HHN 29 WEEK 3 UPDATE

Greetings internet dwellers!

I'm going to keep this brief, as I've come down with a bit of a nasty cold. Usually, I get sick around HHN time, as things like lack of sleep, and lack of rest, run down my body. So, I naturally get sick. However, this year it's early. 

I said it when we started HHN 29, but the houses this year is the best collection of houses since 2011. It's remained pretty consistent. A few houses that were on the bottom of the list, may have shifted slightly. However, for the most part, things remain the same.

UPDATED HOUSE RANKINGS

10. Depths of Fear
9. Nightingales: Blood Pit
8. Stranger Things
7. Yeti: Terror of the Yukon
6. Us
5. Killer Klowns From Outer Space
4. Ghostbusters
3. Graveyard Games
2. House of 1000 Corpses
​1. Universal Monsters

While I maintain that there are no "bad" houses this year, Depths of Fear seems to be the one that can't quite get on its legs. The costumes don't help much, and some of the problems they have been having in the house tech wise, are hurting it a bit. We did it a few times last week, and the timing on the scares was off quite a bit. There was a noticeable down-tick in intensity. Still, I really like the setting it's trying to sell, and when it works it works.

​Nightingales and Ghostbusters, are the two surprises for me from this past week. Both noticeably had improvements in the scare department. Klowns, while still one of my favorites, we seemed to hit at bad times, but it's still a great house. 

​Overall, things are starting to solidify a little bit. My top five, will probably change constantly as we move forward. It's just that type of year.

There has been a few odd things in terms of Operations this year, that I think need to be addressed. I get that they are trying to move people through the houses in a timely fashion. However, shouting at people to keep moving, especially when the line is still moving, is a big no-no in my book. It breaks the experience of the house. It's bad enough to have people waiving a hand, or light constantly. We don't need shouting. 

They need to do a better job with those tickets, to prevent line jumping. In years past, they seemed pretty good at taking the tickets at the end, and counting to make sure those in your group, were those in your group. This year, the tickets are basically a deterrent as you enter, but most of the houses don't even ask about the tickets before you enter the actual house. We ran into a problem at Depths of Fear with this, and unfortunately, had to report a group of people for line jumping. I don't want to be that guy, but I will if I have to. 

Scare zones, are still the same. Hellbilly Deluxe, is still my favorite zone. 

So that's it for this week. I return to the event on Wednesday. We still have quite a ways to go. I'm still really digging this year. Let's keep it going. Now, where's my Robitussin. 

​Hasta La Bye-bye for now.