House Count After Week 6 of HHN

It was so nice to be at HHN this week in a sweatshirt and jeans, it has a much more Halloween like feel to it when the weather is cool

Walking Dead: 10
La Llorona: 23
Afterlife: 13
Havoc: 22
Evil Dead: 16
American Werewolf: 18
Resident Evil: 10
Cabin in the Woods: 15

Total: 127

Bill and Ted: 9

Well, here we are. Another year of Halloween Horror Nights about to hit its end. Only three nights left, Thursday through Saturday. Of course the highlight of Halloween Horror nights occurs at the very end of it, in the final Bill and Ted show of the year. This will be my third year in a row attending the final Bill and Ted and I am so excited for it to be here again. The last Bill and Ted of the year is a time where all the die hard fans of Halloween Horror Nights can get together and enjoy one last hurrah until next September. Before that however, I need to get a few more run throughs of my favorite houses. I ended up falling in love with 4 houses this year, Cabin in the Woods, American Werewolf, Evil Dead, and La Llorona, they will be missed.

House Count After Week 5 of HHN

19 Nights of HHN in the books, only 8 remain. Unlike the previous two years, there is a lot more seperation between my house counts. Theres already a gap of 12 this year between the house Ive been through the most and least, compared to nine last year and 10 the year before. This past week was crazy busy, triple digit waits at many of the houses, and these next five nights will likely be very busy as well before things really slow down for the final 3 nights.

Walking Dead: 9
La LLorona: 21
Afterlife: 11
Havoc: 18
Evil Dead: 13
American Werewolf: 15
Resident Evil: 9
Cabin in the Woods: 12

Total: 108

Bill and Ted: 8

The thing that has been hurt most by the Red Sox run is my Bill and Ted count. The past two years I saw it 23 times each, this year it's only been 8 because of the reduced time spent at HHN due to watching the Red Sox games. 

Mid Season HHN Review

Well, Halloween Horror Nights 2013 is already halfway over. My opinions on a few things have changed. For one, I am now positive this is not the strongest house lineup of the 4 years I have attended HHN. That honor still belongs to 2011. This year is more top heavy than 2011, but 2011 had more depth. I have two minor changes in my rankings

Evil Dead and La Llorona switch places. Evil Dead is now number 4, La LLorona number 3
Afterlife and Havoc switch places. Afterlife is now number 6, Havoc now number 5

Now to my one major gripe with Halloween Horror Nights this year: the walking. This is not a new problem. Since all the HHN houses take place in the backstage warehouses rather than inside the actual park the walks to and from the houses are long, this is the way its been every year and the way it will always be. However this year its a bigger problem than prior years, and needlessly so. Cabin in the Woods, Resident Evil, Evil Dead, and American Werewolf all let out in the exact same spot, about a ten minute walk from the park. Four houses letting out in the same spot is stupid, and creates a huge cluster. But the thing that bothers me is CITW and RE could easily have been let out just a few short steps from the park, but they make you walk allllll the way around the rest of the backstage buildings creating a needlessly long walk.

Besides that though I'm enjoying this HHN season, much more so than last year. 19 more days until the final Bill and Ted of the year!

House Count After Week Four of HHN

14 nights of HHN in the books, 13 to go. My midseason review will come tomorrow, as my opinion on quite a few things have changed. Not any radical changes in my rankings unlike last year, but there are a couple minor shifts since my first review. Next week is the week dubbed as "hell week" by many die hard HHN fans. Many people think that HHN gets busier as the event goes along peaking at the end, when in reality, the attendance is more like a bell curve, peaking in the middle then dropping in the last 6 or 7 days. Hell week is the busiest week of HHN, with Thursday and Friday of hell week being the busiest nights of the year. On these nights, every house will have triple digit waits, with a few of them hitting 3 hours. The reason for this is because all Central Florida schools have off the 3rd friday in October, so the night before that and the night of that HHN is infested with local high school students. Not really a week I look forward to. Here is the house count after week 4

Walking Dead: 7
La LLorona: 16
Afterlife: 9
Havoc: 15
Evil Dead: 11
American Werewolf: 12
Resident Evil: 8
Cabin in the Woods: 10

Total: 88

Bill and Ted: 8

Looks like I should surpass last years total of 131, but come way short of 2011's total of 226, a number I will likely never beat.

House count after week 3 of HHN

Well we have reached a point in HHN this year that seems to happen every year to me, the Mid HHN lull. The first two weeks of every year I see as many houses as possible every night because I'm so excited to have HHN back. The last two weeks of every year I see as many as possible every night because I know it's almost over so I better see them while I have the chance. But then there is that period in the middle where it's not super exciting and I'm getting sick of all the drunk people and the crowds and the annoying teenagers. These are the nights where I only spend a couple hours in the park, see a few houses, then head home early. Tonight I left at 9:30, but I know pretty soon the Mid-HHN lull will pass and I will be back to hitting as many houses as possible

Walking Dead: 5
La Llorona: 12
Afterlife: 7
Havoc: 12
Evil Dead: 7
American Werewolf: 9
Resident Evil: 6
Cabin in the Woods: 6
Total: 64

Bill and Ted: 7

House of the Week: American Werewolf in London

House Count after Week 2 of HHN

We are nor two weekends and six nights into HHN, and house counts are starting to go up. It needs to be noted that my house count does not reflect at all my favorite houses just the houses with the shortest lines. Cabin in the Woods is a great house off a popular movie, and its the first house at the front of the park, so it has long waits all night every night, so the house count wont be that high. Meanwhile, La Llorona and Havoc are at the back of the park and by 11:00 have 0-5 minute waits so I always go through those a lot at those times. Here we are:

Walking Dead: 3
La LLorona: 8
Afterlife: 4
Havoc: 8
Evil Dead: 5
American Werewolf in London: 6
Resident Evil: 4
Cabin in the Woods: 4
Total: 42

Bill and Ted: 5

House of the week: Havoc

Official HHN 23 Review

Now that I have been through each of the 8 Halloween Horror Nights houses multiple times now, I feel I have enough of a grasp on each of them to finally put together my review. Even in just a short time since opening night, I have changed my mind and moved my rankings around quite a bit, as I have had 3 different houses occupy my #1 slot already, and two different ones occupy my #8 spot.

Looking back to last year, 2 houses received 5 star reviews, 2 four stars, 1 three stars, 1 two stars and 1 one star. In my previous three years of attending the event combined, 8 houses have received five star reviews. Lets see what we have this year: Spoiler Alert: 2013 has the most 5 star reviews of any year I have attended. Here are my rankings with a short review and a couple of pics from each house as well.

1. Cabin in The Woods: Just a fantastic house in every way. This house was number two after opening weekend, but has moved up to number one recently. I loved the movie and I love the house and the progression of it. The house starts in the cabin, then you move to the basement where all the monsters are unleashed. Then you proceed to the underground facility where all hell breaks lose and you encounter all the monsters from the movie, including the merman.

Here is the entrance of the house, which is naturally the entrance to the cabin

Final Review: 5 stars out of 5

2. American Werewolf in London: This house was number one after opening weekend but moves down a spot, but its still an amazing house. This house perfectly replicates the movie, from the woods to the transformation scene, to picadilly square. This house also features incredibly scary animatronic wolves

And a very cool scene through the London Subway

Final Review: 5 stars out of 5

3. Evil Dead: This house also spent a short time as my favorite, but settles in at number 3. Based off the Cult classic movie, this is definitely the goriest house of the year, with twice as much "blood" as the average HHN house. The scene with "raining blood" might just be my favorite scene in all of Halloween Horror nights this year. Other highlights of this house include a terrifying walk through the forest with trees that come to life

And a recreation of the famous scene from the movie with dead cats hanging from the ceiling

Final Review: 5 stars out of 5

4. La Llorona: Based off the popular mexican urban legend based off a mother who drowned her children, and was forced to find them all before she could enter the afterlife. She eventually grew insane and the urban legend is if you misbehave La Llorona will kidnap you and try to pass you off as her child. This house is creepy as hell, which is a great thing in an HHN house. The progression is great, as it starts off simple, then gets more and more disturbing as you move along, finishing with an encounter with La LLorona herself. The entrance to this house is by far the most elaborate ever for a tent house

This scene with kids drowned is very disturbing

The underwater scenes are fun as well

Final Review: 5 stars out of 5

5. Afterlife: This years 3D house has a very interesting premise. The premise is that a serial killer is stalked by his victims in the afterlife. This house is very trippy and disorienting with some nice effects, but the scares fall a little flat. This is the 3rd straight year with a 3D house and I think many are becoming tired of them because this house has received some negative reviews on the message boards, but I personally found it enjoyable. This house also features the return of Ol' sparky from the Pyscoscarepay houses

This headlines scene is also pretty cool

Final Review: 4 stars out of 5

6. Havoc: Derailed: This house was dead last in my rankings after opening week, but has improved big time and has now moved up a couple spots. The concept is that the DOW are being transported in a train when the train crashes and they are unleashed on the public. My biggest gripe with the house is the train part of the house lasts way to long. Its half train, half post crash, when it should have been about 80% post crash. The train scenes suck, but the post crash scenes are great, such as this one.

Final Review: 3 stars out of 5

7. Walking Dead: Last years walking dead house ranked 5th out of 7, and this ones doesnt fare much better. I actually think this years version is better than last years, but not by much. And unlike last year, I am actually a fan of the show now, but I still couldnt get into it. I found most of this house fairly boring with not much going on. There are some cool scenes though, such as the iconic governor head fish tanks

And walking through the prison cell block

Final Review: 2 stars out of 5

8. Resident Evil: For a second straight year Universal brings a video game house to HHN and for a second straight year I hate it. Last years Silent Hill house as dead last in my rankings and this year Resident Evil is the same. There's really no part of this house that sticks out to me but I guess the highlight would be going through the pizza shop

Final review: 1 star out of 5

Overall this is a great year for HHN, with 4 houses that blew me away, and another two that are very good. Only one real dud, compared to 2 last year. Of course the scariest part of HHN is the lines to get into the houses

This is the line for Havoc on opening night, one of the least crowded nights of the year. This wait will be tripled in about three weeks. Even though it looks like a ton of people, that is probably only about a 30-40 minute wait because lines for Haunted house are very fast moving.