Conquer those ‘heebie-jeebies’ by hurrying down to Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) before it ends October 31st. You’ll be cured of your fear of eerie monsters, ghoulish goblins, spine-chilling creatures, hair-raising haunts, and zombies walking.
Put a spell on that special man/woman of your desires. Take your cutie for quality cuddling moments and spectacular sinister sensations, Thursdays through Sundays, 7p – 2am. The perfect place to squeeze your sweetie while squirming and screaming through Six Mazes: Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses, Alice Cooper Welcome to My Nightmare, Eli Roth’s Hostel Hunting Season, The Wolfman The Curse of Talbot Hall, The Thing Assimilation, La Llorona Villa de Almas Perdidas.
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure, an original live show with amazingly talented performers; Terror Tram: Scream for Your Life in the backlot; plus Jurassic Park in the Dark (excellent to defeat your fear of heights and drops), Revenge of The Mummy The Ride, and The Simpsons Ride are also part of this fantastic, fun, and frightening adventure.
Check out the photos above for an inside peek at what will greet you as you venture into the realm of excitement and pleasure.
I had the opportunity to interview Creative Director John Murdy about this year’s HHN. You can always see him roaming the Park, going through mazes, talking to the fans. He’s never missed a single evening since bringing back HHN in 2006.
John is thankful for the occasion to directly undergo what the guests behold. That way, he stays on top of what his patrons like. He conveyed, “To know how what you create is being received, you have to be in the middle of the event,” experiencing it in the same way your audience does.
Murdy revealed, “The rest of the time I'm backstage, cheerleading for our ‘scareactors.’ If you want people to share your passion and vision, you have to invest the energy with those who are going to bring that ideal to life.
Chris Williams (Art Director) and I personally train the actors. We have veteran performers who come back year after year. They're our little demented family. Ultimately, everything my team creates rises and falls with the ‘scareactors.’ They're the show.”
Each night, there’s a survey to see which mazes have the best responses. Murdy says “It’s like watching a really tight horse race.” He believes that it’s going to be “a photo finish in the end.”
One night Alice is the favorite, the next Rob Zombie's, Eli Roth's, The Thing, La Llorona, or The Wolfman. John attributes that to the fact, “each maze is very unique…we have a lot of variety this year...touching on the various sub-genres of horror.”
Murdy is especially honored to have worked with his childhood hero, Alice Cooper. He expressed his appreciation, “I simply wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today if it wasn't for Alice. He had a huge, positive influence on my life and continues to inspire me.
Getting the opportunity to turn Alice Cooper into a living horror movie for HHN is beyond my wildest dreams and seeing the incredible reaction it’s getting from our fans is extremely gratifying.”
John describes the challenge of conceiving and producing something as huge as HHN as the equivalent of making six movies at once since each maze is an incredibly detailed cinema quality affair.
The Thing was the biggest test for Murdy because he had to deal with alien creatures in a live format. “If you're making a movie, a creature effect only has to work once for the camera. In our world, it has to work every 10 seconds thousands of times a night!”
For ticket info and prices go to www.HalloweenHorrorNights.com.
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