Halloween Horror Nights 33 - Hollywood (Sept 24)

For our third straight year of Universal's glorious HHN, we 'just' went to Hollywood.  No Orlando this year.  Highlights of 2024 include A Quiet Place, Insidious, Ghostbusters, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Weeknd.  Not too shabby.  We got the frequent fear pass so we could do 4 nights and added unlimited express to Friday night because I enjoy trying to do 25 houses in one night.

Prior to the event we watched the first 2 Quiet Place movies, TCM (disturbing AF) and Ghostbusters Frozen Empire at the movies.  It's great homework.  Since coming back we're working our way through the Insidious franchise again so I can see exactly where all the demons came from.  

Scare zones

We had 4 outstanding zones this year, Crowz, Chainsaw Punkz, Skull Lordz and Luchadores - BUT no Deatheaters in Hogsmeade.  It would have been perfection if we had those.  The opening scaremony was pure fire. I’m not not sure which zone I’d give up for Deatheaters, these 4 worked very well. 

Food/Drinks

So impressed with the drinks this year, particularly in the Weeknd Trilogy Bar.  Chucky had a decent offering and the the margaritas were also excellent.  Once again, super impressed with the pizza at the Weeknd Bar and we just had to try the glorious Stay Puft smores.  That was the coolest treat by far this year.  Beautiful. 

Houses/Mazes

I will rank these in order from my most favourite to least, Kevin's list is a bit different.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire   (9 walkthroughs)

Just beautiful, wonderful details including many many moving mini Pufts.  Garraka was magnificent and actually quite frightening.  The sewer eel was a delight, and I loved the throwback characters since I've been obsessed since the first movie (I was 10 and wanted to marry Bill Murray, now I'm almost 50 and same).  The Slimers were perfect (unlike Orlando's dude in a T shirt?)

A Quiet Place  (6 walkthroughs)

I've watched the movies but didn't love them so I was very surprised by how much I loved the house.  Everyone was mostly silent which added to the feel and the scare actors were perfect in their roles.  This house felt peaceful but ominous and the sheer scale of the creature animatronics gave me an appreciation for the movies.  Sounds were deliberate and full of impact.  The use of ASL was also brilliant and absolutely gave the story life.

TCM  (7) Kevin's favourite

Ew.  A perfect symphony of gross.  It's disgusting before you even enter.  This house needs all the credit, it's an absolute masterpiece of the Chainsaw Legacy.  All the characters fit right in, we had an atmospheric slaughterhouse (ew) and the Sawyer house in perfect detail.  Smelled terrible.  Actors were magnificent.  

Insidious  (6)

One of my most favourite movie franchises of all time.  The scenery was mostly based on the final Red Door movie but there were an assortment of demons from the other 3 as well.  Obsessed with Red Face and the Tiny Tim music, but Orlando had a giant ass red door and the house facade which made me a little bit sad we didn't have that scale.  Our exterior was outstanding with the iconic windows and a shadow of Red Face moving behind them.

Weeknd  (6)

A dream/nightmare house from the brain of Mr Abel Tesfaye.  Surreal, disturbing and so beautiful.  The light hallways as transitions were glorious.  The exterior was perfection.  We loved it all, we loved the music, the fucked up-ness, and the giant eyeballs!

Dead Exposure   (6)

Radioactive zombies?  Oh yes please.  Gorgeous and terrifying, quite a lot of scares.  HHN gorilla is the new HHN bear.  Fight me.

Monstruos Dos  (5)

Hollywood gets these houses just right.  A bit of humour, great storytelling, beautiful scenery.  Our favourite was El Cucuy, all those teeth.  The giant claws under the bed were a great touch.  Sadly they weren't moving for us but I saw a video of them and was very jealous.

Monsters Eternal Bloodlines   (2)

Hell of a trek to this one but it was in historic Stage 12 (Dracula, Frankenstein, BTTF, Jurassic Park).  The stage is enormous which made the house look teeny.  Odd storyline not helped by missing actors.  Stellar soundtrack created by Slash, really really stellar.  I wanted to like it more.

Terror Tram (4)

The coolest part of HHN Hollywood.  Sadly they cut off the Jupiter's Claim set from the route (unless you did RIP).  Excellent Blumhouse theme this year.  The very start (above) has the characters come out and run at you - of course you better be straight off the tram to catch it.  

Visiting Norman is worth the trip from Canada alone. Love you Norm. 

I give this event a solid 8.5/10.  I adore the IPs and the 2 originals were brilliant. There were issues, the line control was weird with too much yelling and cramming of people into houses. It messed up the scare timing.  Spacing was way better last year.  Oh, and Hollywood can you please stock the Freestyle drink holders?  The themed food was great, the drinks were amazing, I spent too much on merch and we walked 100k.  That’s what I call a great trip. 

We also met FrankenBob, Minion Monsters are too cute.