From the Haunted Attraction Network, I’m Philip and this is day 17 of our 61 day Hauntathon, counting down to Halloween. Today is Friday Sept 17 and there are 43 days until Halloween.
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And now, have you ever wondered what the RIP tours are like? Or do you want to know the backstory behind the offerings at Halloween Horror Nights? Well, I went on the RIP tour (strictly for research, of course) and today I’m bringing you along. This isn’t a review of the experience; this is meant to be a recreation for you to enjoy. If you’re attending Horror Nights, I recommend playing this while you’re experiencing the event; just pause and resume as needed.
OK let’s get moving. My check-in time was 8PM and after snacks at Café La Bamba, my group met our tour guide by the Hollywood sign.
Listen Here
Introduction to the RIP Tour and Your Tour Guide
My name is Sidney. I’m going to be your tour guide for this evening. I’m going to be taking you through 10 terrifying haunted houses, 5 Scream-tastic scare zones, and at least one high octane show. This is my first time doing a tour guide this year, so I’m very excited to take you guys around. Normally during the days, you can catch me over at Men In Black Protecting the Galaxy from alien scum as Agent S, but tonight I’m your lifeline. With that, we’re going to be doing a lot of screaming, a lot of crying, and being frightened tonight together. But if you all stay with me, I’ll make sure that I’m taking you through the fog safely. Now, with that being said, we’re about to go on our tour. Everybody ready? All right, let’s go.
Gorewood Forest
I know we only walked a short distance, but we’re about to come up to our first Scare Zone, as in Gore Wood Forest. Now, 15 years ago the Terra Queen of Terra Cruentus was sacrificed at the foot of a Gore Wood tree. Her blood-soaked those roots and gave birth to an evil forest. Now she has returned, exactly 15 years later, minus a pandemic, to engulf the earth and make everything in her wicked way. Are we gonna survive? Well, I’m rooting for you. Let’s go. So, my favorite thing about this Scare Zone is in fact the trees. So, like I said, those Gore Wood trees, the blood-soaked that’s happening, you get to see the evil being encompassed throughout the forest.
Haunting of Hill House
We are going to go on to our first house of the evening. Haunting of Hill House. So, who all has seen the haunting of Hill House? A little bit, so we have a lot of newbies right now who haven’t seen. For the first time, I know everything, and you don’t. I like this. All right, so I’m going to give you a little bit of schpeel.
The haunting of Hill House is a Netflix TV series that is of spookular variety. So, we’re going to be following the Crane family and all the horrifying events that happened in the sibling’s childhood homes. The important thing to note about this house, it’s going to jump, there’s going to be two-time frames that are going to happen. So, when the house is nice and beautiful and shiny, this is when the siblings were all children. But when the house is decrepit and decayed and a little bit more ominous, it’s going to be when they’re adults. We’re going to see just how these horrifying hauntings affected them when they were adults and see how they’ve happened through it.
Beetlejuice
All right, everybody, if you look over to our wonderful side right here, I’m sure you can gather what house is gonna be coming next. Well, the next house we are going to be going into is, well, the sign is right there, ’cause I’m not saying his name, I’m not gonna be that chaos for all of you, I promise. For those of you who have not seen the film, we’re gonna be seeing a bio-exorcist do some famous shakin’ and loosin’ and juicin’ going on as he tries to help her lovely couple who has passed on to the afterlife get rid of people who have moved into their house. Now for those of you who have seen the film you’re going to be seeing some of those wonderful iconic scenes from that film. You know the wonderful dining room scene? You’re also gonna be seeing a chaotic wedding scene, as well as a lot of checkerboard hallways, and my personal favorite, that wonderful waiting room of the afterlife. We do you have to say his name three times to have all the fun come out
Guests: Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!
Puppet Theater, Captive Audience
If you take a look behind you at this wonderful, dilapidated grandeur of a theater, it is going to be the home of our third House of the evening Puppet Theater, Captive Audience. Now, back in 1906 in San Francisco, the city saw on massive seismic earthquake that unfortunately entrapped all the performers inside of the theater. But luckily a year later there seems to be a lot of movement going on. Lucky for us, we’ve been invited to their first show back, but ladies, gentlemen, and everyone else, I don’t think we’re going to survive this one. Do you know why? Because rumor has it they’ve been hacking up trespassers and using their body parts to form new puppets. So, I don’t know, do you think we’re gonna make it or are we gonna become part of the show?
Wicked Growth, Realm of the Pumpkin
So, our second house that we’re going to hit immediately after this one will be Wicked Growth, Realm of the Pumpkin. Now I’m sure you all love the modern-day traditions and offerings that Halloween has to bring you nowadays, such as Halloween Horror Nights for example, but my heart truly lies with old-school American traditions. You know, the green-faced witches and the bedsheet ghosts, and bobbing for apples. But have you ever thought about where any of these traditions come from? Most people think it has to do with your beliefs and all the history, but they really come from the Pumpkin Lord.
But who is the Pumpkin Lord? He is an evil Lord of Halloween, and he uses these traditions to lure you in so that you’re captivated by childhood findings. Now he will harvest all of you so he can grow and sprawl across the earth to overconsume us all and harvest us, to consume us. You think you’re going to survive? I hope so. You better watch your step while you trump through the pumpkin patch and don’t get tangled in the vines.
Lights, Camera, Hacktion
OK, I’m going to set up your next Scare Zone that we’re about to go through. Now, if you’ll look just this way we have Lights, Camera Hacktion, Eddies Revenge. Now I know you’ve seen a creepy clown running around his name is, Jack the Clown. But his last name is Schmidt. Well, lucky for us Eddie Schmidt, if you recognize that family tie there, he’s the younger brother of Jack the Clown. Now he’s tired of living in the shadow of his older brother. I know some of you could probably relate like I can, as the baby of the family, but he has decided he’s going to have his breakout role in bringing all the monsters to life on a movie set.
Now, for those of you who have enjoyed the event in the past here, you’re gonna see some familiar characters from past scare zones, if you haven’t, it’ll be a great time for your first introduction. You’ll be seeing Treaks and Foons, Dead Fisherman’s Wharf, Vamp 55, just to name a few. Now who’s ready for the show?
30 Years, 30 Fears
Move along through, we’re about to go to the party zone. So, our next Scare Zone you’re gonna see before we do those marvelous square houses back-to-back, it’s going to be 30 Years 30 Fears. Now, instead of being completely terrified, all of the time we’ve decided to strike a pose for you to get those photos. There’s gonna be a lot of photo opportunities for you. I urge you to take pictures, you don’t have to stay on my tail, like I said, I will be at the end for you. Take those photos. Make those poses. take those laughs while you can.
The Bride of Frankenstein Lives
Come to find out, in this creative continuation, we find out the bride is actually alive and well, and that she actually does what the monster Azar made, plot twist! Is she ever gonna make up her mind? I don’t know we’re gonna find out though. But she’s trying to resuscitate her mate, but how is she going to do this? She finds out that through the blood of the Dracula brides, that he may be able to live forever when she resuscitates him. But will love conquer all? Will our bride defeat the undead fangs?
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The next house right after that, is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre! Who here has seen the 1974 version of Texas Chainsaw? All right quite a few hands. I like that. I saw it, freaked me out forever. But in this house, it’s not just a regurgitation of the film you’re going to find out. Now, this House was featured a few years ago, if you do remember from past events, but we’ve twisted it, if you will, we’ve opened up new doors, you’re going to be seeing things you weren’t able to see before, you’re going to see some characters that weren’t always there, you’re going to go through some hallways you might not have gone through before, and it’s gonna be like you are in the house as a family member, seeing everything in its entirety.
HHNs Icon, Captured
Alright, so for the first house that we’re going to be going into, it’s HHN’s Icon, Captured! Now, this is my favorite house. I’m super excited. This is the one I look forward to every single night. Now back in 2010, we were introduced to fear itself as the person who was calling the shots. But this year it’s revealed that he was nothing more than a gatekeeper to the under-realm Hell beneath the Universal floor who guarded the Lantern portal. Now we are going to see all of our HHN Icons from past years captured within the Lantern and they’re all battling it out to see who’s the most evil one of the mall.
Revenge of the Tooth Fairy
The next house you’re gonna go into Revenge of the Tooth Fairy. Now, I’m sure you all have heard who the Tooth Fairy is growing up, anybody not? You’re supposed to, when you lose a tooth, put your tooth under the pillow and the tooth fairy will leave you a treat for you when you wake up in the morning, right?
But I ask you this, what happens when a young boy, by the name of James Westhorne, decides to be a selfish brat and keep his tooth from the Fairy Folk, thereby ending a centuries-old peace-keeping pact between Human Folk and Fairy Folk? You’re about to find out right after we go in there.
Philip Shares Some Interesting Facts
Now I wanted to add some things that I learned after this when I did a different tour at Universal, and the first thing is for Tooth Fairy. The creative team actually wrote a storybook to keep them on track, to act as their North Star, and you’ll see the page numbers on the pages as you walk through, especially in the opening scene there when you’re entering the fairy book.
The second is that the decay on the walls represents both tooth decay, but also the closer that you’re getting to the fairy realm. In case you didn’t catch it, the very end scene is when you have entered the fairy realm and they’re having a fairy jubilee.
Then Icons Captured, one Easter egg is the very last scene the Icon character switches out randomly, so if you go there multiple times, you might see different icon characters there.
Guest Feedback on the Rip Tour
OK, so a big part of every Horror Nights experience, and every tour experience for that matter, is the people and just meeting new people and chatting about the experience. So, I had the chance to sit down during one of our breaks with some of the people I was on the tour with and I’m going to give you snippets of that conversation. I’m curious to know what you and your friends talked about and what you all think of Horror Nights, but here’s what some of the people on my tour group thought of the experience so far.
Guest 1: So, this is my… 30 years, so 26, so I’ve done 24 years over the last 30 years. It started out with something to do with small lines and turn into crazy lines and turn into it’s just a breakaway. It’s to have fun. It’s something to have fun to get away from real life, and too, I’m a big Halloween fanatic; so, it is what it is.
Philip: What do you think about this year?
Guest 1: So far, I like it. I like the fact that we’re going back to some of the old-school stuff and representing part of the last 30 years. So, it’s quite different. The Scare Zones are fun. We still have a few more houses to go.
The challenging part about this year is obviously COVID and making sure that there’s a little bit less contact than what you used to in a little bit less intimacy, I guess, in the houses than they used to be in the past. So, it’s challenging, but I think they did a very good job concerning all the restraints.
Philip: Where do you think it sits value-wise? Not as bad as Disney, right?
Guest 1: Truthfully, everything is out of control. I mean the price of food, the price of watches, you have to pay more to get help, and that’s just the reality of it. There are more costs associated. Do I like it? No. Will, I stop coming? No. I work hard, I have the means to do it, so I’m still going to continue doing and enjoying it for, hopefully, many more years.
Guest 2: So far, it’s great. Can’t complain. Everything is moving rather quickly, which is great, so you get to enjoy a whole lot more in less time. We’ve come here in the past, and we’ve had just the Unlimited Express Passes, and today we stumbled on it because they sold out of Express Passes. They sold us on this RIP Tour. I am pleasantly surprised. In my opinion, it’s really worth the money. It’s the time and everyone around you, you know, everyone’s really into it. Compared to the past. I actually liked the way they set it up this year, ’cause it’s more of a classics, more of a throwback-type environment. I mean, for me, I’ve always been into scary, gory things like this, so this is well worth it for me.
Guest 3: So far, I think my favorite house is definitely the Pumpkin Lord House [Wicked Growth, Realm of the Pumpkin] It was so good, it definitely was very surprising. Also, Revenge of the Tooth Fairy was really really good. I like the playing into it like your childhood thoughts and like everything going on your childhood, bring it into adulthood. Overall, though, and I haven’t been disappointed with any of the houses. Beetlejuice was definitely like more of going based off of the movie, not super scary, but I still like really, really enjoyable.
RIP Tour has been really really good. If I was a tourist, I would definitely be doing this frequently, like every year, because you get to experience all the houses in one night, you’re really immersed in everything. It’s not, you’re just running into a house that you don’t really know much about. You get a whole back story, and you get pumped up, you get a lot of cool like drinks, and you’re in a great atmosphere. It’s very different than the regular general admission ticket.
Being somebody who doesn’t get scared easily, there was still a good amount of time, so I had a little bit of a jump scare, that they caught me off guard, definitely very good houses.
I definitely recommend the RIP Tour to anybody who’s coming from out of town, that’s if you’re in town, yeah. I normally get that pass, like the annual pass, every year, and still, like with going maybe 3-4 days out of the whole entire time that Halloween Horror Nights is open it’s hard to get to every single house if you’re waiting for three hours to get in. Definitely worth it. Definitely a different experience. I’d recommend it to anybody, like anybody in general, but definitely, anyone coming from out of town.
Seek And Destroy
When we get around the corner we will be going through, Seek and Destroy. Yeah, so here’s the back story. On the streets of New York City and Alien Cyborg regime has invaded us at the hands of the Controller. Now, they hate any sign of individuality at all because the Controller is all about conformity, and being uniform, as one unit, like a solid machine. So do not let any of these spotlights that you will see touch you, because they are seeking out your individuality, and you will be collected, and your blood will be used for the machine. I want you all to survive, make sure you don’t let the spotlights touch you.
So, a fun fact also, this is the first time we’re going to have a digitally interactive character in a Scare Zone, so that’s a cool tidbit for you. This is a long Scare Zone, feel free to stop, take pictures, interact, I’ll see you on the other side.
Crypt TV
All right, everybody, welcome to your last Scare Zone of the evening, CryptTV! Anybody familiar with Crypt TV at all? Not even a little? All right, so Crypt TV is a multimedia platform scary show that you watch that it’s full of shorts that are an anthology for life using monsters. So, my favorite one to use for an example is the Look-see. So basically, for him, if you cannot let go of your grief, the Look-see shall come and take a piece. So, I had a woman who was grieving over her divorce, wasn’t able to let go of the wedding ring, and the Look-see chopped her finger off and ate it. so that’s just one of the many characters that you’re going to be seeing as you go through here. You’re also going to be seeing the Brute which will be in the woods at that big giant door. It’s called Door In The Woods. You’re also going to be seeing Sunny Family Cult, Miss Annity, who is another wonderful spider demon lady who believes in old-fashioned views such as, women are meant to stay in the kitchen and do the laundry and take care of the children and have little, tiny waists, men are meant to be bringing home the bacon and working, just to name a few. These are going to be all the wonderful, wonderful folks that you’re going to see within CryptTV.
Halloween Nightmare Fuel Show
At the Halloween Nightmare Fuel Show that you’re about to watch right now there’s going to be a lot of sexy dancing, there’s going to be a lot of pyrotechnics, there’s gonna be a lot of rock and roll music that you’re going to see in covers of bands and it all takes place in someone nightmare.
Welcome to Scarey Horror in the Heartland
The next house we’re gonna be entering is, Welcome to Scarey Horror in the Heartland. Now we’re going to be taking a journey out of Florida and going all the way to Carey, Ohio. Now the thing about Carey Ohio is, although it is a small, quaint little town, bad bad things keep seeming to happen in this town. We don’t know why, we don’t know how, we don’t know if there’s a curse, we don’t know if there are witches is running around, or warlocks, or anything like that, all we know is bad, bad, bad, bad things. Thanks to the few of the tight-lipped locals and no local news coverage, it’s no surprise that nobody on Earth knows just what’s happening in Carey, Ohio. Now, this house is going to be an anniversary house of sorts. So, anything from past HHN years that has had to do with Carey Ohio as far as a resurrection, or an orientation, or an origin story will be featured inside of this house. So, it is going to be a little bit of a hosh posh, so if it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to you at first, keep going through, it’ll start to make a whole lot more sense after that.
Case Files Unearthed Legendary Truth
Our last House of the evening is going to be Case Files Unearthed Legendary Truth. Now back in the 1940s, Boris Shuster was a hard-boiled detective on the streets of New York City, and he started a collective agency to help him investigate all the supernatural cases that seem to be flooding the streets of New York. So, upon him investigating all these cases, he took them and wrote novels about them. Now, he hit all the damning evidence away up in his New Jersey attic. But it only stayed safe for a few years, when in 1991 a double agent, if you will, by the name of Tim Foil who was a conspiracy theorist, figured out that all of these books had to have truth to them after he uncovered all of that damning evidence. And, well, unlucky for us, on October 25th, 1991, he unleashed hell upon the earth, and we’re about to see if we can make it through that night.
The End of the Tour
OK, I’m breaking in with just a few more tidbits because I did find out a little bit more about this maze after I went through it. First thing is that Boris has an office in the New York City area at Universal Studios, and this maze is a direct replication of his office and then going under the sewers and ended up at the Cat Lounge, which is opposite of his office. So, when you’re first entering the maze in the second scene, you’ll actually, on your left you will see the inside of the window, the idea is if you were looking in on the streets in universal you would like to see into the backside of his office.
OK, so the next tidbit is that the premise here is, of course, the premise is that Boris is going through these case files, and each story represents a different totem, and each totem does something terrible, of course. In each scene, you will see the totem kind of highlighted as the thing that is causing the chaos. When you get to the final scene, you will see the totems represented in the ritual marker on the floor and the final scene also has all of the different creatures, because the idea is that he has brought all the totems together.
OK, one more tidbit. The Wendigo room inside of that maze is one of the only rooms at Halloween Horror Nights this year where they have created a ceiling, and that is because it’s really expensive to do, and you need to put in a sprinkler system, and a bunch of extra egresses so it’s very costly, but they did that so that the wendigos which come out of the cage look a lot larger because there’s a ceiling and the wendigos are 8 to 9 feet tall in costume.
Tidbits With Philip
Sydney: Alrighty everybody so here comes my least favorite part of the tour. This the time where I say goodnight and I say goodbye because your tour has now come to an end. Thank you so much for being such a lively group. I know you’re tired right now at the end of a long, long tour. You made it through with five hours with me, so thank you for that. Thank you so much for making this tour so much fun for me, and I hope you had a great time with me, and I hope you have a lot of memories from this event tonight.
Philip: And that was your own personal RIP Tour. Please let us know if you enjoyed it, this was something of an experimental episode, but let us know what you thought of it.
Shout out to Sydney, our tour guide who, despite being her first tour of the season, did allow me to record her and did us very well considering also shout out to everyone who went on the tour with me, and thank you for those of you that gave interviews for the show.
