Every year the Halloween Horror Nights event at Universal Studios Hollywood gets bigger and better as the park is able to entice more and more studios and networks to let the theme park play their franchises to create haunted mazes. The 2017 installment of the annual celebration of horror continues the trend, mixing some first-time horror property appearances with a few returning favorites to create an all-new experience.
In all, Halloween Horror Nights boasts seven mazes (eight if you include the permanent The Walking Dead attraction) and a brand-new Terror Tram to terrify visitors. IGN was able to preview each of seven new mazes with Universal Studios Hollywood Creative Director John Murdy for an inside look at what the park's scares look like this year.
"I've wanted to do this since we brought back Horror Nights in 2006," Murdy says of his attempts to get the rights to The Shining. "This has always been on my list." It may have taken over a decade but his wish came true and the maze is unlike anything Horror Nights fans have seen at the event.
Like the movie itself, the maze is steeped heavily in psychological horror, rather than blood, gore and an overabundance of jump scares. "We walk a really fine line with The Shining because there are scenes with zero characters -- nobody jumping out and trying to scare you -- but we're recreating a moment from Stanley Kubrick's film that's super important," he explains.
The end result is a maze that takes visitors through several key moments in the film as they descend into madness with Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson in the film. Among the locations' features are the Torrance apartment at the Overlook Hotel, the gold room and, of course, the iconic hedge maze. When walking through, pay special attention to the maze’s carpet, which Universal has specially printed to match what’s seen in the film.
While the American Horror Story maze in 2016 relied on recreating the greatest hits from three different seasons of the FX anthology series, this year the Horror Nights team instead chose to focus on just Roanoake, the most recent season. "That allowed us to embrace all of the show because there was a lot of stuff going on," he says.
In embracing the series, the maze doesn't focus on the reality TV/dramatization of the Roanoke season. Instead, it focuses on the second half of the season, in which the "real" versions of the characters are introduced and begin killing the actors that played them in the dramatization featured earlier in the season. This puts visitors face-to-face with monstrous individuals like The Butcher, who takes human sacrifices during the Blood Moon.
Another TV series getting the Horror Nights treatment is Ash vs. Evil Dead. While the team at Universal previously did a maze themed to the reboot of Evil Dead, this is their first time tackling the series -- and its iconic Ash -- and the park is going all out.
The maze features locations very familiar to fans of the series and movies, like Ash's trailer and iconic Evil Dead cabin, while visitors do battle with Deadites left and right. The hero himself even appears throughout the maze. That said, finding actors that look like Bruce Campbell is no easy task. Instead, Universal went one step further by creating silicone masks of Campbell for their actors to wear.
"We got permission from Bruce to recreate his likeness," Murdy admits. "You can't cast that. Nobody looks like Bruce Campbell." If you see an actor in the Ash vs. Evil Dead maze that looks a little too much like the actor, now you know why.
Titans of Terror is one of two compilation mazes Horror Nights is doing for 2017. In it, attendees will get spooked by Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Leatherface, all within the same space. However, given than the Universal team has tackled all three franchises for full mazes before, they wanted to try something new.
That's where the story of this maze begins: a young horror fan builds a haunted maze in his own home (something Murdy reveals he did regularly as a child), but the event is rained out and the young man is left alone with an all-night movie marathon. From there, HHN visitors walk through his closet door and directly into his nightmares -- which include the biggest names in slasher horror, of course.
From the marionette sequence in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors, to Jason's underground domain introduced in the reboot of Friday the 13th, to the slaughterhouse Leatherface and his family mention in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, horror aficionados are in for a unique experience in Titans of Terror. The maze is filled with blood and gore but also the eerie feeling that comes with so many of those 1980s slasher films. What's more, it brings new life to all three iconic characters one year after they were featured separately.
With the return of the Saw franchise of movies come the return of the series to Horror Nights. Jigsaw arrives in theaters on Oct. 27 but before that the maze invites attendees into the murder's workshop to witness some of the most iconic traps yet -- including the reverse bear trap in what may be the most graphic thing you'll see at Horror Nights.
However, the maze also serves as a preview of the new movie. Murdy and his team were able to recreate an upcoming trap, which will be the first time fans of Saw will actually be exposed to it. Not surprisingly, this particular maze is likely to be the bloodiest of the entire event.
While Saw: The Games of Jigsaw is partially inspired by a movie releasing in October, Insidious: Beyond the Further is beating it by a wide margin. The maze is centered heavily on the upcoming fourth movie in the series, which won't be in theaters until January. "We have, in essence, become the ultimate trailer for the movie," Murdy teases.
Fans who check out the maze will be getting more than they bargained for, though. While the Universal team was working off of a script of the film, some of the elements they include in the maze have since been removed from the film. If you're an Insidious completist, this is the maze for you.
It's not all about the new film, though. Visitors will also revisit key moments from the first three movies as they venture into the Further and unlock the mysteries hidden behind the movie's signature red doors.
The second compilation maze may also be the biggest one found at Horror Nights. The Horrors of Blumhouse mixes up three different movies for one wild ride. You start out in the world of The Purge, following the events of the third film. After annual purging was outlawed, an underground Purge club has opened and visitors have a first class ticket to the death and mayhem.
Then the maze wanders into a movie theater to experience both the Sinister franchise and Blumhouse's next release, Happy Death Day. As with Saw: The Games of Jigsaw and Insidious: Beyond the Further, the Happy Death Day section of the maze serves as a preview of what moviegoers can expect from the demented and bloody take on Groundhog Day. Meanwhile, the Sinister portion of the maze is loaded with terrifying children, plenty of monsters and some very disturbing scenes that will stick with you throughout the night.
Outside of the mazes, Titans of Terror has also taken over the Terror Tram, with an experience hosted by none other than Chucky from the Child’s Play series. Additionally, the dance troupe Jabbawockeez return for a third year to present a special Halloween-themed performance.
Halloween Horror Nights opens at Universal Studios Hollywood on Friday, Sept. 15 and runs through Nov. 4.
Chris E. Hayner is a freelance writer who loves horror movies and thinks he could be friends with Freddy Krueger. Follow him on Twitter at @ChrisHayner.
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