By People being sawed in half, corpses hanging from the ceiling, hidden doorways and escapes. No you’re not in a horror film — you’re at Universal Studios Hollywood “Halloween Horror Nights.”
The terrifying Halloween event is back for its 25th anniversary featuring mazes such as “Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining,” “Titans of Terror” and “Insidious,” as well as multiple scare zones and actors all designed to frighten attendees.
The terror begins the moment you enter the park gates, as you are greeted by loud music, fog machines, monsters chasing people on stilts and chainsaw wielding people wearing hideous masks. The scare actors are skilled at picking the most frightened out of the crowd — usually me — and chasing them down New York Street into the multitude of mazes awaiting their next victim.
Each maze includes small details from the movies or shows they’re drawing from to make you feel as if you’ve entered the world of demons, killers and whatever the hell is supposed to be in the “American Horror Story: Roanoke” maze — a pig person?
This was my first time at Halloween Horror Nights so I thought I’d start off with an easy maze. “The Horrors of Blumhouse” doesn’t sound too bad, “The Purge” isn’t even necessarily scary, I thought. I was wrong. Not only is the Jason Blum-inspired maze one of the longest in the park, it’s also one of the most horrific.
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- “Titans of Terror Tram: Hosted by Chucky”
- “The Horrors of Blumhouse”
- “Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining”
- “Insidious”
- “Titans of Terror”
- “American Horror Story: Roanoke”
- “SAW: The Games of Jigsaw”
- “Ash vs Evil Dead”
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Upon entering, you’re submerged in the world of “The Purge” where all crime is legal. People are in your face with knives and chainsaws while actors portrayed dead and tortured innocents awaiting every corner. The escape of this first section offers no relief as you’re immediately plunged into the Oswalt house from the “Sinister” franchise. The most disturbing part of this section, other than the ancient evil spirit roaming around is the use of little kids throughout the maze, killing their parents, wielding knives and smiling eerily at the crowd.
Once I came out of the first maze alive, I was hooked.
I was half-dreading, half-looking forward to one of the biggest events of the night, “Titans of Terror Tram: Hosted by Chucky.” The tram allows you to come face-to-face with some of the biggest horror monsters including Leatherface, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Kreuger as the tram drops you off in their respective towns. You are transported to Camp Crystal Lake and the town of Springwood, where countless Jasons and Freddy Kreugers chase guests through the dirt paths. The tram made up for the “Titans of Terror” maze, which offered more detail to each of the monster’s worlds, but ultimately fell flat.
Each maze offered something different from the last, and they all used unique elements to surprise the attendees and keep us on our toes. There were prop monsters mixed in with live actors who would jump up and scare you just as you thought you were safe and clear string hanging from the ceiling making it feel as if someone is touching your face.
The mazes also featured picture frames used for decoration which occasionally had a scare actor jump out from the inside. Just when you think you have the formula figured out, you’re looking in the direction of the black space to the side of you then a monster pops out from the opposite direction.
This was the case going into “Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining” maze. Walking into the Overlook Hotel, you can hear the voiceover of Mr. Ullman’s warning to Jack.
“For some people, solitude and isolation can itself be a problem.”
Unlike others, this maze went with the eery, creepy take rather than jump scares, staying true to Kubrick’s film. Guests are taken through iconic scenes of the movie including the hedge maze, the hotel hallway filled with blood, the feared room 237 and Jack’s famous “here’s Johnny!” as his wife screams in terror and looks to the crowd for help.
As we made our way into the lower lot for the rest of the mazes, we had to walk through the “Toxic Tunnel” where a burst pipe created zombie-like construction workers carrying axes and bats, terrorizing guests. While the distance between mazes is great, the scare zones scattered throughout the park makes the journey seem like less work and more fun.
Even with the multiple scare zones, the mazes in the lower lot, “American Horror Story: Roanoke,” “Ash vs Evil Dead” and “SAW: The games of Jigsaw” doesn’t make for a worthwhile time. All of the mazes blend into one another and I honestly can’t remember anything memorable about one of them — other than the awful looking pig looking character from “American Horror Story.” They relied purely on jump scares, but barely succeeded at that and did not live up to the other more thought-out mazes.
If you have a front-of-the-line pass and have already done all the other mazes, then maybe give them a try. But if you’re waiting in 30 to 45 minute lines and have to narrow down your list of mazes to try, stick to the upper lot.
Halloween Horror Nights began on Sept. 15 and will continue through Nov. 4. Students can purchase discounted tickets at http://ushtix.com/collegediscounts as well as the College Thursdays Terror Pass which allows students, faculty and staff to visit the park every Thursday with a one time ticket purchase.
