By Charly SHELTON

Halloween is nearly upon us and to celebrate the spirit of the season, the local theme parks go all out to bring scary fun to boys and ghouls searching for a good fright. Universal Studios Hollywood launches its 27th year of Halloween Horror Nights, this year bringing Chucky, Leatherface, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Babyface, Ash, The Butcher, Danny, Tony, Jigsaw and more face-to-face with unwitting victims. There are a total of eight mazes throughout the park and backlot. From “The Shining” to “American Horror Story,” the event brings movies and TV shows to life as guests step into the fray of blood, guts and terror.

Let me start by saying that this is a fun event. While it may not be the most impressive iteration of the annual spookfest that USH has ever done, it is always well put together with clever maze layouts and incredible effects. Really – best in the business for effects. The name of the game this year, however, is amalgam.

Of the eight mazes, only three are based on single properties – “Ash vs. Evil Dead,” a show on Starz, “American Horror Story: Roanoke,” a show on FX, and “The Shining,” a 1980 film by Stanley Kubrick. The other five are amalgamated mazes featuring several franchises, seasons or sequels, mashed into a maze. “Insidious: Beyond the Further” combines all three “Insidious” films, “Saw: The Games of Jigsaw” rehashes the best traps from the first seven films and adds new traps from the upcoming film, “The Horrors of Blumhouse” brings together “The Purge” films, “Sinister” and the upcoming “Happy Death Day,” all produced by Jason Blum and his production company, Blumhouse Productions, and “Titans of Terror” is a three-part maze consisting of “Friday the 13th” villain Jason Voorhees, “A Nightmare on Elm Street” villain Freddy Krueger and “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” villain Leatherface in one maze. This maze is then abbreviated and set outdoors for the Terror Tram experience, which invites guests to walk through the abandoned Bates Motel, past the “Psycho” house, through a plane crash site and into a mini-walkthrough, all while haunted by the “Titans of Terror” and hosted by Chucky from “Child’s Play.” The eighth maze is the permanent attraction, “The Walking Dead,” which I also count as an amalgam because it combines so many seasons and so many aspects of the show into one quick maze.

Amalgamation is not always a bad thing. The “Titans of Terror” maze surprised me the most because my expectations were so low but the maze turned out great. The properties can get a little tired, especially Jason Voorhees, with a one-trick pony – a guy with a machete attacking people at a camp. With the compressed version, ticketholders only get the best moments and then move on before it grows stale.

One concern I had going in was repetition. After six different mazes based on Freddy Krueger alone, one would expect the folks in the “creative torture” department to be running on empty on ways to use Freddy’s knife glove to dismember yet another kid. But they do not disappoint and bring fresh new terror with buckets of blood, elaborate sets and killer effects to keep return visitors enthralled.

Overall, I think the most well done maze was “The Shining.” It was one of the most beautiful mazes USH has ever done, with attention to detail from the source material lovingly displayed in every room. Last week, CV Weekly ran a behind-the-scenes look at this maze and the labor that went into recreating the film props and sets. In practice, under fully finished lighting and set decoration, it paid off well.

But the maze I had the most fun in was “AHS: Roanoke.” Having watched this season of the serialized horror TV show on FX, I was really able to pick up on all the big, important pieces from the show that were pulled into the maze. Sometimes I feel like there is just too much in a property to hit all the best notes. Like with “Saw” – of the many dozens of traps featured in the films, only maybe 10 or so can fit in a maze. Guests end up missing some of the best ones and fan favorites simply because there is too much. With AHS, they hit all the points that I, as a fan, was expecting them to hit and I left fully satisfied not only with the maze and what it offered from the show, but with the exceptional technique and layout to provide multi-angle scares, hitting an entire hallway of victims at once rather than just the one who bursts through the curtain.

Overall, this was a very fun event and I already have my tickets purchased to come back, bringing more friends to experience the horrors that await at Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights.

  Charly Shelton