Universal Studios Hollywood Halloween Horror Nights raised the guillotine and let the blade drop, letting loose a torrent of bloody, frightful fun for 2016. This year brings with it an unprecedented level of excitement and anticipation as the biggest, most demanded franchises in the history of HHN are all here! The Exorcist, Halloween, Freddy Vs. Jason, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Krampus, and, of course American Horror Story. Then we can’t forget the maze so popular they turned it into a year round attraction, The Walking Dead. After the mazes we have master of horror, Eli Roth presenting an all-new Terror Tram featuring Koodles the Clown.  Finally we get a look at the return of JABBAWOKEEZ in a brand new show! This is insane.  Let’s jump right in.  Does Universal Studios Hollywood Halloween Horror Nights 2016 live up to the anticipation, some years in the making?

The Purge: Election Year (Scare Zone)

Totally going to say it; I am over the Purge. Really over it. However I was surprised at how well this “scare zone” worked. Beginning at Universal Plaza and making its way into the Parisian courtyard then out into French Street, the experience feels more like an aerated maze than a scare zone. Instead of wandering through a zone, guests are directed along a wide path, through modular sets, fog effects, and lighting, as menacing hoodlums threatening their safety.

Honestly a surprisingly fun and effective experience.

JABBAWOKEEZ

Jabbawokeez have returned to Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights. The crowd pleasing dance phenoms once again trot the stage with a manner of pop locking dance moves that got the crowd really going.

That said, I really thought that this show wasn’t on par with their debut effort last year.  Following the same framework of falling into a dream, the Jabbawokeez take the audience on a hip hop dance journey with surreal imagery and music.

Impressive? Sure. Toe-tapping? Absolutely. But did they really need a fart joke? Talk about a sour note.

Regardless this is a show that will not only entertain, but serve as a passable rest stop between mazes.

The Walking Dead

Hearing promises of the attraction getting amped up just a little, we waited in the gargantuan line for this popular walkthrough. No such luck as the maze was populated with the same amount of scare actors as it was during regular operating hours.  That being said it is still a great, albeit short walkthrough with some beautiful set pieces and great scares.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Blood Brothers

Set to take place just after the first film, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Blood Brothers plays as an unofficial sequel to the original Tobe Hooper classic.  The family business is now thriving. Their special brand of family barbecue is a hit and the cannibal clan are now caterers. We enter the shop as the radio drones on about missing persons from the surrounding areas. Once inside the mayhem begins. Chop Top, who was featured in the second movie, has just come home from Vietnam and we are here for the welcome home party.  What transpires is anything but welcoming. When they said they wanted to have us for dinner, well, they meant it.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Blood Brothers also features some beautifully creative set design including a trip trough Chop Top’s bedroom. His psychedelic posters mixed with peace signs made from human bones was a tour-de-force moment for art director Chris Williams as was the 50’s style cowboys and indians take for Leatherface’s room.

The maze has a far more comedic, over the top approach than previous TCM mazes. Dancing dangerously close to House of 1,000 corpses territory, the clan is deliriously happy and maniacally aggressive. A contrast to the incarnations of the property before that were far more gritty. The tone worked for me personally and I found myself laughing along with the jolly absurdity of it all. Though the proceedings did become a little repetitive.

Overall this was a worthwhile trip to the wastelands of Texas, even if we were the main course.

Eli Roth Presents The Terror Tram

The story goes that Koodles the Clown was a fixture at Universal Studios Hollywood in its beginning. As an unofficial mascot, Koodles was at every ribbon cutting, and every function the company had. Then, as public sentiment toward clowns had soured, Koodles had found himself out of a job. With the arrival of the first ever night time Studio Tours last year, it is said that guest had begun spotting Koodles hiding around the hills and the bucket surrounding the studio.

As the Terror Tram drops guests off we see a lone clown, standing, waiting for us to get out and walk the tour on foot.  In what was a misleading strong start we see disturbing, grinning faces, wrinkly and paper white, and hungry for blood. we wander past a carnival of bloody mayhem in front of the Bates Motel.

Then the rest happens and it all goes to pot.  Foregoing the hike through the hills (Not a bad thing) we trek right up to the area near the Psycho house and right into a queue line for what appears to be a maze beginning at the mouth of a faded clown facade.

The pacing is entirely thrown out the window as we are very slowly herded into the entrance of a maze through shipping crates and past more blood thirsty clowns.  It was at that exact moment that all of the hard work that was done to create mood and atmosphere got thrown out the window. such  a shame too because up to that point, I was enjoying the experience. Now, instead of feeling exposed, I was being forced through a rather tight passageway too crowded to enjoy the scenes nestled within, and just wanting to get the hell out of it.

In the end, the overcrowding of this attraction simply killed the good work that was done by the creatives. It is such a crucial thing to pace crowds properly.  This really could have been something, instead it was, without question, a sour note.

The Exorcist

Probably the most highly anticipated of the bunch is The Exorcist. Consistently voted as the scariest movie ever made, John Murdy’s long-pursued property had some high expectations to meet. The problem presented itself immediately as it was realized that the majority of the action in the film takes place in a little girl’s bedroom. How do you make that interesting and, more importantly, terrifying?

We enter a picture perfect reproduction of the scene depicted in the poster, a man standing outside of a two story home as an etherial light beams down from a window. In a starling opening moment we see Regan, the demon-possessed girl, spider walking down the stairway to the foyer. This was a promising opening moment, but then something changed.

The idea was to replicate the surreal imagery and psychotic feel of the banned trailer for the film, It  features mostly flashes of the face of Regan mixed with that of the demon Pazuzu. What we end up with are several demon possession scenes in Regan’s bedroom broken up by blackout hallways with Pazuzu and Regan jutting out from behind drop-away panels in the walls. The effect is perplexing. We enter the home, then enter a room, over and over again.

While not a total success, The Exorcist maze is not a total failure either. Almost impossible to replicate, the movie is an untouchable masterpiece of relentless horror. The attempt was to repeat the psychotic, rapid fire editing of the trailer but this just doesn’t translate when you are being herded through scenes in a very slow conga-line style procession.

I am glad that we finally got to see what John Murdy and Chris Williams would do had they gotten their hands on the scariest movie ever made.

Halloween: Hell Comes to Haddonfield

WOW.  Last year’s Halloween maze was a tough act to follow. Almost impossible to top if you ask us. But this maze certainly gives it a good shot. Picking up right where the last film left off, we arrive at the Doyle home as Laurie Strode is being attacked by Michael Myers and Dr. Loomis has shot Michael in the heart 6 times.

Wandering out of the home we follow in Michael’s footsteps out the back of the house, through the alley, and to the Haddonfield Hospital where Laurie Strode is taken. Faithfully recreating each of the over the top kills in Halloween two, we see every single one of them. We have the hammer in the head of the security guard, the exsanguinization of the head nurse, even the boiling alive of another ill-fated medical practitioner.  There is a frantic energy to this maze that perfectly matches the almost desperate attempt to up the gore in that Halloween 2 had when it came out. This is done intentionally and boy is it fun.

What makes this maze a standout is the finale. As Halloween 2 ends, Michael is supposedly dead. So what do you do with that? You develop an original punctuating experience that caps the maze off right.  We can honestly say that this blows last year’s hall of mirrors ending out of the water. The last scenes of Halloween: Hell Comes to Haddonfield are not only original, but brave and inventive. LOVED this maze.

American Horror Story

What can you say about American Horror Story. To set it up, the hit series from FX is a phenomenally popular show that, according to Universal, is the most highly requested property in Halloween Horror Nights History. The show’s format is a fascinating one in that every scenes features a new storyline with new characters and new arch that come to a close with each season.

For what we hope is the first year for American Horror Story, Universal Studios has decided to create a maze that features three of the most popular seasons; Murder House (Season 1), Freak Show (Season 4), and Hotel (Season 5). As we enter each segment in the maze it is very obviously marked which story we are about to enter. The common thread line is that we are all visiting each of the seasons on the annual Halloween episodes.

Murder House is given the most variety as we visit four very distinct storylines within this section. The most disturbing, of course, is the visit to the basement where medical experiments are ongoing, and the infantata is running hammock. Freak Show offers us the most scenic variety, beginning in a forest and happening upon Twisty the Clown’s van, before entering the Freak show tent itself and riding the horrors within. We enter Hotel (Season 5) and into the tight, art deco hallways of a house of torture and death. The countess is around every corner and we venture deeper and deeper into this opulent monstrosity.

The American Horror Story maze is probably one of the most elegantly paced and executed mazes that John Murdy and the Halloween Horror Nights Team has ever pulled off.  This was a huge maze, matching the square footage of last year’s gigantic The Walking Dead and filling each scene with a sweep that was very satisfying. I can’t wait to return.

Krampus

Just all of the wow.  There is something pleasing to the unholy combination of Halloween and Christmas. It really is a match made in hell, yet it works so absolutely perfectly.  In the maze Krampus, based on the wickedly dark movie by Michael Dougherty, we enter the Engel home as Krampus and his dark elves have already begun their attack.

The Living room is utterly destroyed, furniture disarranged, snow blowing in through broken windows, the Christmas tree burnt to a crisp and little Howie Jr. is being pulled up the chimney.  Around every corner is the threat of Christmas comeuppance at the hands of the titular monster.

There is also a playful, mischievous tone to everything that is infectious. In another perfectly madcap scene we wander into the destroyed kitchen as sentient gingerbread men, complete with the pleasing smell, have torn the entire room apart. The attic scene features a disturbing Jack in the Box that is hungry for human flesh, while other toys attack from all around. The scares in this maze are inventive and nearly every distraction trick is used to pull your attention away from the real threats in the opposite direction.

What we appreciate about this maze was, not just the art direction, but the pacing, the tone, the overall look of the maze. Everything here was on point and we could not have been happier with how this one turned out. Great work all around.

Freddy Vs. Jason

Entering a burning, abandoned boiler factory we hear both the snarls of Freddy and the music from Friday the 13th. In a no-holds-barred battle to the death, the icons fight and we wander into the fray. The look of this maze is, without question, phenomenal. From rustic to rusty, we see campgrounds filled with trees to claustrophobic brick and mortar hallways in basements. The scares are good here, but this is another tour fine piece of work from Williams and company.

The maze ends up taking a wildly surrealistic approach that jumps back and forth from A Nightmare on Elm Street to Friday the 13th in a fluid manner that is unsettling and disorienting. Freddy is in control and torturing Jason from the get go. Freddy picked the fight, but who will win? There is something strangely unsettling about seeing a young, disfigured Jason Vorhees being eaten alive by a Freddy snake.  Just weird as hell.

Who won? We aren’t really sure. Freddy Vs. Jason promised an ending that changed, naming a new victor  in the battle depending on when you went through the maze. However, we really couldn’t tell who came out on top. If we had to actually call it we  would say it was the guests. This maze is one hell of a good time with two of the best slashers in horror history. Not a bad time at all.

This is probably one of the strongest years Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights has ever had in its entire history. Never have so many strong properties come together in one event. Despite a few missteps, we can honestly say there isn’t a bad maze in the bunch. The Terror Tram is another issue entirely as the crowd control needs to be dealt with on that experience for it to really be something special.

If you are looking for something amazing to do for Halloween, Universal Studios Hollywood has brought the movies to life, all in one spot.  You are bound to find something to make you scream.

Tickets to this year’s event are available for purchase at www.HalloweenHorrorNights.com/Hollywood, including the Frequent Fear Pass which allows guests to visit multiple times throughout the event.

Just so you all know, this is the LAST WEEKEND to buy tickets to the big Knott’s Scary Farm VIP meet(Sept 24th)! Visit the store and grab your tickets now. That’s not to mention the cool HorrorBuzz t-shirts, the fashionable cups in orange and glow-in-the-dark, and SO MUCH MORE!

Knott’s Scary Farm – Sept 24th

Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor