HHN 28 OPENING WEEKEND OVERVIEW - CURRENT HOUSE RANKINGS AND MORE

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. 

BEST HHN EVER?

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. 

DEM CROWDS DOE

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...

CURRENT HOUSE RANKINGS

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.

6. SEEDS OF EXTINCTION

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.  

5. TRICK 'R TREAT

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. 

4. CARNIVAL GRAVEYARD: RUST IN PIECES

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. 

3. SLAUGHTER SINEMA

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. 

2. SCARY TALES: DEADLY EVER AFTER

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.  

1. POLTERGEIST

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. 

CURRENT SCARE ZONE RANKINGS

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

5. THE HARVEST

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. 

4. TWISTED TRADITION

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.  

3. REVENGE OF CHUCKY

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. 

2. KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE

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.  

1. VAMP '85: NEW YEAR'S EVE

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. 

PARTING WORDS

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.