Earlier this month, I walked with the dead. I cavorted with vampires. I survived an encounter with a face-hugging alien. I looked into the eyes of Michael Myers. I loved every second of it too.
For those who have experienced it firsthand, Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Nights inspires obsession. The combination of cinema-level makeup and special effects and the cathartic thrill of walking (running) through your favorite horror film or television show offers an intoxicating visceral experience. I speak of this with a firsthand knowledge: this year, its 24th in Universal Studios Orlando, marked my six consecutive year attending the event.
This is by no means a significant feat. I’ve met many over the years who have attended 15-plus years. For the more adventurous or horror-minded, the event is mandatory.
Also held in Universal Studios Hollywood, Singapore, and, occasionally, Japan, Halloween Horror Nights often features a combination of original concepts and, more frequently (frustratingly to its legions of fans), houses based on pre-existing intellectual property. Those in the know call them IP houses. It’s the IP houses that draw the crowds (and their pocketbooks).
This year, Universal Studios Orlando headlined three major IP houses based on a mixture of film and television: The Walking Dead: The End of the Line, AVP: Alien vs. Predator, Halloween (the John Carpenter version… none of that Rob Zombie nonsense here), From Dusk Till Dawn, and something of a preview to the current Universal film Dracula Untold: Reign of Blood. The three original houses were Dollhouse of the Damned, Giggles & Gore Inc., and Roanoke: Cannibal Colony. There are also more interactive experiences out in the streets of Universal Studios called scare zones.
As Horror Nights go, this was a very good year. While quality from house to house still varied, there were no outright stinkers where, typically, there is at least one. So, here are my thoughts on each of the experiences. I did not attend the Hollywood version, but some of the houses share similar themes with completely original experiences.
Why do I do it? Because I love it. I love the prospect of literally walking through a movie and the mixture of anticipation and dread that settles in my stomach before walking into a house.
Halloween
The house based on John Carpenter’s Halloween led this year’s crop in terms of quality and plentiful scares. A full-scale façade of the Myers house, video projections of the Judith Myers murder, and Carpenter’s booming theme set the mood early on as fans waited to enter the house. Once inside, the bloody body of Judith rests lifeless on the stairs with a child version of Michael popping out to scare in his famed clown costume and mask. True, this presentation was slightly off from the movie, but none of the houses have second floors, making the journey upstairs to Judith’s bedroom impossible.
We wander through additional scenes from the film including the famed strangulations of Annie and Lynda, the stabbing of Bob, and (most terrifyingly to me) a winding hallway full of louvered doors through which Michael crashes. This effect was particularly effective on me as Michael came crashing through one door and banged on another in a clever paring that sent me scampering down the hallway on childlike tiptoes. They also tossed in trick-or-treaters wearing the Silver Shamrock masks from Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, and, if you listened closely, then you could hear the Silver Shamrock jingle. A very nice touch indeed in a classic house that thought of everything.
The Walking Dead: The End of the Line
For the past three years, Universal Studios has partnered with AMC on The Walking Dead-themed houses that faithfully recreate scenes from associated seasons. This year’s house started outside with the fall-out from the Governor’s siege upon the prison complete with an incredibly lifelike recreation of poor Herschel’s severed head. Once inside, we relive the story of the virus that killed many of the survivors and turned them into zombies. Next, we stumble through a gunfight in the grocery store where zombies came crashing through the roof along with a giant helicopter.
A few more scenes pass including a zombie-filled country club and the famous collapsed tunnel, and we’re presented with cannibal-haven Terminus, a nice way to end the house and (hopefully) the Walking Dead’s tenure at Horror Nights. It’s not that I particularly disliked the house. It’s that, after three years, zombie-based thrill houses aren’t that scary. There was one cool trick that Universal pulls out a few times: you enter a room full of a combination of dolls and actors (in this case, zombies) and, thanks to the pulsing strobe lights, you can’t tell what’s real. It was much more effective in the Halloween house where stumbling blindly through a room of Michael Myers clones made both my pulse and bowels quicken. The highest compliment I could pay the house is, as I watched season four, I could easily identify which television scenes the talented creative staff at Universal would undertake. They did not disappoint, but it just didn’t thrill me as much as other houses did.
AVP: Alien vs. Predator
Based on the multi-media mythology, the AVPhouse realizes a movie monster mash-up between the aliens and the predators. There’s not much more there than that. What the house does offer are fantastic, no-expense-spared recreations of the famed creatures. All details are included with brilliant authenticity: the acid stains of their blood, the face huggers impregnating a victim, real body scans looking for the telltale signs of infestation, and those enormous predators popping up at you around every corner. There was one unintentional laugh: the Bishop-like android on display bore a strong resemblance to Richard Nixon. If I have a complaint, then it’s that the house felt too quick. I would have loved more interaction with the aliens, more humans screaming for mercy before the chest-bursting horrors take hold. As is, it’s a fine, thrilling house.
From Dusk Till Dawn
I know nothing about the television show From Dusk Till Dawn, so this house didn’t fully resonate with me. There are human sacrifices, snakes, and a temple located beneath a strip club headlined by vampires. And someone called Santanico Pandemonium who stands bloody and nude in a bathtub. Maybe I should have done my homework, but I was more confused than scared by the experience. Still, sometimes you just need slutty vampires in your life.
Dracula Untold: Reign of Blood
This house really should have been retitled Corporate Synergy. Serving as a live-action preview of the Universal film of the same name, Dracula Untold gives visitors the experience of walking through a Transylvanian setting sieged by bloodthirsty Turks. As you progress through the house, Vlad the Impaler transforms into Dracula to save his people, eventually turning other vampires to to aid in his quest. Universal has done this a few times before, most successfully with The Wolfman, and it feels a little cheap. Like someone’s forcing you to watch boring home movies. It’s not a bad house, per se. It’s just uninspired and redundant of the many vampire-inspired houses Universal has offered in past years.
Original Houses
The three remaining houses were more adventurous as they were not based on pre-sold concepts. The best of these had to be Dollhouse of the Damned, a house with no central conceit other than to expose you to as many creepy dolls as they could possibly fit into the structure. You’ve got rag dolls, button-eyed dolls, marionettes, headless ballerinas, and a mirrored scene featuring dolls seemingly inspired by Eyes Wide Shut. Oh yeah, and don’t let me forget the giant babies in cribs who spread their poop all over the walls. Yes, it smells too. Also, I was simultaneously transfixed and horrified by the extra-large man dressed like Baby Herman and stuffed into a highchair.
Being from North Carolina, I’m very familiar with the legend of the Lost Colony, so the Roanoke: Cannibal Colony house was particularly amusing for me. The central story here is that the colony, whose inhabitants legendarily disappeared after associates sailed to London for supplies, were mauled by ye ole cannibals. This has to be the goriest house offered this year with images of burning bodies and colonists munching on corpses. It’s definitely more disgusting than scary, but, looking past the gore, the set design is pretty amazing.
Finally, the last original house was Giggles & Gore, Inc, a factory that supplies the world with psychotic clowns. As you progress through the house, the clowns go from merely eerie (such as your villainous ringmaster) to indescribably bizarre. Typically, Universal goes for a dark comedy house (“Leave It to Cleaver” was a personal favorite), but this one didn’t really balance the line between comedy and horror. Still, it was an imaginative event that I wish I’d been able to visit more than once to fully absorb. I may or may not have attempted to block this one from my mind as apparently I suffer from coulrophobia. Yes, that has a name. Given the recent trend of crazy clowns on American Horror Story and that guy posting scary ass pictures on Instagram, I’m not sure this house could fairly compete.
Scare Zones
Designed to bring the terror out into the park, scare zones are located throughout much of the park and give the more tenderhearted an extra jolt or two. These are the chainsaw drill teams, the passersby that jump at you, and the opportunities for more lavish costumes. Falling squarely into the latter category is MASKerade: Unstitched, a gothic ballroom scene with actors on stilts, which is undeniably more elegant and beautiful than scary. The central set piece is a giant candle with human faces pushing out of it. The recent film The Purge: Anarchy shows up in another scare zone as actors dressed as one percenters murdering or auctioning off the poor for savagery. TV’s Face Off offers viewers a chance to absorb some incredible and award-winning makeup concepts, and Bayou of Blood features actors practicing voodoo and scaring people in heavy fog.
On a final note, Universal shamelessly caved this year and withdrew a special component of the Bayou of Blood set. In early performances, a voodoo priestess performed an extended ritualistic sacrifice on an “unsuspecting” participant. Rumor has it that Universal received complaints the session was too “satanic” and “un-Christian” for public viewing, so it was removed. The official word was that the scene ran too long for the event. Fortunately, You Tube has preserved it for posterity.
Take a look and decide for yourself. Happy Halloween all!
