Greetings internet dwellers!

HHN 28 is grooving right along. Week two has come to a close. Unlike last week, crowds were a bit more manageable the second week. The added Wednesday, which was done very late in the game, was nearly dead. 
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While the crowds naturally grew over the course of the weekend, they really weren't as bad as the opening two days. With less crowds, yours truly was able to complete all ten houses and then some. While I still have not seen Academy of Villains: Cyberpunk, it's one of the things on my priority list as we move into next week. I really wanted to take advantage of the smaller crowds and get a solid feel for all the houses.

​So with that, let's get into the updated rankings for the houses.

Probably some very unpopular and surprising opinions incoming. I say this every year, but I don't judge houses solely on design. Or "Easter Eggs" for that matter. Things need to flow. And yes, here it comes, have ENERGY. It's a term I use every year. If there is no energy, a house is bound to fall flat. Put all the references to past HHN's in the house as often as you want. If the house doesn't flow, and yes, scare me, then it isn't doing its job. 

​And with that, the updated top 10 list. 

CURRENT RATING: 2.5/5
I've seen feelings of Dead Exposure run the gamut of emotions. Some people really love it, some really hate it. My dad for example, who some of you may know as "Pops" from social media, actually really liked Dead Exposure. I've done it a few times now and while it's not an epic fail, it's not as effective as probably they were hoping it would be. Surprisingly, the entire house feels cheap. Which I wasn't expecting. It's very reminiscent of House of Horrors from 2012, and not Dead Exposure from 2008. While it does have some effective scares, I'm waiting for them to dial it up a notch. Until then, it's a pretty bland house for me. The blandest of HHN 28 by far. 

CURRENT RATING: 3/5
​Sure, it's not going to win any awards for originality, however a lot of Blumhouse is effective. The Happy Death Day stuff, is done really well in here. It was by far, my favorite part of the house. It has some effective scares and the repetitive nature of the scenes worked for me. The First Purge stuff, really does feel tacked on, however I even thought some of that stuff was done well. I need to do Blumhouse a few more times before I can get a true handle on it, but it's miles better than last year's house in my opinion. The scares are just way more effective, and the Happy Death Day portion is more inventive than anything they did in the house last year. 

CURRENT RATING: 3.5/5
I would personally categorize Stranger Things, as a missed opportunity. Sure, it places you into the show. However, because of that, it truly highlights how Stranger Things isn't really a horror show. And because Stranger Things isn't really a horror show, the creative team took the biggest horror element of the show (the Demogorgon), and just chucked them in the house at every opportunity. I mean, these things are everywhere. While every run of the house I've done so far has gotten a little better in terms of scares, the house needs to up the ante a bit to get me on board. Great design though, I'll give it that. 

CURRENT RATING: 4/5
Trick 'r Treat has gotten better every run I've been through in the house. While I still don't like the abrupt finale, the house is quite effective. It's a pretty house to roam, and the scares are mostly effective. I like the use of the Sam's and everything flows nicely. Except for that finale. I just don't like the finale. A solid house nonetheless.

CURRENT RATING: 4/5
Seeds of Extinction is growing on me. While I still don't think they nailed the potential of the premise, the scares have gotten a bit more effective. Things flowed better every time we went through and yes, there was a different energy. I find myself liking the house more and more. We'll see if it can maintain that energy going forward.

CURRENT RATING: 4/5
This is by far, the most frustrating house for me this year. There is so much potential to be an all-time great, but it usually falls a bit shy every time. I'm not sure if they aren't using enough cast in here, or what the deal is, but Carnival Graveyard has a lot of nothing going on, for long periods of time. There just aren't enough scares in here, or attempts at scares. If they can step up that game, maybe it will move up on the list. For now, it's a solid house, with the occasional good scare. 

CURRENT RATING: 4/5
The most surprising house for me this year. Again, it's not going to win any points for originality. However, it's effective in its scares, and approach. The design of this house in this space, is interesting to experience. It's definitely to most unique of the houses in the Shrek theater to date. Color me surprised, but Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is a solid house. Very solid. We'll see if it can maintain its effectiveness.  

CURRENT RATING: 5/5
Scary Tales had a few hiccups this week during our runs. Some line stoppages, cast changes, and non-working puppets. However, it's still a great house. I'm going to give it a pass this week. We'll see how it goes by next week. It's still a treat of house to go through, with some great scares, sets, and environments. The house is still my favorite Scary Tales house yet. We find ourselves going through this house a lot this year. We love this house a great deal. 

CURRENT RATING: 5/5
While the last two runs of Slaughter Sinema seemed to come on a cast change, I'm going to give it a pass. It was consistent the first week, with two blips this past week. I've done Slaughter Sinema a handful of times now, and it's still one the best houses at the event this year. It's fun, weird, creepy, funny, and scary. There's some great stuff in here. I adore this house. 

CURRENT RATING: 5/5
Poltergeist is, and continues to be, the scariest house at the event. Not only does it place you in the film, but it does things on its own terms without losing the integrity of the film. Poltergeist has also been the most consistent house we've gone through so far this year. Scares are always on point, and the energy never lets up. It's a fantastic house. And it's quickly climbing the all-time charts for me. 

Scare zone's this year a really effective. It's the best collection of scare zones we've had in some time. There is one, that is not very good. However, for the most part they all work.  

CURRENT RATING: 1/5
​Kudos to the Scareactor's really trying in here. However, the less said the better. 

CURRENT RATING: 4/5
Much more solid this past week. The crowds still hinder the zone, but it's such a great place to just stand a gawk at all the pretty things. 

CURRENT RATING: 4/5
Still a lot of fun. The character interactions in here are everything. The toys are great, and Chucky is great. However, on busier nights, the crowd gathering to watch Chucky, can be a bit much. Still, it's a fun zone. 

CURRENT RATING: 4.5/5
While the zone isn't going to get points for set design, it's very effective. I still feel it's a bit too cramped of a space to put a zone. However, the Scareactor's are great and the Klowns are a lot of fun. 

CURRENT RATING: 5/5
Still the most effective zone this year. It's a lot of fun and the interactions with guests are a delight. The New Year's Eve ball, stopped working for a few days which was a shame. However, I think it's working again, so, yay!

The roaming hordes are what they are. The fill the gaps in San Francisco and Springfield. I would say the Springfield horde is the better of the two at this point. 

So that's it for me this week. I return to the event Wednesday. Hopefully it's another slow night, as it's only bound to get busier from here on out. As always, you can follow me @HHNLegacy on Twitter for in-park updates and photos throughout the course of the event. 

​Hasta La Bye-bye for now. 

Greetings internet dwellers!

Well, my opening weekend has ended. As of this write-up, there's still a Sunday left to go. Alas, I must return to work. However, I will return to the event on Wednesday, so there's that. We'll talk about a few things here. 

You may have seen the Hype Train rolling on social media over the weekend. There are a lot of people proclaiming this to be one of, if not the best HHN's of all time. Is it though? I'm not quite so sure yet. However, HHN 28 is strong. Very strong. There's a lot to love about the event.

In a way, HHN 28 has gone back to basics, but still continued the trend of moving forward. The houses seemed to focus more on scares this year, but still had the set construction eye-candy that people love. There also seems to be more of a balance (minus one or two things we'll get to in a minute). Overall, HHN 28 is off to the strongest start I've seen in a while. 

Opening night for HHN 28 was packed. How packed? It was the busiest opening night I've seen in my 19 years of attending the event. Rumor has it, they were close to 10% over projections for the night. That is A LOT of people. The pull of Stranger Things was heavy. It was very reminiscent of the first 3 years of The Walking Dead at the event. The wait time for the Stranger Things house, was already at, near, or exceed 2 hours BEFORE the park was officially open. And the line never really dropped below 90 minutes throughout the course of the nights. 

I had flashbacks to the The Walking Dead era. With this success, you can bet Stranger Things will be around for a while. This also means I may not get to do the house a whole lot. As someone who doesn't have Express, I have to pick and choose houses, or hope that times are inflated. Which the majority of the houses we did the first two nights, times were greatly inflated. Carnival Graveyard had some sort of problem, which delayed us for a while. Besides that though, most of the houses we got through quicker than the posted wait. 

Regardless, it was busy. Very busy. It also seems that buy one, get one free campaign, may have worked a little too well. We'll have to see as we move on. 

​Speaking of moving on...

Let's talk houses. Like I alluded to earlier, HHN 28 is a strong event. However, so far, I'm not quite sure the house collection is quite as strong. Without me using express, I was able to get 6 out of the 10 houses done Friday and Saturday. Next week, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and just jump in line for Stranger Things...

Anyway, here's where things stand so far in my book. Starting from the bottom, as always.

CURRENT RATING: 2/5
This is going to require a few more visits. Lots of people raving about this house, but for me, this thing was awful. Sure, some of the actor's blend in well with their surroundings. However, I found everything about Seeds to be bland, repetitive, remarkably uneventful and just not scary. You would think that with the camouflage, there would be a lot of scares, but there wasn't. Surprisingly. I liked some of the design, but it just didn't all come together for me. It's still early, so we'll see if this picks up as we go along. For now, it's seeded at the bottom. See what I did there? Seeds? Ha, I kill me.  

CURRENT RATING: 3.5/5
Trick 'r Treat is a solid house. The design of the house in the Parade Building, is a little bit of a treat. I'm not quite sure we've had something quite like Trick 'r Treat in that space. I believe we hit Trick 'r Treat during a cast change, and the finale was a little abrupt and weird. However, it's a solid house with solid scares and design. If you love the movie, you'll love the house. One of the Sam's got me good in here. 

CURRENT RATING: 4/5
Carnival is another solid house. I like the design, but it was lacking the scares. Carnival Graveyard, has a little bit of an old school haunted house feel. It does indeed have an "open" feel to it, which is nice. I'm waiting for the scares though. Again, not sure if there was a cast change or not, but it seemed to lack people. So, for now, we'll give it the benefit of the doubt. It almost overcame my doubt. Almost. 

CURRENT RATING: 5/5
Slaughter Sinema, is pure delight. It's funny, scary, and owns its cheesiness with pride. It's hard to rank these next three houses. Slaughter Sinema was my most anticipated house. While I loved what they did here, I think the next two houses surprised me more. Still, this house is amazing. 

CURRENT RATING: 5/5
This house is amazing. From the sets, to the scares, to the Scareactor's, everything works so perfectly here. Like I had said in a few My Talking Head episodes, I was hearing about the facade to Scary Tales for a long, long time. It's a great way to setup the experience. There are a lot of great scares in here too. Everything just works in here for me. It's a fantastic house, and may be my favorite Scary Tales house so far.  

CURRENT RATING: 5/5
My favorite house of all time is An American Werewolf in London (the first one). It also edges out the original Halloween house, for my favorite IP house. Poltergeist, is giving both of those IP's a run for their money. This thing is so perfectly done. From the scares, to the design, to the puppetry, to the flow, to the length, Poltergeist is a total blast. I was a little blown away to be honest. They did things in here, that I didn't think they could do. But they did. And it made me happy. And the scares are on point. The feel of this house is amazing. It shattered my expectations for the house, and that's hard to do. 

With the houses having astronomical wait times, there's not a whole lot left to do but drink, and stick around the zones.

CURRENT RATING: 1/5
Yeah, this thing is just not good. Kudos to the Scareactor's trying to make things work. However, short of Jebus coming in to save the day, I doubt there's much anyone can do here. The ghilliesuit thing doesn't quite work. It's just a mess. 

CURRENT RATING: 3.5/5
As per usual, the crowd ruins this zone. I was hoping that with the stage not there this year, the bottleneck in that area, would be taken care of. However, that is not the case. It's a beautiful zone though. The church, and the victims running around, tie into the 80's thing nicely. It's just too packed in here to really do anything. The glowing pumpkin dudes are a nice touch too.  

CURRENT RATING: 4/5
Revenge of Chucky is a lot of fun. It feeds all off your nostalgia. The interactive Chucky puppet is really funny. Yeah, he doesn't quite sound like Chucky, but he's a lot of fun. It's half Insult Emporium, half Icons: HHN show scenes. The surrounding "minions" and toys, are great. I still can't believe there's a guy walking around wearing a diaper. 

CURRENT RATING: 5/5
Killer Klowns is a great zone. Atmospheric, interactive, creepy... it's almost the total package. Almost. South Street does not work for a zone. It's too cramped. It's even more cramped than San Francisco, and is in danger of becoming the new Central Park. Especially with people hanging around in here. Still, Killer Klowns rises above the problems. The Klowns are great and are really interactive with guests. Great zone, minus the space.  

CURRENT RATING: 5/5
I use the word energy to describe things every year. Energy is important. When there is no energy, things fall flat. Vamp '85 has that energy and then some. The zone is a lot of fun. The shows, the interactivity with guests, the costumes, the story...it just all flows. Yeah, you have the usual obsessed types camping out in Vamp, but I've had to ignore that the first two nights. The zone is just too much fun to let that ruin it. 

I would be amiss if I didn't mention the HHN Blogs meetup on Saturday. Thanks to those who came out. It was nice meeting you all. Thanks to HHN Crypt for the photos, and Horror Night Nightmares for organizing the thing. 

I return to the event on Wednesday. As per usual, I continue to keep a running commentary as the event wears on. HHN 28 is in full swing. Hopefully the crowds don't screw up things too much.

Hasta La Bye-bye for now. 

Greetings internet dwellers!

As we approach t-minus one week until the start of HHN 28, I have done my final "Hype list" for the event. You can view the video below. There were a few other things I wanted to discuss briefly as well. First and foremost...

Every year, we like to rank our most anticipated things for the event- houses, scare zones and shows. Of course, this year only has one show, so that makes it easy. This year, I went full video with this as I had the time to do so. You can view the My Talking Head episode below, to hear my full thoughts on why I am excited for, and not excited for, certain things.

Throughout the course of HHN 28, I will update, pretty much every weekend, where I feel things are standing. The houses and scare zones will fluctuate, probably for the first two weeks. Because I go so much, I like to keep a running list every week for where things stand. A final ranking of everything, will come at the end of the event.

This time last year, we were preparing for Hurricane Irma. September 10th is the peak date for Hurricane season. This year, has been very, very quiet in the Atlantic. A little too quiet if you ask me. The Atlantic is starting to heat up a bit, with waves training of the African coast. While it is a running gag to constantly be bombarded by rain on opening weekend of the event, we don't want no hurricanes. 

Hopefully, things stay away from Florida, but you never know with these things, They like to have the most inopportune timing. There's a few out there now, which may require some close monitoring, so just be vigilant. 

Barring any hurricanes of course, I have continued the updates via Twitter. You can follow me @HHNLegacy there for instant updates, while down there. This Friday, will probably be my last time out at the parks before the event starts next week. I have to work, and I don't have another day off until then. 

I don't anticipate too much to be added, as Rock The Universe is this weekend and some of the more gruesome stuff, may have to wait. Plus, it's a pretty busy event for Universal, so people are busy...doing stuff. 

Those who follow me and have done so for a long while, know I don't like to pimp myself out. However, I'll make an exception this one time. I started a merch store via Spreadshirt a while back. I have some things for sale there. If you would like to purchase something, by all means do so. You can do so, HERE.

I am not one for meetups, but again, I'll make an exception this year. By all means if you see me in the park normally, don't hesitate to say hey. The HHN Blogs meetup, will take place on Saturday, September 15th at 8:00pm. It will be on the waterfront in front of Transformers: The Ride. It will consist of myself, HHN Vault, HHN Rumors, HHN Crypt and Horror Night Nightmares. There is also a nifty shirt for the occasion, if you so choose. 

That about covers things for now. Of course during the event, I will continue to post all of the things via the blog, and Social Media. 

​Hasta La Bye-bye for now.