By Charly SHELTON

Each year, the local theme parks go all-out for the spookiest time of year. It used to be a few nights around Halloween with some festive decorations – a little fake blood and some pumpkins – and presented as a Halloween stage show or haunted house. Then it grew to several haunted houses. Then it ran all month. Now Halloween season officially starts with the first theme park to offer Halloween events. Most start in mid-September, with Universal Studios Hollywood, Knott’s Berry Farm, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Disneyland, the Queen Mary and even Griffith Park getting into the spirit of the season. We’ll take a look at the two big guys – Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights and Knott’s Scary Farm, as well as some surprises along the way.

First up is Halloween Horror Nights. Usually, Universal does all intellectual property IP-based mazes (haunted walkthrough attractions based on an existing IP – a franchise or idea, typically based on movies or inspired by the music of the band, etc.) with incredibly high production values. This year is no different, except that there are two original mazes alongside the collection of IP mazes USH is known for. And to top it all off, the mazes are all fantastic. Out of nine new mazes, all nine are good-to-great with each one having some aspect of note that stands out. Overall, I’d have to say the most impressive is the “Ghostbusters” maze. For a movie that came out 35 years ago, those miniature stop-motion effects really hold up well in the film and are difficult to replicate in real-world application for a haunt. Think about how tough it must have been to make the proton pack beams a reality. And everything that was put into the maze feels like it’s straight out of the movie – from the comedy and slapstick sight gags to the scary Terror Dogs of Zuul and Vinz Clortho to the smell of roasting marshmallow atop a New York skyscraper. This one was both technically impressive and lots of fun.

Other haunts include “Killer Klowns from Outer Space,” “Creepshow,” “Stranger Things – Season 2 and 3,” “Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman,” “Us” and “House of 1000 Corpses.” Each of these is a lot of fun and brings in the humor with horror that many of these ’80s classics are known for.

But what really sold me this year was the original mazes. The Curse of Pandora’s Box takes guests into a cabinet of curiosities come to life as it unleashes the worst terrors Greek mythology has to offer. This has some cool effects and spectacular character design that comes from letting the imagination run wild to make the most terrifying characters for a haunt rather than relying on what is in a film. One spider monster featured in Arachne’s lair will haunt my nightmares forever.

The other original maze is Holidayz in Hell. It reimagines each major holiday as a terrifying, warped version of what we celebrate. The leprechauns play deadly tricks on St. Patrick’s Day, the fireworks go off too soon and disfigure Uncle Sam on July 4th and, on Thanksgiving, the turkey roasts a person. This is one of the most wildly inventive, fun mazes I’ve ever seen. It was a small walkthrough of displays last year and must have been well received to be upgraded to a full haunted house of its own this year. And its so unlike anything Universal or Knott’s or anyone else has done before. Usually original haunts hit the same notes: some person (crazed killer or zombie or werewolf, etc.) is trying to kill you or something magical (monster, ghost, dark magic, etc.) is trying to kill you. Failing that, you may be trapped somewhere. That goes for most rides, too.

This maze doesn’t deal with that. It takes the positive holidays and corrupts them, regardless of guest interaction, giving attendees one great show. It’s the difference between The Indiana Jones Adventure – where a god is trying to trap and kill you – and Pirates of the Caribbean, where guests just float by. It’s so rare for a haunt to do the float by option and have it work as well as it does for Holidayz in Hell.

Overall this is a great year at HHN where every maze hit the mark making for one of the best overall years in quite a while. If you haven’t been to Universal Studios Hollywood in a while for their Halloween Horror Nights, this is the year to go. On now, select nights, through Nov. 3.

https://youtu.be/UIW3SH6Tepw

  Charly Shelton