Now on with the show!
You have heard me mention Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) in the first part, and if you follow me on Facebook, you can see hundreds of pictures from the event on my page, so I will just quickly sum it up for you. Every year, Universal Studios Orlando holds an event called HHN. It goes from the last weekend of September all the way through Halloween. It's a pretty safe bet that you will see my wife Linda and me there just about every weekend because it truly is JUST THAT MUCH FUN!!!! They are now on their 21st year of doing it, and they really do go all out to make it top notch horror and scares for you and your whole family.
(Soapbox Alert)
It is such a horrific event, that Universal really doesn't recommend anyone under 13 from attending the event and makes it quite clear on all their ads, but every year, I get to see those idiotic parents that insist on dragging their small kids to the event because they think that they will be fine. Usually they aren't fine, and the kid has therapy to look forward to in the future. I have seen kids in strollers being pushed into the houses and I always am shocked at just how stupid people can be. I willing to bet that there have been cases where the parents have complained to, and probably threatened to sue, Universal because their kid got scared too bad. These are probably the same people that would go to an X rated movie and complain about the nudity. I don't ever blame the "monsters" for doing their job, I blame the parents for being that stupid and feel that they deserve to be up all night with a scared kid that won't be able to sleep for weeks!
(Climbs down)
Being that Linda and I have been going for the past six years on an average of 5-6 times per year, I have been able to have a lot of standout moments that make me love the event even more and more each year. Some involve the houses, the people we took, and, of course, the scares that were gotten. The event is different each and every year, so you really do get a different experience each and every time you go. The standard for the past six years has been 8 haunted houses and 6 scare zones. The houses have ranged from campy and funny, to downright horrific, from gory and gross to supernatural, and just about anything in between you could conjure up. In fact, this year they have a house that it actually snows in and you can see your breath as you walk through it. I know that doesn't sound that amazing to the northerners, but to us Floridians, that's the closest I'm going to come to seeing snow. It's the details that amaze me and I have gotten to see some of the best that haunted attractions get to offer.
So in no particular order, these are a few of the things that have stood out in my mind as my favorite moments over the past six years of HHN.
#1. The first time I ever felt bad.
Amazingly, this event happened just last weekend, but deserves already to be on my list because it was the very first time that I have EVER felt bad at HHN. Those that know me know that if you go to HHN with me, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure you get the most bang out of your dollar. You will see everything, experience everything, and get the living crap scared out of you. It's what the event is for, and I will even participate in doing some scaring as the night progresses. I've had some wonderful scares on the people that have went with us. Just understand, you are NEVER safe when I'm around.
One of my favorite things to do at HHN, is getting to take "newbies", people that have never gone before. The ones that really have no idea what they are in for and have no clue on what to expect once we enter through those gates. Most have had some small experience with a haunted house, but they were usually simplistic and low budget and really didn't scare them. It was just some kid wearing a mask too big for his face and jumping out screaming at them. Well Universal isn't like that in the least. HELLO!!!! They ARE a movie studio!!!!!
So last weekend, we found ourselves getting to take two new victims for HHN to chew up and spit out. It was a married couple and the husband was looking forward to it, but the wife was a little more nervous about the event. I would like to be sympathetic towards the nervous ones, but something in my DNA will not let me. I'm not going to stand there and say, "Oh. It's going to be fine. There is nothing to be afraid of." NOPE! I'm going to stand there and say, "You are SOOOO dead. The monsters won't kill you. . . they'll just rough you up a little bit. Be afraid. . . . .BE VERY AFRAID!!!" That's me in a nutshell. No sympathy for the scared.
We made it to the front gate and were waiting for the event to open. Keep in mind, it was still daylight out. I told her that I will keep her name out of this, so from now on I will just call her Hael. Well Hael was already starting to get super nervous because of all the build up that Linda and me had been doing about the event. So when the gates were opened and we went through, I'm pretty sure Hael would have gladly turned and ran the other way. We had already planned to head counter clockwise through the houses and so we set our plan in motion and headed towards the first house, The Forsaken. Well the only problem for Hael, is that we had to walk through two scare zones on the way to the first house, "7", based on the seven deadly sins and Grown Evil, a forest gone "batty". We plowed our way through the first one, and Hael pretty much just lowered her head and grabbed Linda and made it as quickly as she could through it. We came out the other side and she was already showing signs of panic, which of course I feed off of. She then looked up and saw the next foggy scare zone looming in front of her and asked if we had to go through it. I laughed and said, "YEP. HEHEHEHEHEHEE.", remember, I don't have mercy on this kind of thing. She let out a bit of a groan mixed with fear, depression, and panic, but on we walked. We made it into the scare zone and the creatures were doing their job well. We knew a short cut to get over to the first house, so we veered out halfway through the scare zone to head that way. Hael was grasping her husband like he was a life jacket in the middle of the ocean and I of course found this hysterical, but then the next thing that happened actually made me feel bad for Hael. Yes, that's right, the all mighty Scott "King of all Scares" actually felt bad for her. Here's what happened.
We were walking to the first house and we were passing under a walkway. There were columns on each side of the walkway and I decided that it would be funny to come around one of the columns and scare Hael as she walked through, after all, it was HHN and it's all about the fear. So I timed it perfectly, came around that column right as she was walking through, and let out a snarl from the pits of Hell. Wellllll.. . . . . . . .
You know when a kid is playing and having fun, but then runs their head into something hard? They have this face transformation that goes from pure laughter to tears in slow motion. It looks like some kind of weird seizure. This is the reaction I got from Hael. She let out this laugh, then her face did a slow motion change through all the emotions between laughing and crying. Happy, shock, confusion, denial, fear, terror, hand to the face, then crying all in a matter of 5 seconds. If you could have seen my face, it went from happy to "Oh Crap!" in the same 5 seconds. I felt horrible!!!! But worse, I felt horrible that I felt horrible! This was so unlike me, but seeing her standing there crying was too much for my hard cruel heart to take. So what did I do to fix the situation? I screamed ahead to Linda and when she turned around I pointed at Hael and pushed her off on Linda. WHEW!!!!! Problem solved. Linda helped Hael calm down and we had a good night, even though Hael wouldn't step foot in another scare zone. I felt bad for the first time and now have a new story to tell about HHN.
#2. The Smells of HHN.
Universal goes all out to make their houses as realistic as they possibly can and this includes using smells to further immerse you into the scene. This could range from dirt, food, dead plants, burning flesh, baby powder, to any number of scents. Two stand out in my mind.
The first year I got to take Linda, there was a house called Psychoscarapy. The premise was that an insane clown, Jack, broke free from his cell at Shady Brook's insane asylum and now led a riot throughout the asylum. You would make your way through the building passing through cells, offices, and hallways while being attacked by the inmates, but the room that will forever be remembered most, was the room we now just call the "poop" room. You entered the bathroom of the asylum and there were three stalls both on the left and on the right. I will try not to be too graphic for those with weak stomachs, so I will just say that there was a brown substance smeared all over the place in this scene. By the time you were able to take in the scene, the smell would hit you. I know that this wasn't the real thing, but I can only say that if I had ever stuck my face in a used diaper, this is all I can imagine it would be like. It was a smell you could taste! So as you walked through this scene gagging, you couldn't stop thinking that you were surrounded with poop. Then to make matters worse, the third stall down on the right had a realistic dummy crouching over the toilet with a great pushing face, while sound effects of turds plopping in the water and then water would squirt out and hit you as you walked by. When Linda and I walked out of that house, the first words out of both of our mouths were, "Did you smell that room?" THAT'S how you know it was a great scene!!! We will never forget that.
The second took place three years ago. The name of the house was "Leave it to Cleaver" and the premise was that there is a meat packing company in Carey, Ohio. They had figured out a way to have and endless supply of meat by using local transients and travelers for their "special" type of meat. You would progress through the factory witnessing all the different stages of processing the "meat". We were in the house with a friend of mine, and being that we had been through this house a couple time before she had been, we made sure to point out some of the cool scenes in this house. One of the scenes was a hole that was dumping un-used pieces of "meat" into a large pile on the floor. The visual of that scene was intense, but they took it one step further by adding a smell to it. I can't really describe the smell but I will say, it smelled exactly like you would imagine a huge pile of intestines and chunks of flesh would smell like piled up on the floor. We pointed that scene out to our friend, and being that it was kind of dark in that scene, she bent over to get a closer look at what the pile was. I yelled out to her that it was intestines and guts and then the smell hit her and we discovered that she has a weak stomach. She immediately begins to dry heave which causes Linda and me to burst out laughing but to also take a few steps back because we don't want to get puked on. We hurry up and got her out of that room, but for the rest of the house, we would take a few steps and hear her dry heave. It was hysterical!!! "Hey Semi. You still smell it?" "***Bwak*** Shut up or I'm going to puke!!!!" Got to love the smells.
#3. Linda Scares
One of the finest and best memories that I have from HHN, is when my dear wife Linda gets the ever loving crap scared out of her. That might sound mean, but it truly is the reason we are there. . . . TO GET SCARED!!!!! Here are two of my favorites:
The first happened in a house called Psychoscarapy: Home for the Holidays. In case you are wondering, yes, it does tie into the other Psychoscarapy house from the year before it. This time, the inmates went out for a Christmas Activity and they overtook the van driver and after crashing into a house, they spread their Christmas cheer with the family that was living inside. So you made your way through the house and got to see the demise of the family throughout. They you walked outside and into the shed/workshop area in the backyard. (Keep in mind that this was all inside a sound stage and they had the air down in the 50's to give you the impression that it was really winter) Upon entering the workshop, you would walk past a lawn mower that was in the process of giving one of the family members a haircut, wet spray included, and then you had to walk around this post to make your way out of this scene. WELL. . . .There was an inmate standing on the other side of the post as we came around it and he was crouching down. Neither one of us saw him. Linda was in front of me and the inmate just slowly stood up. No screaming, yelling, or quick movements, he just stood up. Linda suddenly noticed him and did something that she had never done before, nor have ever done since. She collapsed!!!! Not all of a sudden, it was more like someone was taking her bones out of her body from the top of her head down to her feet slowly. It was truly a weird thing to watch standing behind her. She let out this little gasp/scream and then became dead weight. I noticed her going down so I grabbed her arms to see if I could help, but that didn't help. She was going down no matter what. I started to laugh because it truly was funny to watch and when she finally snapped out of it, she let me help her up and we finished the house. That was the only time I have ever seen her just shut down from fear, but really do look forward to it happening again one day.
Now my all time favorite moment took place at HHN 18. The name of the house was Doomsday and it was based off the movie of the same name. One thing you have to understand is that Universal just doesn't build a haunted house and then send you in, they build a entire facade in the front of the houses so you can be even further welcomed into the theme of the house. This house was based on the whole post-apocalyptic theme where the survivors would do anything to survive, including killing you.
Well the facade before you even got into this house was a huge steel wall with the letters R.I.P. paint on it. There was a doorway in the wall and once you went through this doorway, you had to hang to the right to walk the other 50 feet or so to the entrance of the house itself. In this large open area, there was a burned out car on the left and a dumpster or something like that on the right. You would walk between those two things as you entered the house.
We ended up getting luck as we went to this house. There was a couple about 30 feet in front of us and not a soul behind us. This is lucky to say the least, because usually it's just a continuous conga line of people going through the houses. We watched that couple go through the doorway and immediately, a guy started a chainsaw and went after them sending them running towards the entrance of the house. I thought in my head, "Crap! We just saw that scare so we aren't going to get it." As we walked through the doorway, the chainsaw guy was walking back to his spot behind the wall and me and him caught eyes. I gave him a little nod and he nodded back at me.
Let me say that Linda is always in front of me during HHN. I usually have my hands on her shoulders and help lead her through the houses. I hadn't put my hands on her yet because we weren't in the house yet, so when me and him nodded at each other, I stopped walking behind her and he started walking behind her. He was tall like me, so she just assumed that I was still behind her. She took about 10 more steps and then wanted to say something to me so she slowly looked up over her right shoulder to speak to me and at the same time the guy slowly leaned down towards her and then pulled the cord starting the chainsaw. LINDA FREAKED!!!!!!
She let out this scream that was like no other that I had ever heard before. If you were able to read scream, it would have said, "Oh dear!!! Where did you come from my fine young man. I hope you don't mind if I poop myself and then run do you?" She took off to her left towards that burned out car. As soon as she got to the car, another guy jumped from in front of the car and whacked the hood of the car with a bat. Well this next scream said, "Goodness me! This large gentleman here is angry at this car and is hitting it with a bat. I had better run the other way to stay away from him." She pinballed to the right towards the dumpster and as you might guess, there was another guy there waiting for her. He jumped out and once again her scream rang out and it said, "Golly gee willikers!!!! These chaps are aggressive. It might be best if I just stop here, look for my idiotic husband, and then grab on to him like a leech in a stream." She turned around to find me, but I was standing there laughing so hard by what I just saw happen. They all backed away from her and as the chainsaw guy was heading back to his spot, we high fived each other. Linda just looked at me like she had been through Hell, and then it dawned on her, we hadn't even went in the house yet!!!!! I walked up to her and we entered the house where we immediately ran into that couple we saw outside when we were coming in. They weren't moving and they told us to go ahead because they were leaving. That left Linda and me in the house all by ourselves and that didn't turn out to be too much fun for Linda that time because EVERYONE got her. I couldn't even stay up with her because she ran through that house sounding like a car alarm. When she finally made it out of the house, she just turned back and looked at me and said, "You crucified me in that house!!!" to which I gladly laughed, "YEP!!!" It will truly be hard to ever beat that one.
In closing this rather long blog, I will say that all those are my favorite things and I have many others that I just didn't have time to write about due to space. I will say though that my absolute FAVORITE thing about HHN is the time I get to spend with my wife Linda. She is a trooper and she didn't know what to expect the first time she walked through the doors at HHN 16, but she saw the excitement on my face and let herself get caught up in it. There is no one I would rather go with and every year I look forward to the event knowing that I will get to spend it with her. I like taking people to the event with me, but I love taking Linda and it would NEVER be the same without her. She is my favorite thing about HHN!!!! PERIOD!!!!
SMILE!!!
1 comment:
Looser!!!!!! Yeah it's me I finally made time....dry heaving ha......
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