Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood
Larax2
If anyone has attended USH's version of Halloween Horror Nights, how was it?
Just curious on how the version on the other coast is.
CROOOOW
Larax2 wrote:
>
> If anyone has attended USH's version of Halloween Horror Nights, how was it?
> Just curious on how the version on the other coast is.
I was there, and it just didn't live up to expectations.
I was at the last one back in 1992, and it was fantasic.
Totally blew away Knott's, but this years version was
just a sad version of its former self.
They killed the tram tour, which was halloween themed so well
last time, and there is no LOWER LOT ACCESS!!
These two moves alone prevent anyone from enjoying:
KING KONG, EARTHQUAKE, JAWS, ET ADVENTURE, BACKDRAFT, JAWS
Of course, this leaves BACK TO THE FUTURE as the sole
thrill ride open for the evening, so you can imagine the
lines and the hordes of pissed off people who rushed the
Starway only to be turned away. $32 a pop and no rides?!
People were furious!!!
SHOWS:
Beetlejuice - Same terrible show as the daytime
Creepy Animals - Animal show with cockroaches, snakes, spiders, etc...
Circus Of Freaks show - missed it, but it sounded cool. Not enough
performances to get into these shows mixed in with up to 60min waits
for the Haunted Mazes.
Bill & Ted's Halloween Adventure - A fun rip-off of Knott's THE HANGING
show, though with less blood and more pyro instead. The story was
kind of silly and hard to follow, and I don't have a clue what
happened in the end when the Cyberspace witch was sent back into the
tv. Sounded like half the script was from the Florida version with
mickey and Howard Stern appearing and such. Looks like they needed
more rehersal time though, cause some of the stunts were just off
the mark, as well as stage placement for the pyro effects to look
just right. Still, should be a really good show by the end of the
month after they've had plenty of time to practice.
4 MAZES -
MONSTERQUARIUM - A walk though trip through the WaterWorld
show. Nothing much here, just weird animatronics in water,
and looked like a nightmare version of a Sea World show going
on inside. Except there was this guy in a case with a water hose
screaming about how he couldn't get out to go to the bathroom
and then he'd squirt you with water...you get the idea.
"I've gotta go! I havn't gone in a long time...AHhhhhhh!" ICKY!
A short note here on the remaining 3 mazes. Each maze looked to be
an okay size from the outside until you get in and find that it's
divided into two mirror image versions of itself, so what you end up
with is very short mazes. Very disapointing, considering the rather
LARGE mazes they had back in 1992 (The parking lot maze took 10-15min
to walk through back then, now they were all about 3-5min each)
Each maze was staffed by a combination of black dressed Haunt people,
regular dressed Park Ops staff, and Staff Pro security in the yellow
jackets. None of them knew what they were doing and crowd control was
a mess. Even with mirror image mazes, they were just out of control.
They need to study Knott's a little more closely, since they can deal
with the crowds without going to such extremes. Between every room in
the mazes were those damn secrutiy types with those theater/airport
style flashlights...ON THE WHOLE TIME! Constantly waving you on to the
next room, even talking to you "Come on, hurry up!" and if they wern't
rushing you to the next room, they could stop everyone from moving for
up to 5 minutes one time. Talk about ruining the illusion.
Anyway...
CLASSIC MONSTER MAZE - Short but fun maze of classic Universal monsters.
However, not a single scare in the bunch. They were all too busy
being caught up in the moment of ACTING to bother with scaring anyone.
CRYPTKEEPER FILM VAULT - Modern Monsters, though I was surprised to see
Ghostface from SCREAM there already, I guess he's the rookie of the
year. Maybe the most frighening of the bunch, but they just didn't
scare me at all. A real bummer because at the last USH Halloween
event years ago there were several times that not only did I get
scared, but I thought my life was in real danger. One time I totally
paniced and ran over a poor english family to escape a smooching wall
full of sawblades trap. No such luck this year, not a single trap
in site, and no big scares. This was the biggest line of the evening.
AREA 51 - Probably the best themed looking maze. Not scary, but a lot
of fun. Great room with gooey dead aliens hung from the ceailing in
clear body bags. Cool melted body in the corner of one room too.
Lots of fun, just wish it was longer, but this seemed to be the
longest of all of the mazes. A lot of the people in it were ACTING
as well, but it was better in this maze because it was built as if
you were a part of the movie, so they were acting to you as you passed
though AREA 51. Of course, to start it all off you get a sticker on
your shirt that says it will glow orange when you recive a leathal
does of radiation, and of course the whole maze is lit with black
lights. Sometimes its the little things that count.
They had a few characters wandering around, but in the main enterance
area they wern't scary at all. They looked more like homeless people
than monsters, and they constantly bugged everyone and babbled all sorts
of weird things.
Anyway, for my money, I'd stick with Knott's. Maybe USH will back to
doing it the way they did back in 1992 next year. There were enough
people there that it should be a success, but with everyone being so
mad about the rides being closed, I don't know if people would come back
next year if they did that again. I know my friends who had never been
to USH before drove up from San Diego and were counting on JP being open
and were very upset when it wasn't.
ArlynSG
Florida needs more security in the haunted houses. My suggestion was a staff
person in every room. It's too bad that USH went overboard, though. There
should be a happy medium somewhere.
ar
Joe Schwartz
CROOOOW <Cro...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Larax2 wrote:
> >
> > If anyone has attended USH's version of Halloween Horror Nights, how was it?
> > Just curious on how the version on the other coast is.
>
> I was there, and it just didn't live up to expectations.
[snip]
> Beetlejuice - Same terrible show as the daytime
Am I the only one who *loves* the Beetlejuice show at USH? When I saw it
in April, I thought it was one of the best musical shows I've seen at any
amusement park -- including Opryland and Fiesta Texas.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Schwartz (x...@poboxes.com) -- 5 Broadway #407, Troy, NY 12180
Come visit the Joyrides web site (http://www.joyrides.com/),
a photo gallery celebrating the joy and beauty of amusement rides!
Larax2
Thanks for the report, it looks like USF will continue to be superior to USH...
Out of curiosity, have you ever been to Halloween Horror Nights at USF? It's
really GREAT. I've made a few comment on the differences below:
>>>>>>They killed the tram tour, which was halloween themed so well
last time, and there is no LOWER LOT ACCESS!!
These two moves alone prevent anyone from enjoying:
KING KONG, EARTHQUAKE, JAWS, ET ADVENTURE, BACKDRAFT, JAWS<<<,
Wow, I can imagine people were very mad. It's odd that they did that, here all
the rides are kept open. (Even T2:3D!)
>>>>
Creepy Animals - Animal show with cockroaches, snakes, spiders, etc...
<<<<,
This year we had what was called "Abra-cadaver" at the Animal Actors Stage. In
short, a Psycho gets loose from a mental institution, and does a lot of very
cool tricks on un-willing audience members.
>>>>>>>
Circus Of Freaks show - missed it, but it sounded cool. Not enough
performances to get into these shows mixed in with up to 60min waits
for the Haunted Mazes.
<<<<<<<
It doesn't sound like we had something to compare this to. I guess our Midway
of the Bizzarre in Amity could be likened to it, but it's not a show, rather
than a total retheming of the area.
>>>>Bill & Ted's Halloween Adventure - A fun rip-off of Knott's THE HANGING
show, though with less blood and more pyro instead. The story was
kind of silly and hard to follow, and I don't have a clue what
happened in the end when the Cyberspace witch was sent back into the
tv. Sounded like half the script was from the Florida version with
mickey and Howard Stern appearing and such. Looks like they needed
more rehersal time though, cause some of the stunts were just off
the mark, as well as stage placement for the pyro effects to look
just right. Still, should be a really good show by the end of the
month after they've had plenty of time to practice.
<<<<<<<
Well, I can tell you that half the script was NOT from the Florida version as
ours had lookalikes such as:
Captain Kirk
Captain Picard
The Borg Queen
Kruge from "Star Trek III"
The Men in Black
Ripley from "Aliens"
The T-800 Terminator
Mr. Freeze
Batman
Batgirl
Robin
Ghostface
Austin Powers
Jerry from "Seinfeld"
Elaine from "Seinfeld"
Kramer from "Seinfeld"
George from "Seinfeld"
No Mickey or Howard Stern here... however, one stunt was a little off. The Borg
Queen ends up doing the 3 story highfall, and it just didn't look natural.
Imagine her swan diving off the room instead of falling, and that's what it
looked like.
>>>>>>>4 MAZES -
MONSTERQUARIUM - A walk though trip through the WaterWorld
show. Nothing much here, just weird animatronics in water,
and looked like a nightmare version of a Sea World show going
on inside. Except there was this guy in a case with a water hose
screaming about how he couldn't get out to go to the bathroom
and then he'd squirt you with water...you get the idea.
"I've gotta go! I havn't gone in a long time...AHhhhhhh!" ICKY!<<<<<<<<
Sounds kind of like our Midway of the Bizare, except we have to pass through it
if we want to get to the other side of the park. (Or you can walk all the way
around, but only the most frightened people would ever do that.)
>>>>>A short note here on the remaining 3 mazes. Each maze looked to be
an okay size from the outside until you get in and find that it's
divided into two mirror image versions of itself, so what you end up
with is very short mazes.<<<<<<
Of our three mazes, two split up. However, each path was different from the
other. The other, "Hotel Hell", only had one path.
>>>Very disapointing, considering the rather
LARGE mazes they had back in 1992 (The parking lot maze took 10-15min
to walk through back then, now they were all about 3-5min each)<<<<
I'm still waiting for them to close up a section of the parking garage and make
the BIGGEST HAUNTED HOUSE EVER! (Of course, that'll never happen...)
>>>>Each maze was staffed by a combination of black dressed Haunt people,
regular dressed Park Ops staff, and Staff Pro security in the yellow
jackets. None of them knew what they were doing and crowd control was
a mess. Even with mirror image mazes, they were just out of control.<<<<<
Ours has a few hooded women dressed in black and holding a candle. The people
pretty much are scared through down here. We sure didn't have security in
there.
<<<<<<Between every room in
the mazes were those damn secrutiy types with those theater/airport
style flashlights...ON THE WHOLE TIME! Constantly waving you on to the
next room, even talking to you "Come on, hurry up!" and if they wern't
rushing you to the next room, they could stop everyone from moving for
up to 5 minutes one time. Talk about ruining the illusion.
<<<<
What in the hell were they thinking? We don't have anyone between rooms here.
Just narrow hallways, to get to the next one. Occasionally there'd a women
dressed in black who was silent and led the wayto the next room.
>>>>>CLASSIC MONSTER MAZE - Short but fun maze of classic Universal monsters.
However, not a single scare in the bunch. They were all too busy
being caught up in the moment of ACTING to bother with scaring anyone.<<<<<
Our equivelant would be "Universal's Museum of Horror". It was housed in
Soundstage 24. The right path had Universal's Classic Monsters, and I thought
it was the scariest of all the houses. Watch out for "Mother"...
>>>>>>CRYPTKEEPER FILM VAULT - Modern Monsters, though I was surprised to see
Ghostface from SCREAM there already, I guess he's the rookie of the
year. Maybe the most frighening of the bunch, but they just didn't
scare me at all. A real bummer because at the last USH Halloween
event years ago there were several times that not only did I get
scared, but I thought my life was in real danger. One time I totally
paniced and ran over a poor english family to escape a smooching wall
full of sawblades trap. No such luck this year, not a single trap
in site, and no big scares. This was the biggest line of the evening.
<<<<<<<<
That's the left path in our "Museum of Horror" in Soundstage 23. It was also
modern monsters. We also had Ghostface; and if you rememeber the restroom
scene in the movie, that's where he was. In one of the toilet stalls. :) Once
again, Soundstage 23 is the best of the haunted houses.
>>>>>>AREA 51 - Probably the best themed looking maze. Not scary, but a lot
of fun. Great room with gooey dead aliens hung from the ceailing in
clear body bags. Cool melted body in the corner of one room too.
Lots of fun, just wish it was longer, but this seemed to be the
longest of all of the mazes. A lot of the people in it were ACTING
as well, but it was better in this maze because it was built as if
you were a part of the movie, so they were acting to you as you passed
though AREA 51. Of course, to start it all off you get a sticker on
your shirt that says it will glow orange when you recive a leathal
does of radiation, and of course the whole maze is lit with black
lights. Sometimes its the little things that count.>>>>>
We had nothing like that. But our other two houses were "Tombs of Terror" and
"Hotel Hell".
>>>>>>>They had a few characters wandering around, but in the main enterance
area they wern't scary at all. They looked more like homeless people
than monsters, and they constantly bugged everyone and babbled all sorts
of weird things. <<<<<<<
At USF, the monsters are concentrated in New York, Amity, and Hollywood. There
are also chainsaw maniacas everywhere.
>>>>>>Anyway, for my money, I'd stick with Knott's. Maybe USH will back to
doing it the way they did back in 1992 next year. There were enough
people there that it should be a success, but with everyone being so
mad about the rides being closed, I don't know if people would come back
next year if they did that again. I know my friends who had never been
to USH before drove up from San Diego and were counting on JP being open
and were very upset when it wasn't.<<<<<<
Maybe USH's R&D department need to ccome down here or up to Knott's to see how
it's done right. I have a feeling they don't have a staff that works on the
event year round like we do. (And also Knott's).