Hello there and welcome to my DisneyKindaLife. It’s been a while since I’ve done a written blog entry, but a lot has happened to me. If you have been following me over on YouTube you know that I lost my wife in April to cancer and I’ve been concentrating on doing all of the Disney Kinda Life content myself. While I am prioritizing the video content over on YouTube I do enjoy writing a good written article so this will be a comprehensive guide or review I should say of my time at Halloween Horror Nights 35 (HHN 35) for opening weekend which did include premium scream night. If you are looking for general information about HHN click my preview article here.
As many of you know we love Halloween horror nights it’s one of our favorite times of the year when the fall is starting we get Halloween time, NFL football, & the food and wine festival over at Epcot just a lot of good things happen this time of year. This year obviously would be a little bit different as I am now solo and I will be experiencing everything that I love without Emma but it will not stop me from having fun this time of year. I love Halloween Horror Nights and with that let’s get into the fog.
In this article you’re going to want to expect a couple of things. One I’ll give you an overview and review a premium scream night whether it was worth it or not. I’ll go over the food that I had and then I will go through the houses and my rankings of each of them. I will show you my preseason rankings of the houses and now how I feel after the opening weekend as well. Come along with me on my Disney kind of life as we explore Halloween horror nights and as always you can follow me and my visual story over on YouTube let’s go!
HHN 35 Premium Scream Night
First up is Premium Scream Night, and I have to say that this year’s Premium Scream Night was way better than last year’s Premium Scream Night. It appears that Universal listened to guest feedback and took into account that they oversold it last year, and they definitely capped the tickets this year. We were able to go on 21 runs through the houses, so we got through all 10 houses in different combinations, for a total of 21 times. I was able to try any of the food that I wanted with a minimal wait. This was an improvement over the past two years. I would do premium scream night over RIP without question.
HHN 35 Food
The food game for HHN is good this year. Everything I personally tried, except one item- the Macaroni and Cheese from Stranger Things was decent.
Let’s start over at Stranger Things, which is located on that island bridge area by Men in Black. When I saw that Peanut Butter Boppers were on the menu, they became the first thing I needed to try! You can see my reaction over on Instagram below, but I really enjoyed these. Since it was free, I tried El’s Battery Jerky, which is Macaroni and Cheese with beef Jerky on top of garlic bread. El’s item is a hard pass especially at 16.99. I didn’t like anything about it outside of the container it came in. The beef jerky didn’t help in the mac and cheese at all.
Other items of note that I tried I will just list below and give some thoughts. I didn’t capture pictures of all of the items as I was moving quickly on Premium Scream Night.
Meetz Meats Food Booth Next to Stranger Things
Torn to Shreds Pork Sandwich $12.99. BBQ smoked & shredded pork shoulder, jalapeno slaw, pretzel roll. I was telling my friend how shocked I was at the softness of the pretzel roll here, and the rest of the sandwich fell into place. At 12.99 I don’t think this was a bad sandwich at all and recommend it.
Jack’s Surplus Food
All I have to say about this booth is the Carn”Evil” Smash Tacos! Get them. I really enjoyed them, and I can’t pinpoint it, but they have a very familiar taste. The sauce on top tastes like the Big Mac sauce, so that could be it. At $14.99, though, I didn’t feel like these were a rip-off like the Mac and Cheese.
A couple of other honorable mentions I tried are two returning items. The Walking taco from the same booth area over by the Animal Actors stage, and the Death by Cheesestick which now has it’s own mascot like Pizza fries! This makes me optimistic that the cheesestick may be here to stay yearly.
HHN 35 Haunted Houses
Let’s get into the houses. Over the first four day of the event I was about to go through all ten houses multiple times. I will first start out with my pre-season rankings and then go through each house from my least favorite to my favorite.
Pre-Season Hype List
- H.R. Bloodengutz Presents: A Halloween Fright-Tacular!
- Invasion: Alien Abduction
- Hellraiser
- Jack & Oddfellow: Chaos & Control
- Cybergoria
- Sinners
- Ozzy Osbourne Prince of Darkness
- Stranger Things Season 5
- Madlands: Caged Cannibals
- Evil Dead Burn
Invasion Alien Abduction
Well, something needs to be my least favorite, and it is Invasion Alien Abduction. As you can see from my hype list, I really wanted to like this one. When I went through the unmasking tour, it was before the season started, and I felt the sets were cool but nothing spectacular. This meant the effects and costumes needed to be on point, but they aren’t. The Aliens are very basic-looking. The last room is great if you get the timing right, but the rest of the house is not. Also, you will see my lights on in the unmasking tour pictures for each house. I picked out a couple of my favorites per house.
Evil Dead Burn
Coming in at number nine is Evil Dead Burn. This house is so low, probably because it’s tied to a movie. Evil Dead Burn is a cool movie, but not a standout in the Evil Dead franchise. This house follows the story of Evil Dead Burn, in which the curse is passed on to a new family, and it becomes a fight for survival in their house against the demons we all know from Evil Dead. Nothing Special here, but the dogs are cool!
Stranger Things Season 5
Coming in at number eight is Stranger Things Season 5. While I personally really enjoyed season five, I did moan and groan when I saw it was coming back to HHN. I felt that season five didn’t have potential for a great house. There is one massive scene that is well done though that happens in the military base. So walk slowly through there. The good news here is this house isn’t carrying a long wait early in the season do you can get your Stranger Things fix easy.
Cybergoria
Coming in at number seven is Cybergoria. I really wanted to like this one and people keep swearing it is the best house. I am here to tell you it isn’t. The premise is you awaken thousands of years in the future in this haunted house and brave a cold world driven by machines with a singular goal: to make you live forever, even if it kills you. Well going through this house may kill you from repeated boring scares. There are a couple of good scares in here that I really enjoy but overall this house just isn’t as good as I hoped
Madlands: Caged Cannibals
Number six belongs to Madlands: Caged Cannibals. This house has some amazing set designs and a lot of detail going for it. I predict this house will sneak up on people as the event goes on and rise up my rankings. Taking the unmasking tour gave a lot of great details on this house that are hard to come up with if you didn’t do the tour. The premise is cannibals have moved into the zoo and taken up territories based on the animal habitats. They have logos for their factions and they are fighting over territory. You can see this in my map picture above.
Jack and Oddfellow: Chaos and Control
Here is where the really good houses start to fight for attention. Number five on my list belongs to Jack and Oddfellow: Chaos and Control. Even before the event started I didn’t want to over hype this house in my mind and it landed right where I thought it would. This house is beautiful for sure with a ton of eye candy. This house alone is worth the unmasking tour.
Why isn’t this higher on my list you might ask, well I think I wanted a bit more icons in the house. I know it isn’t named icons but it really is just Jack and Oddfellow fighting and then coming together. I don’t feel that the scares in this house are amazing. It is a beautiful house though. Also, there is a really cool Jack effect near the beginning!
These next four houses can almost go in any order but currently I have Sinners at number four. Going into the season I was expecting a slightly better Hatchet and Chains house from last year. While I love the movie Sinners I just didn’t see it as a house. I was wrong, this house is great. It may help that on premium scream night I got to run the house with no one except me in it.
There are some really good scares in this house with a really awesome flying scareactor. Also the way the vampires interact overall in this house are so good. Also good use of smells in this house!
Number three belongs to Hellraiser. One of my favorite movies from the 80s, Pinhead and the rest of the Cenobites are here. This house was beautifully designed by Dylan Kollath, who is responsible for houses like Bloodmoon and Deadman’s Pier. You can see for days inside the Hellraiser house, and Cenobites are everywhere. Some really cool effects and scares make this house great.
Ok I have been going back and forth on my favorite house this year. Today as I woke up I put Ozzy at number two. This house is nothing short of amazing and a great tribute to Ozzy himself. We have bats here, the crazy train, and overall an amazing house to walk through. Based on wait times for this opening weekend this house is being received so well. There are some good scare opportunities here and overall you will walk out of this house with a smile on your face.
Ok my favorite house so far this year should be no surprise to anyone who knows me. The campy, cheesy and amazing HR Bloodengutz Presents: A Halloween Fright-Tacular! What can I say about this house. It brings back a lovable icon host to bring you through his lineup of Halloween themed shows. I love these kinds of houses. I have so many photos from this house and every time I go through it I just have a blast. There are some scares here but this one is all about the presentation and it is spot on! Each room is a different Halloween themed show and it just hits the spot every time! My favorite scene is the tiki one pictured below, and there is a very special character in there!
Final Thoughts and Conclusions on HHN 35
TLDR House Rankings from me least to favorite
- Invasion Alien Abduction
- Evil Dead Burn
- Stranger Things Season 5
- Cybergoria
- Madlands: Caged Cannibals
- Jack and Oddfellow: Chaos and Control
- Sinners
- Hellraiser
- Ozzy Osbourne Prince of Darkness
- HR Bloodengutz Presents: A Halloween Fright-Tacular!
Overall, this season is off to a great start. Having been four days in a row and running through the houses multiple times I can already see what my pattern will be as the season goes on. I will skip Invasion a lot. When going to the entrance to Stranger things or Evil Dead Burn I will pick one for that night and probably not circle around again for the other. The logistics of those two sound stages are puzzling to me.
Other odds and ends from the event. I did not care for this years version of Nightmare Fuel which is a shock to me. I typically love their shows. This one is missing some energy for me. The Stranger Things Lagoon show is fun with great music!
The Scare zones are decent but the star of the show is Downtown Clown Town. You have a mix of a lot of clowns from Jack, Art, and the lovable Killer Klownz to name a few. I feel this is the proper way to use the New York area of Universal Studios Orlando!
Have you been to HHN 35? What are your thoughts? As always you can follow me visually over on YouTube by clicking here. Thank you everyone for supporting me through this time of my life.
Kevin
