more HHN 17 updates - The Thing Assimilation haunted house

[EPCOT1982]

This was posted by Screamscape on 7/27. It looks like a "The Thing" themed haunted house is coming to Universal Orlando's HHN 17.

Universal Orlando confirmed with Screamscape this afternoon the existence of The Thing – Assimilation as one of their most creative haunts this year. We were fortunate enough to chat with [FONT='Times New Roman',Times,Serif]T.J. Mannarino (Director of Entertaiment Design) and Michael Burnett (Prosthetics and Makeup Supervisor) who both [/font]revealed a long time love for this classic film that will be celebrating it’s 25th Anniversary this year. It was interesting to note that they’ve actually talked about bringing The Thing to life in a variety of forms over the years, but they felt that this year the time was right.
While they were not willing yet to officially announce the location of the of the haunt yet, they did tell us that the events of the story they are trying to tell takes place in today’s world in Florida, 25 years after the events took place in Outpost 31. From the sounds of things soon after the events in the film took place, teams were sent in to recover, analyze, catalog and put into storage whatever they could find to determine just what had happened before the arctic base was abandoned. Today the remains of Outpost 31 have been reopened for new scientific study in a new industrial base theme, as they try to harvest whatever information they can from the remains of the creature.










True to the film we will see many classic creatures return such as the severed head with the spider legs and possibly the infected dog. However it’s been 25 years and the creature has had time to evolve into all new forms as well. They promise you will encounter creatures of all shapes and sizes and as you can see in the images to the right, their creature shop is already hard at work.
They’ve done their homework before starting off on this task as well, pulling up reference material from the shooting of the film, the plans for the sets and creatures, as well as talking with people who were involved in the creation of the original film. Unlike other houses that are populated by people who jump out and scare you, The Thing will also be full of new creatures run as ‘puppets’ by human operators rather than automated machines triggered by motion sensors.
If you’ve seen the film, you know how the elements of fire and ice fit into the story and there will be effects involving both in the attraction, as well as a conflict between other elements such as technology vs. strength.
The have a true love for The Thing and they really want to bring it to life to tell their all new story. In fact one of the first decisions they made was that they needed to keep the same style of ominous soundtrack score that the film was known for and is immediately recognized by any fan of the film. Those long synthesizer droning notes punctuated by a digital sounding heartbeat go a long way to setting up a great atmosphere for terror. I know I can’t wait to see it myself.

Visit the site for the new updates: www.halloweenhorrornights.com

Here are some clues...

Screamscape:

All new content has been added to the official Halloween Horror Nights website that looks quite cool. You’ll be taken to see the Carnival of Carnage where it looks like the whole storyline behind this year’s HHN will be a sick and twisted dark circus featuring Freddy, Jason and Leatherface as the headline performers of a most sinister sideshow. The Ringmaster should come as no surprise when you see the giant “JS” logo on the wagon on the main page, you just know it will be Jack Schmidt, better known as real name of the evil clown Jack who rules over the midway of carnage.







Click on the Carnival of Carnage button at the top and you’ll be taken to see a mostly barren field with only a few carnival items set up here and there. I’m assuming we’ll see this graphic change and grow as the weeks go by. Of interest already in the background is a large banner that says See The Time Machine with a Phone Booth and pair of guitars below, obviously for the Bill & Ted show. Scroll to the right and you’ll see an old beat up red pickup pulling a fairly armored looking trailer behind it with the number “31” on the back and the text “What Is It?” painted on the side under the jail cell looking bar window.
Back on the main page you can also click on a little JS icon in the upper right corner taking you to an interactive page showing off the content we’ve previously seen for each of the deadly trio. What’s weird is the map background is kind of stitched together from several different maps from different locations. The lower right corner has what looks like a map of Transylvania, which ties into the vampire rumor we had heard about previously. The left side of the map seems to show off some of the Orlando area where I see references to Kissimmee, Orlando along with the text, “Hart L.” I wonder if they’re trying to tell me something. No, no… I think it’s a reference to Lake Hart, a small body of water in the area, but it was a nice thought for a moment. The upper left corner clearly shows a map for the South Pole, which again seems to tie into the rumors that one of the haunts would be themed to The Thing. (Again, one of the best horror films ever. Go watch it if you haven’t seen it.) To the right is a small stitch of the San Dimas / West Covina area map, home to the infamous Bill & Ted. To the far right next to the Leatherface folder you can see what looks like a reference to Coney Island on the map. That’s all I can see right now… anyone notice anything I didn’t?
On the entertainment side of things, it seems we’re up to four live shows: Bill & Ted (in Fear Factor), a freak show (in Animal Actors), the Rocky Horror show (in Beetlejuice) and a show similar to last year’s Arrival show in pretty much the same place, but showing off this year’s icon characters.

UPDATE:
While looking over that spliced up map on the HHN page, one reader noticed a few new locations I missed over including what seems to be an area of New York and Canada that includes mentions of London (Canada), Woodstock and Niagara Falls. Below the Leatherface files is a map section from New Orleans’ French Quarter. I’ve got to wonder if this may be the location for the Vampire house.