Posts Tagged ‘Scare Zone Survey’

Halloween Horror Nights Orlando: A Horrifying Look Back

Tuesday, May 14th, 2013

2013

Haunt season 2013 is only 4 months away! As we impatiently wait to hear what’s in store for Halloween Horror Nights 23 at Universal Orlando, let’s pacify ourselves with a nostalgic look back at the HHN icons and classic commercials from the past 10 years.  We have to say that HHN Orlando has some of the best haunt commercials ever made. These commercial spots not only entice us to want to attend year after year but they’re also pretty damn scary.

It was fun putting the list together as it brought up memories and nightmares from our visits to HHN in the past ten years when we went to 2007′s Carnival of Carnage and last year’s HHN 22. There’s no question that Universal Orlando has one of the premier theme park haunts and we can only hope to see them make it even bigger and scarier for 2013.

Now check out all the icons and commercials from the past 10 years and be sure to VOTE for your favorites in the survey links at the bottom of this article.

 

 

Halloween Horror Nights 13  was the second year that HHN was located in Islands of Adventure. The Director, Paolo Ravinski , hosted the event, telling guest that “The Director Will See You Now.” The event featured six houses, six scarezones, and two special shows.

Haunted Houses: All Nite Die-In • ScreamHouse Revisited • PsychoScareapy • Jungle of Doom • Funhouse of Fear • Ship of Screams

 

 

 

 

Halloween Horror Nights XIV asked guests “What’s Your Breaking Point?”, it featured the first, and so far only time, that parts of both Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure were used in the event. 2004 was the first time since 1999 that the event didn’t have an icon, instead advertisements featured a bald victim in a straightjacket in the confines of Shady Brook from the PsychoScareapy maze. Featuring seven houses, four scarezones, a show, and parade.

Haunted Houses: Castle Vampyr  • Deadtropolis  • Disorientorium  • Ghost Town  • Halloween Horror Nights Nightmares  • Hellgate Prison  • Horror in Wax

 

 

 

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Halloween Horror Nights: Tales of Terror was the 15th Halloween Horror Nights event in Orlando. Located in Islands of Adventure exclusively for the third time, it was the first time that all of the mazes, scarezones , and shows were linked in a large event-wide backstory. The Storyteller, Elsa Strict, weaved the tale of the world of Terra Cruentas, its ruler the Terra Queen, and her subjects. The event featured seven mazes, four scarezones, and two special shows. In 2006 it was awarded by Amusement Today with the Golden Ticket Award for Best Halloween Event.

Haunted Houses: Blood Ruins  • Body Collectors  • Cold Blind Terror  • Demon Cantina  • The Skool  • Terror Mines  • Where Evil Hides

 

 

 

 

Halloween Horror Nights: Sweet 16 was the 16th Halloween Horror Nights event in Orlando. Located exclusively in Universal Studios Florida for the first time since 2001, it was advertised as “Horror Comes Home”. The event featured the four original event icons The Storyteller, the Director, the Caretaker and Jack the Clown returning in mazes and in two shows. The mazes and scarezones featured were remakes of some of the greatest mazes in the history of Halloween Horror Nights.

Haunted Houses: All Nite Die-In: Take 2  • Dungeon of Terror: Retold  • People Under the Stairs: Under Construction  • PsychoScareapy: Maximum Madness  • Psycho Path: The Return of Norman Bates  • RUN: Hostile Territory  • Screamhouse: Resurrection

 

 

 

 

Halloween Horror Nights: Carnival of Carnage was the 17th Halloween Horror Nights event in Orlando. Located at Universal Studios Florida, it featured the return of Jack the Clown as event icon and leader of the traveling Carnival of Carnage. His carnival had brought together a number of attractions to present for the event, including three modern horror icons Leatherface, Freddy Krueger and Jason. In addition,  there were houses with Mary Shaw, from Universal’s film Dead Silence (one of our all time favorite HHN mazes) and a house that was a sequel to The Thing.

Haunted Houses: A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dreamwalkers  • Dead Silence: The Curse of Mary Shaw  • Friday the 13th: Camp Blood  • Jack’s Funhouse in Clown-O-Vision  • PsychoScareapy: Home for the Holidays  • The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Flesh Wounds  • The Thing: Assimilation  • Vampyr: Blood Bath

 

 

 

 

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Halloween Horror Nights: Reflections of Fear was the 18th annual Halloween Horror Nights event  and at the time was the largest Halloween Horror Nights in the event’s history. With Bloody Mary as icon, fears, fairy tales, and urban legends formed the overall arching theme of the event.

Haunted Houses: Body Collectors: Collections of the Past  • Creatures!  • Dead Exposure  • Doomsday  • The Hallow  • Interstellar Terror  • Reflections of Fear  • Scary Tales: Once Upon a Nightmare

 

 

 

 

Halloween Horror Nights: Ripped from the Silver Screen featured classic, 80′s and modern horror movie franchises with Child’s Play (Chucky), Saw (Billy /Jigsaw), and Universal’s The Wolfman taking top billing. Ripped from the Silver Screen’s theme surrounded a mysterious old movie theater, the Universal Palace Theater and  The Usher (aka Julian Browning), the undead usher Icon who (s)cares for the theater.

Haunted Houses: The Wolfman  • Dracula: Legacy in Blood  • Frankenstein: Creation of the Damned  • Leave it to Cleaver  • Saw  • The Spawning  • Chucky: Friends till the End  • Silver Screams

 

 

 

 

Halloween Horror Nights XX: Twenty Years of Fear  featured a nostalgic celebration of HHN’s 20 years with the Icons characters of HHN past. The logo was a lantern with 2 X’s on it that featured the faces of the Usher , the Director , Jack the Clown , the Storyteller , the Caretaker , Billy , the Gentleman , and the Mad Hatter in the flame. The actual icon was said to be “fear itself” which was visualized with a vicious monster mouth. This was the first year that featured  three houses based upon the previous Horror Nights  featuring a cameo by one of the icons.

Haunted Houses: Legendary Truth: The Wyandot Estate  • PsychoScareapy: Echoes of Shadybrook  • Hades: The Gates of Ruin  • ZombieGeddon  • The Orfanage: Ashes to Ashes  • Havoc: Dogs of War  • Catacombs: Black Death Rising  • Horror Nights: The Hallow’d Past

 

 

 

 

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Halloween Horror Nights XXI: No One Beats the House The icon for HHN 21 was Lady Luck. The year’s theme appeared to be set in the roaring 20′s with gambling, speakeasy, and gangsters. We all know Blackjack is 21 which was apropos for this year’s event. We though that this was a very unique and creative theme; but we wouldn’t expect anything less from HHN Orlando.

Haunted Houses: Winter’s Night: The Haunting of Hawthorn Cemetery  • Nightingales: Blood Prey  • The Thing  • H.R. Bloodengutz Presents Holidays of Horror  • Saws N’ Steam: Into the Machine  • Nevermore: The Madness of Poe  • The In-Between  • The Forsaken

 

 

 

 

Halloween Horror Nights 22: There Is No Escape featured houses based on Silent Hill and The Walking Dead which were both featured in Orlando and Hollywood. This was also the first HHN since 2007 to have one huge park-wide scare zone rather then multiple scare zones scattered throughout the park. It will also was the first event since 2006 to have only 7 houses rather then the usual 8, which was due to the construction of new new Harry Potter and Transformers: The Ride attractions. While the movie/tv show based haunts were fun our favorites were Universal’s original creations, Gothic, Dead End and Universal’s House of Horrors.

Haunted Houses: Dead End  • Gothic  • Universal’s House of Horrors  • The Walking Dead: Dead Inside  • Welcome to Silent Hill  • Alice Cooper: Welcome to My Nightmare  • Penn and Teller: New(kd) Las Vegas

Check out Scare Zone’s HHN 22 REVIEW HERE!

 

Now, we ask you to click the links and VOTE for:

Your FAVORITE HHN ICON

and  

Your FAVORITE HHN COMMERCIAL  

 

* Additional HHN info provided by:  http://halloweenhorrornights.wikia.com

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Posted in Florida, Halloween Horror Nights Orlando, Haunt Videos, Survey | No Comments »

Rumor Zone: 2012 HHN Hollywood Themes

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Earlier this winter, Universal Hollywood sent out their annual survey asking which themes we would like to see at this year’s Halloween Horror Nights. Once again, Scare Zone took good note of all the themes in the survey, and we’re ready to begin our speculation of what we can expect to see this year. Last year, we successfully guessed a few of the themes, and with the help of our Haunt Stalkers we were able to reveal the other themes before they were publicly confirmed. This year, the survey not only asked about movies, TV shows, and video games, but it also included questions about film directors and musicians. This makes sense, as last year we got Eli Roth, Rob Zombie, and Alice Cooper titled mazes.

John Murdy tweeted that he actually started HHN design this wee,k and he has already made progress on the design of maze #1 for HHN 2012! So, before more time passes, here’s our exclusive analysis of the survey and what we believe to be strong possibilities for 2012 HHN Hollywood themes. Take a look for yourself, vote, and leave comments letting us know which themes you’d like to see come to life. Once again, we’ll keep track of everyone’s votes and see if we can guess the mazes before they’re officially announced.

Terror Tram

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The survey began with specific questions about last year’s Terror Tram: A Scream 4 Your Life. Questions about the tram seemed to indicate that some changes to (or even elimination of) the terror tram are being considered. Questions included:

  • Should the tram be replaced by a seventh maze?
  • Should the tram go to a different part of the backlot?

For most people we know, the tram is a low point of the haunt. In 2011, the Scream theme definitely did not shine through. The open nature of the areas and long “conga line” of guests also prevent scares from being effective. The Psycho House/Bates Motel and War of the Worlds sets are cool to see up close, but they’ve been doing the same path for years now, and it’s no longer surprising (and certainly not scary). In addition, noise complaints from residents in the surrounding hills limit the possibilities of expanding or improving the terror tram experience. However, the terror tram is a great “people eater,” and in an already overcrowded haunt, shuttling thousands of people per hour down to the lower lot alleviates a lot of the gridlock from the maze areas. If they eliminate the tram from HHN altogether, we hope they put some serious thought into alternative crowd-control strategies—outside of stuffing guests into the line for the new Transformers ride.

Scare Zones

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Some questions were aimed at gauging guests’ opinions about scare zones in general. One question asked, “How many scare zones did you attend?” with an option of “10 or more” for an answer. This is interesting, as there were only 5 scare zones at HHN last year. Another question asked, “How did you know when you had entered a scare zone?” From these questions, it seems that guests are having trouble recognizing not only where a particular scare zone begins and ends but also the difference between the zones. For example, is there much difference between Klownz and Freakz? And is knowing the difference really important to most guests? Probably not. Maybe it’s time for HHN to consider a new approach to scare zones: one that has the zones flow naturally into one another and tell a coherent story, eliminating the need to have separate “zones.” Just a thought.

Mazes

Movie Themes

  • 28 Days Later - 28 Months Later is in development for 2013
  • Alien/Aliens - The loosely based prequel, Prometheus, comes out this summer, but we feel that it’s unlikely we’ll see an Alien maze
  • An American Werewolf in London
  • Amityville Horror
  • Dawn of the Dead - A sequel titled Army of the Dead is currently in development at Universal for 2012
  • Evil Dead/Army of Darkness - This is owned by Universal, and we know John is big on this series, but the remake isn’t slated until 2013, so we may have to wait another year
  • The Exorcist - John has said he’d love to do a maze based on this movie, but he’s had trouble securing the rights in the past
  • Freddy vs. Jason
  • From Dusk Till Dawn
  • Hatchet - A third sequel is in development and slated for release later this year
  • Hellraiser
  • The Hills Have Eyes
  • Insidious 
  • Jeepers Creepers - The long rumored third part isn’t slated to come out until 2013
  • Killer Klowns from Outer Space
  • Lords of Salem - Rob Zombie is directing the 2012 remake, so this is STRONG possibility
  • Paranormal Activity – Like clockwork, another movie is coming out this year, we’re just not sure how these movies translate into a worthy maze
  • Poltergeist - Remake slated for 2013
  • Psycho - A classic Universal property that John loves, but we’ve had our fill of Norman appearances on the Terror Tram
  • Resident Evil - Another 3D sequel is coming out this year
  • Silent Hill - A 3D sequel is coming out this year
  • Stephen King Films (IT, The Shining, etc.)
  • Trick ‘r Treat - This was highly requested by fans and on Murdy’s shortlist in 2011, but the hype probably has worn out by now
  • Universal Studios Classic Monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein, etc.) - We know John is fascinated by them and the House of Horrors will always need an overlay
  • Zombieland

Previous HHN Movie Themes 

  • Child’s Play (Chucky): Noooooooooo – Chucky is not scary!
  • Friday the 13th (Jason Voorhees) - Jason never stops returning, but it’s a been a while since he’s been in theaters
  • Halloween (Michael Myers) - Halloween 3D is coming out this October, so this could be a strong contender
  • House of 1000 Corpses - Rob Zombie may be back, but Captain Spaulding’s Murder Ride should have taken its last run in ’11
  • Hostel - We hope hunting season is over
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street (Freddy Krueger) - Freddy’s still asleep
  • Saw - Please, no more predictable games
  • Scream - Scary Movie 5 may be a better option
  • The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Another possibility as the 3D sequel is coming out this October
  • The Wolfman - We believe a lunar eclipse will keep Wolfy away this year

TV Shows

  • American Horror Story
  • True Blood
  • The Walking Dead

Video Games

  • Biohazard – Evil
  • Left 4 Dead

Myths and Legends

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  • **La Llorona - We though that this was a great maze last year and knowing HHN’s history of bringing back mazes, we
    think this could (should) return this year

Film Directors/Producers/Writers

  • Robert Rodriguez
  • Trey Parker – WTF? They’re doing South Park the maze? Probably just asked to survey the demo or for possible Bill & Ted’s show themes
  • Tobe Hooper – currently directing Djinn, 2012 release
  • Stephen King
  • Guillermo Del Toro
  • John Carpenter
  • John Landis
  • Tim Burton – currently working on Dark Shadows and Frankenweenie, 2012 releases
  • Wes Craven
  • George Romero
  • Quentin Tarantino
The following directors’ names were also in the survey, and they have worked with HHN in the past:
  • Eli Roth – producing a remake of Fun House in 3D, release date unknown
  • Clive Barker
  • Rob Zombie – directing Lords of Salem, coming out this year

Music Artists

  • Ozzy Osbourne
  • Lady GagaHHA_2011__4700
  • Marilyn Manson
  • Alice Cooper – We’re 50/50 whether or not Alice’s maze will return this year 
  • Rob Zombie
  • Slipknot
  • KISS – Could work since Gene Simmons’s hair is scary

Now we want to hear from all of you, our Haunt Stalkers. Share your guesses and votes about which mazes you want to see at HHN Hollywood in 2012!

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Posted in Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood, Rumors, Screaming Soon, Southern California, Survey | 21 Comments »

Haunt Stalkers Survey: Scare of the South

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

This week we head on down to the south y’all, to survey their collection of infamous haunts. We were going to do a Florida survey but it didn’t provide us with quite enough options for a stand alone survey and we figure the more competition the better.

Polls open on Wednesday at Midnight and you can vote for a week until Midnight the following Tuesday. We’ve secured the survey and will filter IP addresses for final results to ensure every unique person/thing had 1 vote for the most fair and accurate results possible.

So don’t lag behind and vote. Winner Scare All!

RESULTS

The southern haunts didn’t attract nearly as many votes as the SoCal Haunts survey but the results are still very telling. The top killer for Scare of the South is Universal Studios Orlando Halloween Horror Nights! We also have to give mention to Howl O Scream and  NetherWorld who round out the top 3 scariest haunts in the south.

The new season upon us and we’ll stay tuned to see who will be the scariest in the South for 2011.


 

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Posted in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Halloween Horror Nights Orlando, Louisiana, Survey, Tennessee | No Comments »