Horror Nights at Universal Studios
I attended Universal’s Halloween Horror Night in October 2008. For quite a few years Universal have been putting on an adult themed Halloween evenings in the park which have allegedly improved year on year. Each year has a different ‘theme’, and this year’s was ‘Bloody Mary’.
Firstly, some practical details – there are a number of different tickets available. The evenings happen over 2-3 weeks in the lead up to, and including Halloween itself, but not on every night - usually not on Monday’s and Tuesdays. Sometimes they even go on a couple of days past Halloween. You can get single night admission (this year they were available via several sources from about $44) or get a ‘Frequent Fear Pass’ for $69 which is valid for several nights, but excluding Halloween itself. To attend on Halloween itself you will have to pay more, but I understand there is little extra happening on that night – you are just paying to be there on the specific day. Also, if you already have a valid Universal Park day time ticket for the day you wish to attend a Horror Night (other than the 31st) you can get re-admission for the evening Horror night for $29 per person (which is what we did) – and this includes the Orlando Flex Park tickets whether or not you have attended that particular park on the same day – so long as the ticket is actually valid for that day.
The park’s literature states that the event is not suitable for young children – and I definitely agree with this. My 16 year-old step-daughter was quite freaked out after going into one of the haunted houses and didn’t want to do too any more of them. Depending on the disposition of the child the event may be suitable for younger children – only if they are quite robust and not easily scared!
Dressing up – don’t! As a visitor you won’t be allowed in wearing fancy-dress. I can only guess because it could make the evening too intense if nearly everyone was dressed up, and probably quite difficult for the park to manage if they can’t easily differentiate between visitors and actors / employees.
There were 3 different types of attraction to the event in addition to a few rides being open - Scare Zones, Haunted Houses and Shows. You won’t be able to do it all in one evening so either you have to pick a few things or get a frequent fear ticket.
Scare Zones – these are dotted throughout the park – there were 6 this year and I think we walked through all of them. They are walk-through areas where actors in varying costumes and very realistic make-up try to scare park visitors. Each zone has a different theme, for instance this year one area had ‘zombies’ in orange boiler suits (I thought they were great!) and another had actors on stilts blending in with trees. As the whole park lighting is very dim and there are a lot of smoke machines it can be difficult to discern the actors until you are right upon them, especially if they are hiding in trees! They walk past and at the last minute suddenly turn and stare you in the face up close, scream or growl at you, possibly poke you, or chase you down the street – especially if you visibly jump, scream or show fear. One of the areas (I think t was ‘Path of the Wicked’) had actors swinging above our heads from building to building, which caught some people out. Another area was themed the ‘Asylum in Wonderland and another was bedecked with hundreds of pumpkin lanterns.
Shows – there were three shows this year, and we managed to see a couple.
Brian Brushwood – magician – we only caught the last 10/15 minutes, but what we saw seemed entertaining. I am not familiar with him / his work but the step-daughter seemed to enjoy the little we saw.
Bill and Ted’s excellent Halloween Adventure – we saw all of this show. Quite a few of the gags were based on American culture so we didn’t ‘get’ everything, but a lot was based on general pop culture / gossip and it was still well worth seeing. It was a very professional show with lots of look-a-like actors, including some very funny take-offs of Obama, McCain and Palin. Apparently there’s a different Bill and Ted show every year and I would recommend going to see it. The quality of the dance routines was excellent and the short show (about 45 minutes) had some special effects, including the obligatory pyrotechnics.
Rocky Horror tribute show – very apt for the evening. We didn’t get around to seeing it as I have seen the full show and film several times and wanted to see something new.
Haunted Houses
This is really where it was at for me. There were something like 9 houses, and we managed to see 3 of them. They were all variations on a theme – some bigger / longer than others, varying queue times (from 10 to 45 minutes), and some a little more scary than others. All are walk-through’s – through a sequence of small rooms and winding corridors, with many actors waiting to surprise you inside. We went into:
‘Body Collectors’ – shortest queue (about 10 minutes) and a good house to start with. The scenery was like walking into a London Dickens or Jack the Rapist set.
‘The Hallow’ – excellent strobe lighting which made it really difficult to clearly see / predict what was about to happen. One corridor had a number of very realistic (and wet / ‘gungy’) severed heads dangling in your path at varying heights, another had a view into a room surrounded by bars with a ram-like (satan?) ‘creature’ in it. Actors reached out from behind the bars and we were warned before going in that if we touched the walls something might happen which put us on edge. This was the longest and possibly the most dramatic house we entered, also the queues were long.
‘Reflections of Fear’ – this was ‘Mary’s house’ and the ‘piece de resistance’ was a broken mirror from behind which Mary, and I believe another character actor lunged out at passers by. It was one of the few things that actually made me jump.
Rides
The following rides were open – Revenge of the Mummy, Disaster, Men in Black and The Simpson’s - so it’s an opportunity to go on a few of them with smaller queues than during the day.
In summary the evening is a lot of fun, rather than scary. There were a few occasions that made me jump as they were unexpected rather than out and out scared – but maybe I’m unusual. It’s definitely not for everyone and people with a nervous disposition should give it a miss. My only criticism is that in the dark some of the queue lines can get mixed up / crossed over. We started out queueing form one haunted house (scary tales) and ended up in the Hallows – but the house was good so it didn’t matter that much. There’s some cool merchandise available from some great T-shirts to red jelly sold in intravenous drip bags. Maybe I am weird - my partner and I thought it would be a great first date if you happened to live in the area, and both wanted to work as actors on the event and would get a kick out of scaring people. I could think of a few additional things that weren’t done that could really get the hardy going – I must be sick!!!!
I have read reviews stating that Bush Gardens Halloween event- Howl-O-Scream is (10x?) more scary - so that might be one to head to for if you really want to go for it. If you want more information on Universal’s Horror nights check out this good article and associated comments - briandorf article
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