the people I ran into or saw at the end here.

After this house we wandered through the soundstage section over to the next house, Lightning Gulch. It's like your old wild west ghost town. This house was one of my three faves. Great detail, excellent use of story, and the scareactors in here were cool. Once again we had the Japanese tourists behind us but I think we left them in the dust hanging out with the people ahead of us. It was nice having people that were jumpy go ahead of us. It makes it more amusing for me causeI am a wuss but love to scare other people and see them get scared. I loved some of the distraction gags in this house. You know, something makes a noise or rattles elsewhere and the guy jumps out from the other side. I also liked the bartender offering to make drinks for the 11 year old kid in the group ahead of us. He did however refuse to make me a shirley temple. He said he only makes manly drinks.

Jeff says he likes wild west haunted houses cause they are cool.

After dusting ourselves off we wandered around looking for the entrance to the vampire maze, Castle Vampyr. This one had to have been my fave out of all of the 7 houses. It's not just because there were hot chicks dressed up as vampires in here. I think Jeff wanted to stay behind with them. The detail was absolutley amazing. All the scareactors were very cool. They really worked to pull of the them of the maze. They didn't just necessarily jump out at you. They would walk up behind you and act like they were going to lean towards ya and take a bite. Also something they added this year were screens and tv's out in front of all the houses to try and give background story. The one for this house was done very very well. Maybe they spent too much on all these little video segments playing outside the houses. Anyways, back to the house. They really tried to pull elements of all the popular vampire stories together into one place and it was pretty seamless. Even the room that was a shout to Blade. A little meat locker rave party. We enjoyed this house thoroughly. I even ran into Wagner out at the exit. Got to chat with him for about three seconds.

So after this house it was time for a potty brake. Although the vampire chicks were hot there were scary things in there too and it was just time to pee. Oh yeah, speaking of hot...did I mention the jello shot girls. Probably the best thing they have done to try and market those jello shots for while you are waiting in line. Nice black t-shirt, plaid school girl skirt, black fish nets, and black knee high boots. Yeah, I was just salivating.

After our short break we headed around the corner to ride Revenge of the Mummy. The one at Universal Orlando is so awesome. The one at Universal Hollywood is sooooo weak it's not even worth a 0 minute wait. So it was good to finally get on this attraction and witness another great attraction that was done right. Plus we only had to wait like 5 minutes. When we finished the mummy it was almost time for the parade of the dead. So we grabbed some sodas and waited a few minutes curb side. It was just what you would expect. Parade floats pulled by tractors with dead people on them. Throwing out mardi gras beads of course. A few giant dancing skeletons, some vikings, and some cool tribal type drum music. We followed the back of the parade around the corner to our next maze, Horror Nights Nightmares.

Let me tell ya, this was kind of a let down. This was the maze I anticipated most and I will tell you why. It was a combination of previous years Icon characters and mazes. Most years up until this year they had an event icon. Of course they icon's maze was the featured maze of the event. Last year was the director, the previous year the caretaker, and so on. Although a couple of the elements were cool, both the caretaker and the director scared the crap out of me, it was just very disjointed and they really didn't put the effort I believe they should have into something that was supposed to be a tribute. Especially since all these icon mazes had been done in the past and were very good.

After this we headed over to Deadtropolis. It was the first maze we really had much of a wait for. I think we waited like a half hour for this. The premise of this maze was of course the dead becoming reanimated and feasting on the living in the middle of downtown. Decent idea. The opening film thingy at the begining was kind of cool. Not quite enough scareactors for this maze. Plus only 1 or 2 memorable scenes. I think what really would have put this one back towards the top of the list would be a nice industrial/metal type soundtrack. Like maybe some pantera or ministry. I think that really would have added to the metropolis zombie kind of idea. Still, it wasn't at the bottom of my list.

After this we headed towards the other path that starts leading back to the IOA side. This is where I got some of the industrial music I was looking for. Plus there were chain saws and flame guns. Plus this was one of the best done up areas for fog. Nice sections of fog where you really could not see. Giving the numerous scareactors room to work with. I believe the area was called Fright Yard. Oh yeah, it had all those nice helicopter noises too.

When we pulled out of the Fright Yard we wandered over to the last maze of the evening, Hellgate Prison. The wait for this maze was about 35 minutes, but that was ok cause there was another Jello Shot Girl! The video sequence set up for this section was cool too. It's your basic what would happen if you walked through the worlds most notorious maximum security prison after the inmates took over. The scareactor interaction in this maze had to be the best. Inmates playing along with people. A couple of note. The first section of the maze is like walking into the visitor area with the whole phones on glass thing. Of course there are inmates on the other side chatting at ya. There was this mom and teenage daughter in front of us. One of the inmates was like how about the both of your being slices of bread. I almost died laughing. They got comments in on the couple behind us too. The girl was holding on to her boyfriend from behind. The other inmate in there was like, hey sweetie you got a good one there. He's got a really nice smile. And holding onto the back you are definitely protecting the right end. So yeah, some good gags in this house. The scene with old smokey was cool. Great distraction type tool to allow the other scareactors to scare the crap out of everyone. Plus there was lots more funny interaction. Some of the inmates were hitting on Jeff which Ifound extremely amusing considering his background.

After this we wandered through the other path back into IOA. Past the scareactor on top of the truck inviting everyone into the fright yard and hellgate. He mentioned something about hellgate being the finest establishment in the penal system. Then he told some girl, you like it when I say penal don't you. That's the kind of funny interaction I love at these events. Anyone who thinks of bringing a kid to this is an idiot.

We made our way back over into Marvel for the Bill and Ted Show. This year they actually did a fantastic job on this show. They lampooned just about everyone. Excellent jokes and gags. We loved it. After the show we went over and rode spiderman. We got a snack. After that we headed back over for the last show of Bill and Ted. I had though about another run through my three fave houses but they were on the other side of the event and my feet hurt. Besides, that show was just freakin hilarious. For those going to the event remember it is a pg13 rated event. That is why you have some slightly racy humour. Particularly in the Bill and Ted show. I tell ya, seeing darth vader do the robot was one of the funniest things I have seen in years.

I am debating about going again. We could go to the event on thursday night and then I can get up early to fly home on Friday. Jeff found a connection that can get extremely cheap tix. Better than the deal than he got on the previous nights tickets. Being that I am running out of things to do on my trip I might go for it.

Overall I think the event was entertaining. This year could have used some slightly better execution. The one last year when it was just in IOA was absolutely incredible. I think they were more concerned about the logistics of getting it into portions of both theme parks. However, now that they have the whole cross section figured out and executed very well. I can see this expanding to being in both parks completley opened up. That would just be awesome. As long as they don't cut back on quality for quantity. I give this years event 4 out of 5 stars. I think something that would have made this one immensely better was a better and larger group of peeps to go with.

Oh yeah, for those who want to know whom I ran into but they did not recognize me.

Ron Lamada
Ron Mane
Perry
Barry
And other random guards.

I thought about poking them with a stick but I didn't wanna end up in a holding area for the night.