Halloween Horror Nights Annual Speculation

As the holidays pass, the new year comes and winter begins to fade away, the fun begins. The hunt and challenge of discovering the Halloween Horror Nights properties for the year beings. Us horror nerds never stop thinking about it, no matter the season. Christmas day? Lets watch Halloween. You get the point. Well as October comes closer and closer speculation really starts to begin.

Each year around the end of January, John Murdy The Creative Director of Halloween Horror Nights starts to release what he calls "code names." They are basically extremely challenging hints that could lead to the property that will be featured at HHN.

Well here is the catch, he's a self proclaimed carny, and these hints are deviously tricky. Each layer of them is nearly impossible to decode. Even if you find a property that does match these codes, well that doesn't mean it is it. Each and every code could make sense for a variety of films. Some of the hints could directly relate to a movie, but not everything matches up in the end. There could be dozens of films, games, albums, or original ideas that could match up to each and every hint that he gives.

Here is an example of the very first code name that John Murdy released this year. This that you could figure out what property it is based off of these hints?
The name that we refer to for this code name is...
Post Punk:
The hint that relates to the theme of the maze can be found in a song title of a band initially associated with the post punk musical movement. The genre included bands that would later be labeled as new wave, no wave, new romantic, goth, industrial, etc. The first hint given was that one of the key members of this group shares one of John Murdy's names (that includes his two middle names that not everyone knows.) The second hint was that one of the words in the song titl;e is something that modern technology has pretty much killed, it might even be extinct one day. The third hint is that the song may not be as obscure as it seems to be. It was originally released as a single. Also, one of these three hints may be fake.

These are the hints that we have to work with. Any given year we usually receive around 6-7 code names, and we must decode them all the same. How do we do this? Well it isn't just about guessing a movie and seeing if the hints fit, it is knowing the genre, knowing how HHN works, and how Murdy would think. Not every property has HHN potential, so that cuts the list down a bit. It has to have many unique characters and scenes, and it also typically needs a strong awareness (so the general public that attends will recognize the property.) We can also look at the films that Murdy has mentioned he would be interested in doing, and we can also think about new releases, or movies that will soon has a remake.

With all of these key elements, we usually decode every code name each year, and can discover what properties we can expect at HHN that year. Then comes the waiting for the announcements. Around July of every year Murdy begins to announce what each of these code names are. They usually are not too big of a surprise by that time, but sometimes, it can be. After months of research and hard work to decode the information, it finally becomes worth the wait as the properties are released. Then all that is left is waiting until opening night of Halloween Horror Nights and walking through each and every maze that we had speculated on for so long.

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