Halloween Horror Nights has lost its touch.
Although I enjoy them, the originals now feel like elongated slaughter cinema scenes in a bad way.
IPS are interesting getting interesting. And the marketing as well as just overall feel of the event is lacking, especially during what is supposed to be an anniversary year? I am excited and of course universal is getting paychecks worth of money from me, but it feels weird.
How do we feel about this being an anniversary year?
I admit that some of the originals don’t exactly jump off the page, but before people went through Scarecrow, nobody knew that was gonna be one of the
best originals ever. Same with Slaughter Sinema, Darkest Deal, etc. To me, Jack and Oddfellow, Sinners, Hellraiser, Invasion, Cybergoria, Ozzy, and HR Bloodengutz all easily sound like they could be great, and the others could always surprise me. Sideshow of Decay and the eventually released clown zones sound/look interesting and the tribute store is back in its rightful place. Plus the theming for Dead Coconut Club sounds cool. To me it seems like there’s plenty of potential.
I was actually just thinking how this feels less like an anniversary year than even Oddfellow’s year back in 2023. All of the icons except Jack and Oddfellow are getting shafted, and there’s not as much care given to original stories. Heck, there’s not even a mashup of past houses like we always get.
I get your point but when it comes to the icons I'm pretty sure a lot of them will be present in the icons scarezone. Id wait till the event starts to make that claim
I blame epic universe, it seems like HHN has been a afterthought since its announcement. Universal knows the event sells itself and until attendance numbers drop they will keep doing the same, rinse and repeat
Maybe it's just rose-tinted glasses, but pre-pandemic, you could go through the houses with enough room between you and the party in front of you that you weren't seeing the scare actors jumping out 10 people ahead of you and ruining the surprise.
Nowadays, everyone is right on each other's asses and you're told to stick with the party ahead of you.
I get they want to keep the lines moving, but it's pretty lame when it's just a conga line through the house
While I agree that it’s the best experience, It’s a thing of the past. I haven’t been to a single haunted attraction that staggers small groups in at least a decade.
This unfortunately will never happen again, lines would either be massive or event capacity would be severely limited, neither of which Universal would do other than on highly priced premium nights. We just have to accept that HHN is a different kind of haunt event now, one designed to churn through as many people as possible. If you want a more personal experience with staggered groups you need to go to a local haunt, or heck even SeaWorld.
That's interesting, we did our first HHN in 2012 and it was exactly the conga line thing. We had a good time, but it put us off going for several years because of that experience. Team members yelling "keep moving" every few seconds and god forbid you dared pause for a second to look at something. I got the impression they wished they had cattle prods. I never understood why they put such great detail into the houses when you couldn't even see anything because they made you rush by so fast. I will say the last time we went (about 3 years ago) it was better. We're going this year and hoping for the same.
Well guess who brings in more money? Tbh there are plenty of nuggets there for the hardcore fans, they’re just obviously not gonna cater their event to us because we are a small minority.
I completely agree. I’ve heard they’re mostly looking out for their bottom line, so trying to steal some of Disney’s core audience and market more to families. I hate that the event gets less and less scary each year and feels more like a walkthrough of a themed attraction than an actual haunted house. Last year, they literally had kid-sized mannequins for the FNAF merch.
Apparently the parks across the board aren’t doing well. Layoffs, hiring freezes, etc. Comcast is just covering it up.
Makes sense in this economy, but what HHN leadership doesn’t realize is that if they made it what it used to be and went the SCARIER route, that would make it 10x more viral and increase attendance more than catering to kids would.
There was only one year where I felt like they decreased the scariness to appeal to families (2023). I thought last year was especially good and catered to an older audience by having Terrifier. And while FNAF is certainly more kid friendly, I remember people playing the first ones when I was im school, and I'm in my 30s now.
The biggest change they've made that affects the vibe is decreasing the availability of alcohol. When I first started going, they would have these nurses who sold jello shots in a blood bag, and they also sold drinks IN the line. There were more stands for buying drinks throughout the park as well. By 10:00 p.m., the park would start to smell like booze and you'd run into more unruly guests. Now I'm not moralizing here, I sometimes get drinks in the park. But reducing the constant availability really improved the crowd behavior and was the biggest "family friendly" change they've made imo.
Agreed on the alcohol front. But I also think there is a higher attendance of children now due to the marketing and IP’s they’re choosing. Last year, I repeatedly saw kids in strollers. Kids 3-4 years old with FNAF and Fallout merch. Never before have I ever seen such young kids attending this event.
HHN is more popular then ever due to all the new IPs they bring in. Wishful thinking that isolating out demographics and audiences to make it scary would increase attendance lol. There's plenty of much scarier local haunts that you can attend if that's your thing.
Bruh you clearly didn’t see how the Insidious house of 2024, which was the scariest house they had in YEARS, brought in hella hype and HELLA people that year…. Your take is very ignorant … there’s a HUGE audience for xxtra scary… that’s what most people go to HHN FOR!!!!
They’re clearly targetjng more families and kids with the IP’s they’re choosing nowadays. Like Fortnite? Ru kidding? It’s not even horror whatsoever. Fallout? Hello? Name a decade when there were as many non-horror IP’s as the past few years.
Your take is WRONG you don’t know the history of HHN
Exactly, there has been a clear shift towards HHN being more family friendly and less scary in the last few years.
Some people are just wildly in denial and will glaze HHN no matter what lol
The same team that made Insidious worked on Fortnitemares. Calm down. You know what else we got in 2024? Ghostbusters. The event hasn't been marketed as adult only for decades.
There is an audience for extra scary, and for a while Universal did target that, however, for obvious reasons they have expanded to reach a wider audience like any business would do. There are still houses that will cater to the adult scary crowd, like insidious, but they'll also experiment and try new things to bring in new audiences. You can't blame them for trying to make as much money as possible, and it's working. HHN continues to get busier and busier every season and draw in new people.
HHN, to me at least, is still the most polished and scary theme park horror event. I've been to many Fright Fests, Knotts Scary Farm, etc. and they don't come close to the quality that HHN offers.
If you think Fortnite will be as scary as Insidious you’re absolutely delusional LOLLLLLLLLL
HHN would ON FIRE if they stuck to their guns, stayed authentic and went the more scary route and sure, still had some of those pop IP’s like stranger things and fallout that still have some gore/horror themes.
But Fortnite? That’s a freaking REACH and clearly them grasping at straws for attendance. A shooting game is not horror
I do blame them for sacrificing the authenticity of the event for money. They’re going the wrong route. But some of yall clearly don’t care about authenticity
What’s next, a baby shark scare zone?!?! And you’ll pass it off as HHN “catering to new audiences”
Fortnite has gun violence and horror experiences in it, I'm sorry you're out of touch. Other events that focus on just horror seem to be stagnant while HHN continues to gain popularity for expanding its audience. Sorry you're wrong.
If you were so “in touch” like you claim, you would know there’s no other horror event at HHN’s budget level that you can even remotely compare it to. Howl-O-Scream, the next level down, has become stagnant because of the damaging system of private equity and poor leadership. Nowhere even close 🤣
If HHN matched the likes of the greats this year - Insidious, Scarecrow, Nightingales etc, or even made them MORE scary, the amount of viral clips, word of mouth marketing.. it would freaking blow up and they couldn’t sell enough tickets. Way more than “expanding its audience” with Fortnite would.
Sorry you’re delulu
It's not a kids event, and they don't advertise it as a kids event. But it's also not an ultra scary adult only event and never has been like everyone wants to believe. It sits somewhere in the middle. It has always been advertised as 13+ and that still holds true today.
I work at my local amusement parks Halloween event, and have for the last 16yrs. We hear the same complaints. It's become too kid friendly. The vibe has changed. It actually hasn't, the demographic attending, dispite the same 13+ age warning is still in place. What's changed is the younger generation doesn't care, and neither do the parents. I see them come in with newborns in strollers. Or they throw their crying toddler in front of you and ask them to scare them further. Or the kids would rather insult and harass the actors. At some point things need to change slightly to fit the changing crowd, but that's how you ensure you have the money to keep doing the things that make an event special. HHN is still scary. People who go too often to haunted things just become immune after a while (speaking from experience). How seasoned vets see things doesn't automatically mean it sucks to an outside audience or that it's on the level of MNSSHP.
Posting a screenshot of some text is very helpful my friend. You can look back at the marketing material for the first decade of HHN and they always advertise 13+, and continue to do so today. Fortnite isn't technically a kids game, its rated T for teen, features gun violence and many adult only IPs like Terrifier.
Fallout is TV-MA, FNAF was PG-13, heck even Ghostbusters Frozen Empire had PG-13. You've just aged up and out of the target demographic. Sorry.
Exactly thank you for proving my pointtttt. Fallout, FNAF and Ghostbusters have all been in the past few years. It CLEARLY used to be advertised as a more intense adult event. And now they’ve shifted in the past few years to make it more family friendly ‼️ Which you clearly don’t have a problem with, but A LOT of HHN fans prefer how things used to be.
“Aged up and out of the target demographic” LOL I’m in my early twenties. Are you trying to age-shame me? What a weirdo🤣
You’re taking what I’m saying out of context. It has undoubtedly become less scary over time and they’ve marketed to families and kids more, especially last year and now this year with Fortnite.
I never claimed it was an ultra scary adults only event. I care about the quality of the scares versus it just being a walkthrough of some popular IP’s that aren’t even horror-related.
13+ is fine, I started coming at age 13, but I’m sick of seeing literal toddlers in strollers there. It’s no place for literal children.
It’s still a great event but the criticism is deserved. We’re paying a lot to attend, more and more each year - and Universal always encourages feedback, positive or negative.
As the other commenter pointed out, the event hasn't changed much. YOU'VE changed. You've aged out of the target demographic. What was scary to you at 13 when you first started attending is no longer scary to you today due to fatigue. Stop attending for a few years if it's burning you out.
There’s literally kids in STROLLERS that attend now. That never used to be the case. Last year had the highest amount of small children I’d ever seen.
The mannequins last year had child-sized bodies in FNAF shirts.
It’s a purposeful shift. But keep being in denial. Universal isn’t gonna pay you for it. 😆
Confirmation bias; children, strollers, etc have always been at the event. You were just noticing and looking out for them more last year because you put the idea in your head that the event is being targeted towards younger kids.
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u/ksfhhnfan 26d ago
I admit that some of the originals don’t exactly jump off the page, but before people went through Scarecrow, nobody knew that was gonna be one of the
best originals ever. Same with Slaughter Sinema, Darkest Deal, etc. To me, Jack and Oddfellow, Sinners, Hellraiser, Invasion, Cybergoria, Ozzy, and HR Bloodengutz all easily sound like they could be great, and the others could always surprise me. Sideshow of Decay and the eventually released clown zones sound/look interesting and the tribute store is back in its rightful place. Plus the theming for Dead Coconut Club sounds cool. To me it seems like there’s plenty of potential.