Daniel Ryan here, what with all the rumors lately, I wanted to tell you all about my number one wish for HHN Orlando, and this is not a rumor! Just a fanboy wish unfortunately….
Rumors have swirled lately about a number of different houses coming to HHN Orlando. I however, would love it if they brought Crimson Peak to life on the east coast. Please, if anyone wishes to start this as a rumor, then please go ahead, if it leads to helping this house could to Orlando, then I’m all for it!
Universal has created houses before that have hopped between the coasts or even been present on both coasts in the same year. Like a number of houses before it, the house would act as a teaser for the movie, a tie-in between the event and movie, that would help sell each other. After watching the trailer for the movie, I knew I had to visit the Hollywood event last year to experience this house…
The house follows the storyline of the movie in quite a lot of detail. The gated archway announcing Crimson Peak is your entry to a Victorian home that the heroine was told to stay away from in a dream. There would be no movie if she obeyed her dream and no house to visit but you just know that falling in love with a man that owns a creepy old mansion is not going to turn out good…. for anyone.
The details of the décor in the house and maze were fantastic. The copies of original Victorian furniture, pictures, bathroom articles, pillows, and bric-a-brac are stunningly authentic. The décor helps set the mood. The painstaking detail that has been taken to make this house a reality is surely staggering. It also reminded me of the old British Hammer movies of the 1960/70s. Gothic, creepy, chilling and as gory as heck!
You need to understand that the decorations of the house when you first enter are setting you up to be scared, just like the movie, the architecture is as scary as the characters! You first see a simple setting that includes dolls, a huge picture of a slightly wicked looking old lady in a black dress with a destroyed building and a black background, the dolls’ house located here is in homage to the Bates House from Psycho. The sorcerer’s signs in the circular windows and the stark gray walls of what are supposed to be cut granite are part of the set up.
Every room of the house and maze has exquisite detail and hints at what is about to happen in the room. Slight hints as to the less than happy home and the circumstances and horrors that happened in each room are subtle. A row of tumbled candlesticks hints at impeding fire. An innocent looking little doll with a head dress of plastic wrap hints that something is not quite right everywhere you look. Then there are the moths! There were stacks of them, everywhere. On the walls, in the windows and even in your face!
It does not take long for the bleeding and the screaming to begin. A bloody statue, a dead child in bed, and a multitude of mechanical and human ghouls and murderers threaten you. The woman in a Victorian claw-foot bath tub with a hatchet in her head and bloody water flowing out is a sure thrill. The designers made a special effort to prevent any blood from getting on visitor’s feet in the bath, but despite this, blood can be found everywhere, literally running down the walls.
John Murdy, HHN Hollywood’s design guru, actually struck up a friendship with the film’s director Guillermo del Toro, a few years previously at HHN. Del Toro is a massive HHN fan and supposedly has been visiting the Hollywood event for years. Murdy and he had wanted to work together for some time. Soon the stars aligned and the project was a go. Working closely together and with a number of the original movie’s staff, they created this wickedly detailed and horrific house.
The production is a real class act. Details and sequencing that follows the movie exactly makes this one of the best haunted houses ever (in my opinion of visiting HHN Hollywood). This would be perfect for Orlando’s HHN and if it comes to Orlando I’m sure it would be a fan favorite!
Having Guillermo del Toro open the maze in Orlando would be a nice touch and guarantee a sure spike in interest for the event. Reprising the film in all Universal associated local theaters when the show opens in Orlando would help incentivize old and new fans of horror and del Toro’s work to visit Crimson Peak for our event. Imagine the fantastical façade that could be built! This was missing in Hollywood (due to space limitations), but imagine the spectacle of a full-sized Crimson Peak manor; that would be amazing!
So Universal if you’re reading this, please can we have a Crimson Peak house at Orlando this year and if so, my wife would love it if you could bring Loki himself over too, Tom Hiddlestone, but I doubt that would ever happen! She can hope though…
Would you like to see this creepy movie at HHN Orlando? Let us know!
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