Movie

Terror-Filled Scare Zone

It’s all aboard the terror tram that is Halloween Horror Nights now that Universal Studios Hollywood gets its scary on for a month-long celebration of the holiday.

The immersive experience includes six mazes — all paying homage to some of the best horror films and TV series both old and new. They include Guillermo del Toro Presents Crimson Peak: Maze of Madness, Insidious: Return to the Further, The Walking Dead: Wolves Not Far, This is the End 3D, Halloween: Michael Myers Comes Home, and AVP: Alien vs. Predator.

“I’ve been doing this for 10 years, and when I started doing it, I had a very specific vision of what I thought we should do, and that is to create what I call living horror movies, ” creative director John Murdy tells Parade.com. “Our audience should feel as if they got up out of their movie seat, walked through the movie screen, and now they’re living a horror movie.”

With the attention to detail — from the blood and gore, and dismembered bodies — to the makeup on the actors, who are there to scare you out of your wits, it is obvious how much time and energy goes into creating this extreme Hollywood event, and how much thought goes into making sure that Halloween Horror Nights taps into all different aspects of the world of horror.

“We work on it year-round, ” says Murdy. “This time of year, I’m usually meeting with people that we are thinking about working with for next year. We try to solidify the slate of what we’re going to do usually around the end of January, and then we start designing.”

With very few repeats — one exception is the queen from Alien Versus Predator — each year is fresh. So, fresh that ticket holders who attend before October 16, will have a chance to get a sneak peek at what they expect from the upcoming Guillermo del Toro film Crimson Peak, as it doesn’t open until that date. But del Toro was so taken with the idea of having a maze for his film, he didn’t worry about spoilers.

“He loves this type of thing. He didn’t put any restrictions on us, ” says Murdy, who worked directly with del Toro’s lead makeup artist and sound department to make sure the maze truly reflected the film. “Guillermo had a lot of very specific ideas, which we implemented. It’s always funny to me when you think about these directors or stars, with all these movies they make, that something like this wouldn’t be as important as it is to them. It’s hugely important to Guillermo.”