So the first thing I absolutely had to go and do was the brand spankin new Saw GAME OVER Maze. I’m very glad I wore comfortable shoes (we Press folks stand for long periods of time) because the Maze was all the way at the opposite end of the park on the lowest level. It took like 4 really steep escalators to get there, and of course they were filled with screaming fans who seemed hell bent on sharing their vocal power with anyone who got on or off the escalators. My totally awesome pass got me shunted to the VIP section, where I followed a security guard (who it turns out was guarding Rob Zombie himself and his entourage, right ahead of me) into the maze itself. And what a time it was!
True fans of the Saw series will get a great kick out of this newest attraction, that has everything from an iron-mask-clad Amanda facsimile tearing innards from a screaming man, to a recreation of the infamous syringe scene from Saw II, to pig-mask villains waving screaming chainsaws at you! Tobin Bell as Jigsaw rings his eerie voice down at you from hidden speakers, blood gets sprayed on you at random intervals (it’s actually just water), and strategically planted doors pop open to reveal screaming performers that will startle you if nothing else!
Next on our Horror tour was Chucky’s Funhouse! I generally enjoyed the first few Chucky movies, and the last two were more comedies than horror, so I thought there would be a good dose of dark humor in the maze too. It wasn’t hard to get in, but there were so many people in there it felt like the corridors for the maze itself were getting smaller, and I don’t think that was on purpose.
So, Chucky’s Funhouse! There are a lot of mummies, a mad scientist almost Frankenstein-like setup, shadowbox windows with dollies holding butcher knives, and plenty of performers to pop out of the shadows and scare you! Sad to say, a lot of those performers are either just really short, or actual Little People who got hired to be Chucky facsimiles, and I wondered about the wisdom of such a move. Chucky’s Funhouse didn’t do much for me, either as a scare factor or amusement, but that’s not to say they didn’t put a lot of effort into the creation of a truly nifty maze!
Next on our, or at least my, tour was the Terror Tram Live or Die! ride and lot walkthrough. I thought, as it is called a tram and we did get loaded into these trolley type contraptions, that I could sit and enjoy being scared or screamed at on the sidelines. Nope! We were on the tram long enough for a Saw game to be introduced on the monitors and then the tram was stopped and we were all herded into a line to walk the backlot that had been made up into several different live exhibits! Storylines from various beloved horror movies touted at this years Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights are laid out for the avid fan to walk through and enjoy!
There was the walk past the Bates motel, where you can hear Norman’s mother chiding him into killing; a walk through the darkened woods full of scary chirps and growls and wolf-like performers hiding in the shadows or under the bridge; a walk right into the quarantine zone and multiple plane crash of what looked to me like a mutant zombie attack; plus roadside executions, more trolling zombies and killer clowns!
Yes yes, sorry folks, but the Rocky Horror Picture Show Tribute Show is the last stop on my Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights tour. At this point it’s like 11:30 at night, my feet are killing me, I really do need someplace to sit down and chill for a bit, and yes, I am a Rocky Horror fan anyway. Me and all the other show-goers get herded into an ante room where we all have to stand there and wait, with RHPS banners draped everywhere and a concession stand that’s selling cowbells and party hats and glowsticks, and an announcers box on the second story that Magenta uses to tell us the rules and whip the crowd into a cheer before letting us all in!
The hall used for this show formerly housed the Terminator performance, so of course it was huge and blessedly had seats. A huge screen on stage treated us to snippets of the movie while the performers cavorted on stage. And oh, did they cavort! And jump to the left, step to the right, too! The infamous ditties performed included: Damnit Janet, Over at the Frankenstein Place, The Time Warp, Sweet Transvestite, The Sword of Damocles, Toucha Toucha Touch Me, and Wild and Untamed Thing. (Nothing that had Eddie or anything that musician Meatloaf sang, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise.) I was incredibly impressed at the enthusiasm of every single one of the performers, who, as far as I understood it, had been doing one show an hour all freaking night! Any fan of RHPS and the cult-status fun of audience participation seeing the film, will greatly enjoy this show!
That’s certainly not all there is for fun and frolic at Universal Studios Hollywood, this just happens to be what I did while there. Not to mention the streets made up to look like a London zombie attack, the Simpsons and Krustyland exhibits, what looked to me like a dark carnival with a scary preacher and sheets of flame that rise a good twenty feet, face painting and souvenir shops and fair food! My personal favorite was the street performers in makeup that reminded me a bit of The Crow, outfits of black that looked to me like the Ghostbuster uniforms, with metallic elbow and knee cuffs and fingerbits that made sparks when they scrawled them across the ground or a nearby fence! I just had to track one down and ask what movie he was supposed to be from; he said not from any movie, the performers came up with that one all on their own, and I thought that was cool as hell!
Universal Studios Hollywood
Halloween Horror Nights 2009
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Written by Alicia Glass
