I think Halloween Horror Nights is a reward for us goths who have to brave the Daystar on such a regular basis. It's one of the only things I constantly look forward to every year. If you ever get the chance to try it out you should. I mean, yes there are problems. Obviously, it's a whole lot more commercialized then when it first started out and more and more people come every year much to my annoyance, but that's to be expected. On the bright side, it means a bigger budget every year. A bigger budget means better stuff. It's kind of a give and take situation.
I'm not saying HHN is the best halloween attraction out there, far from it I'm sure. But it's pretty awesome if I do say so myself and I always have a great time. I don't know if anyone plans on going, but here are a few tips if you ever make the venture down here.
- Go to the Orlando one. I might be a bit biased because I live here, but from everything I've read we do a better job than Hollywood most of the time. I mean, we are theme park central and we kind of thrive on touristy.
- Go on a THURSAY or SUNDAY. Those are non-peak nights because everyone has school or work the next day and it won't be as busy(or expensive). Lines are bad enough on those days and if you want to try and hit all the houses you can't go on a Friday or Saturday.
- It's my experience that people always head to the closest houses first. I tend to go the opposite way to the farthest one so by the time we meet the real crowds we've gone through about half of the houses.
- Get there early. As soon as it opens and while it's still light. You'll have plenty of time to see the scarezones in the dark and the houses are dark inside so it doesn't matter. Most people won't show up until one or two hours in so you can get a head start.
- Eat dinner before you go. Food and drinks are beyond expensive and you don't want to waste time eating anyway. You can grab a funnel cake or something later if you're hungry.
- Warning: there will be drunk people. They do sell alcohol and some people aren't very responsible with their intake. Just...you'll know who they are, try to avoid and/or ignore the obnoxious ones.
- If I were you I wouldn't bother with the rides. It's good that they leave some of them open because it thins the lines to the houses a little, but you can always come back another time during the day to ride those.
- Ok, this is probably one of the more important ones. Tone your outfit down beyond belief. If you have anything on that even slightly resembles a "costume" you'll have to remove it. If you have chains or spikes they'll take those too. Spare yourself the trouble and wear shorts and a shirt and leave the accessories at home. Plus, you wouldn't want to be wearing anything you really adore there anyway. Last year, I fell over twice, and and had someone spill their drink on me. I was wearing a t-shirt I didn't really care about so it wasn't a big deal. I only wore it because it had some neon print on the front that would glow under blacklight and make the scareactors notice me more ^^
- Last thing, DON'T BRING CHILDREN. PLEASE. I see a bunch of kids as young as five running around. If you read my article on Horror Movies and Desensitization you'll know I really don't approve of little kids seeing things like that. I just don't think it's right to expose developing minds that young to so much blood and gore. I can't make you not take your kids, but I really advise against it.
So that's about all you need to know if you ever plan on going. Now, to let you know what's in store for everyone this year!
Houses
The Walking Dead~ Zombies are a bit overdone in my opinion, but since they normally go for campy instead of terrifying this could be a little different.
Penn and Teller~ This is the"cheesy house" that they have every year. The one just for fun and laughs. Last year, it was Holidays of Horror. This year Penn and Teller have accidentally nuked Vegas and you've gotta deal with the consequences.
Alice Cooper~ I'm really excited about this one. HHN often have Rob Zombie or Alice Copper design things for them and they're always pretty good. I mean, you're entering his "nightmare" and if being inside the mind of Alice Cooper isn't scary I don't know what is.
Silent Hill~ Oh. My. God. This makes me so happy. Have you
seen the monsters in Silent Hill? They're terrifying. This is going to probably be one of my favorites.
Dead End~ Basically, a cursed house. I don't know much more than that...it's kind of vague.
Gothic~ Well isn't this ironic? Although really, it's a nod to the architecture of the cathedral the gargoyles are guarding. I have a feeling this will be like the cemetery one last year. Gorgeous background and designs, but not horribly scary.
House of Horrors~ This is the one I'm looking forward to the most. The website says "The original icons of fear in blinding black and white". I've read that at some point you'll have to duck to get somewhere and they'll have the most scareactors in one room in HHN's history. Eep!
Scarezones
They're doing something different this year. Instead of having set scarezones in one place they're going to have wandering "Legions" of vampires, beasts, warriors, prisoners, and traditionals. (ghosts and goblins and such.) This is kind of cool because you won't see them coming until you're surrounded by people, but on the other hand you might not meet them all. So I have sort of mixed feelings.
And that's that! I'll
try to get pictures when we go, but I won't make any promises because last time we tried for about 5 minutes before giving up. It's sort of difficult to focus while being scared half to death ^^
