Universal has kicked off its annual Halloween Horror Nights, and I was fortunate enough to attend opening night on both coasts.
Yes, this is the earliest-ever start for Universal’s after-hours Halloween event, with Orlando’s commencing before Labor Day. The streets of Universal Studios in Florida and Hollywood might be decorated for Halloween, but the weather remained very much summer for both events. Whether steamy or dry, the heat in the air on both coasts got me harder than any jump scare in the haunted houses this year.
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And that is not a comment on any lack of jump scares. Universal’s scare-actors are bringing it once again, earning extra gratitude from fans for delivering in that heat. At its heart, Halloween Horror Nights is a live theater production. While impressive stage design and multimedia effects can elevate a house, it’s the performers who make you scream.
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That said, performers rely on a great script to create the potential for their best scares. Each year, Universal creates an all-new set of 10 houses in Orlando and eight in Hollywood. That’s an enormous amount of creative work to stage. Lora Sauls in Orlando and John Murdy in Hollywood oversee Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights, drawing from original stories and outside franchises for the theme of each house.
Universal Studios got its start with monster movies, so it’s appropriate that Universal now is honoring its classic monsters with a house on both coasts each year. This year’s is tagged “Eternal Bloodlines” and features an all-female cast of characters for the first time.
A new character, Saskia Van Helsing, is out to avenge her monster-hunting father and finds an unlikely ally in the Bride of Frankenstein. Together, the two look to destroy an all-star team of female monsters, including Anck-Su-Namun (the female Mummy), She-Wolf and the brides and daughters of Dracula. In Hollywood, Universal placed this house within the same soundstage where “Bride of Frankenstein” was filmed in 1935, providing it extra resonance with horror fans.
The houses are different on each coast, but both laced media within their set designs to help tell the story and amplify the scares delivered by their casts.
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In Hollywood, Universal used American Sign Language throughout its house themed to “A Quiet Place,” the apocalyptic franchise about blind monsters who hunt whatever they hear. That means your screams put you in even greater danger — making for a great house concept. In the movies, the cast finds a way to destroy the monsters, but I think that’s a buzzkill for a Halloween Horror Nights house.
Industry insiders call attractions that faithfully recreate the plot of a movie “book reports.” When designing an attraction — whether it be a ride or a haunted house — you want to enable fans to step into iconic settings and moments from a movie they love, without trapping them within a plot written for another medium. That’s the challenge designers face when working in theme parks.
Let fans have their win in the movie theater. But in a haunted house, I want to be screaming all the way through the exit. For Halloween, always let the monsters win.