Exclusive: Universal Orlando unveils Halloween event houses
The whole point of Halloween Horror Nights, according to Michael Aiello, Sr. Director of Entertainment Creative for Universal Orlando Resort, is to create a living horror film. Unlike other theme parks, Universal's Halloween events use actual, brand-name movies and television shows to inspire its walk-through mazes and scare zones. For example, this year's edition, which is scheduled to run on select evenings from September 15 to November 4, will feature popular properties such as The Shining, The Purge, and American Horror Story.
But Universal's shockmeisters also create their own living horror films. In addition to five branded mazes, the Florida resort will present four original content haunts. I got a creepy tour through a bizarre New Orleans realm overrun by the Voodoo Queen and her voodoo doll disciples in an exclusive sneak peek of one of the mazes, Dead Waters. I also sat down with Aiello, the event's great guru of gore, and Charles Gray, Show Director for Creative Development and self-described insane scientist, to talk about HHN and the serious work it takes to scare people silly.
The first thing I noticed when I ducked into the Universal Studios soundstage that houses Dead Waters was a musty, mildew smell. It wasn't an implication of the resort's housekeeping crew. It was an indication of the doting, lavish attention that the HHN team bestows on every sensory detail. The pungent odor helps establish the tone of the maze, which takes guests through a decaying, partly sunken paddlewheeler, a murky swamp, and the Voodoo Queen's funky village.
The boat lists to one side in a riverbed. A challenge to navigate, its tilted corridors will surely help make visitors more vulnerable when the maze's "scare-actors" lunge at them. (There were no live actors lurking in the shadows during my tour.) Likewise, the squishy material embedded in the floor of the swamp scene, which simulates a muddy bog, will keep guests off balance and more susceptible to scares.
Mazes associated with movies such as The Shining invite guests to experience familiar settings like the Overlook Hotel. The original houses, however, "give us an opportunity to take people to unexpected places," says Gray.
And show them unexpected things. I went through Dead Waters twice, once as visitors would see it, and once with the lights turned on. I was astonished by the décor – a menacing snake here, a shelf stuffed with half-melted candles and mutilated dolls there – and everything else that I missed during my first pass through the house. "We plant details in mazes that you're probably never going to notice," Aiello explains. "But if they weren't there, you'd think there's something missing."
It's that extra care and the high production value that helps set Universal's Halloween event apart from its competitors. Incredibly, it takes an army of about 1,000 people, representing a variety of disciplines, to make HHN work. But it starts with a small crew of designers headed by Gray and Aiello.
Both of them are lifelong horror fans, and both of them began their HHN careers by apprenticing as "scare-actors." Gray says that he was a "dude in a vat of acid" in a scare zone. Aiello was stationed in the laundry room of the Hotel Hell maze and terrorized guests by jumping out of a washing machine.
The year-round process of developing HHN (the team is already working on next year's event) begins with a handful of people pitching concepts. "We vomit ideas," says Gray with a laugh. They whittle about 50 of the original themes down to 10, give them a bit more form, argue about them some more, and settle on 3 or 4.
In addition to Dead Waters, there will be three additional original content mazes at this year's event. Scarecrow: The Reaping will take visitors to an abandoned, drought-ravaged farm haunted by ornery scarecrows. Universal sent out a casting call seeking skinny guys who are well over six feet tall to don the straw-filled costumes. The vampire-themed The Hive skewers more to the ferocious Nosferatu take on the monster than the classic, more suave Bela Lugosi version. It will be set in the 1980s and feature a period vibe. The Fallen will take place in an ornate cathedral and pit eternal winged creatures against mortals. Expect lots of stunts with the beasts leaping and flying overhead.
Before they can, er, flesh out the details of rabid vampires and crazy-tall scarecrows, the HHN team goes through a painstaking process. Designers develop preliminary sketches of the characters and other maze details. Gray leafed through thick binders full of Voodoo Queens and other creatures his artists had developed. Pointing to a somewhat alluring Queen, he said, "She's too pretty. We knew we needed to give her self-mutilation and gore her up a bit." It takes a special kind of design professional to gauge the appropriate level of gore for a horror maze.
Gray also shared other behind-the-scenes treatments including scenic scope books, narrative descriptions, electronic sketch-up models, and handbooks. Once they determine the form, feel, texture, and aesthetic for the houses, the design team brings in other entertainment specialists such as lighting, costuming, audio, makeup, and scenic to bring them to life.
It's an astonishing amount of creativity, time, energy, and resources for an event that has a limited run of 34 nights. Aiello, who has been unleashing HHN's zombies, chainsaw-wielding fiends, Voodoo Queens, and other creatures for 20 years wouldn't have it any other way. "It has to feel layered and real," he says. "We want you to have a visceral, emotional experience. We want to transport you to worlds you've never seen."
Get scared one more time with a look back at Halloween Horror Nights 2016:
