Creative Director for Universal Halloween Horror Nights, John Murdy, Art Director/Production Designer, Chris Williams, and Producer Don Burgess took to the stage at Wondercon to share a preview of the terrors to come in Universal Studios Hollywood’s new The Walking Dead Attraction.  Murdy welcomed the crowd and introduced the panel to the packed room of over 250 convention goers.  The lights went down and Murdy played the teaser video that premiered on The Talking Dead with Chris Hardwick on March 14th.

When the lights returned we settled in as Murdy began with a retrospective on the history of this prolific property and its relationship with Universal Halloween Horror Nights. For the past four years, 2012-2015 the wildly popular series, The Walking Dead has been a staple at the annual Halloween event. As good as these temporary mazes were, they did have imperceptible limitations.  For instance, while immersive, the temporary nature of the mazes limited the size, the extent of detail and even what types of effects they could easily pull off. When Murdy and his team were given a chance, they seized on the opportunity to bring flesh-eating walkers to the park year round.  As Williams explained, this gave them the chance to do more substantial set pieces and a slew of terrifying surprises.  They were able to really get in to the custom built, state-of-the-art building and fully surround visitors with hair-raising tension.

(SPOILER ALERT) If you are still waiting to binge watch the show on Netflix, we warn you there are spoilers ahead about the show up through season 5.

The Presentation continued as a look back at the different environments created in the various Walking Dead mazes.  There was the Hospital in 2012, Cell Block D in 2013, more of the prison in 2014 and finally Terminus in 2015.  “Sometimes the humans were far more dangerous than the walkers.” said Murdy when referring to season 5.   “In the maze for 2015 you went a full 5 rooms before you even saw a walker because, well, in Terminus, the people were cannibals.  They were just as much a threat.”

A shot from the 2012 maze entrance.

Inside the maze from 2012

Exterior and a scene from 2013.

Last year’s The Walking Dead: Wolves Not Far maze was the largest temporary walkthrough they had ever constructed. In comparison, the new attraction, situated near the park’s entrance, will be even bigger. Murdy and crew began to tease the audience with a trickle of new information on what to expect.

“You remember this iconic Dead Inside doors from Season two and the 2013 maze?” Murdy teased, “Well it’s coming back.  We want to immerse visitors in this terror the minute they walk in the door.  To that point this scene is actually recreated in the queue for the attraction.  It’s going to be a real Instagram moment for sure.”

Murdy continued the info feed by mentioning, “In the new building we are able to visit certain environments and create certain effects that we simply could never have pulled off in a temporary setting.”  An artist’s rendering popped up on the screens flanking the stage, “In the new attraction we are going to get to visit the burning cabin!”

Universal Creative teamed with effects company, Technifex to develop a very unique and convincing fire effect for this pivotal scene.  Using air currents, concentrated fog effects and LED lighting, they have come up with a startlingly realistic flame effect that will be used in the scene. “We could not have done this in a tent because air currents are key in this effect.” explains Murdy.”Here we can control every little thing.”

The benefit of being a movie studio of course is having the ability to tap the creative forces behind some of today’s hottest properties.  Form the beginning, show creators and make up designers have had a hand in developing the walk throughs for Halloween.  When Make-Up designer and now, Executive Producer for The Walking Dead on AMC, Greg Nicotero heard that Universal was developing a permanent attraction based on Dead he sent Murdy a text that was in part, “I Really Really Really want to be a part of this project.”  Murdy invited him onboard of course and Nicotero provided the actual molds for mask creation that were used in the show.  Furthermore, he also helps develop the new, permanent animatronics that will populate the maze.

Murdy shared one last tidbit of gory goodness.  Working with Nicotero they created full head masks that featured mechanized, chomping mouths.  “The actor,” Murdy explained. “will have a ninja hood thing on and then slip this mask on over that.”This will add a gnashing realism to the terror for sure. “We also developed another mask for the burning cabin that smokes, as if the skin is still smoldering.  That’s in the R&D phase right now.” Murdy offered.

Opened up to Q&A, Murdy was asked a number of interesting questions.  We learned that the new attraction will last about 7 minutes depending on how fast a person walks.  We also learned that when developing the attraction for a year-round experience, they were never once given any restrictions with regard to content.  “That’s a great question.” Murdy remarked, “Yeah you would think that since it would be for something year round it would be a little more restrictive. On the contrary, no, we actually went a little further and this is going to be even scarier and more intense than what we do for Halloween Horror Nights.”

The group on the stage closed with a trivia question and a chance for a lucky guest to win tickets to Universal Studios Hollywood.  The question was…

Do you know the answer? Leave it in the comments below.

The Walking Dead is set to open Summer 2016. Read our most recent article updating the progress on the attraction here.