Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.

With my travel schedule lately, I wasn’t sure I was going to be in town for the opening weekend of Halloween Horror Nights, so at first, I didn’t respond to Universal’s invitation to join them for the first evening. I’ve been meaning to go for the last few years, but one circumstance or another has managed to keep me away. If you’re not familiar with the event, basically Universal Studios converts their entire theme park into a bloody, freaky Halloween attraction each year, opening the park later than normal. It’s definitely not for kids, and each year, the iconography of the attraction changes, so for many, it’s become one of the annual ways they celebrate my favorite holiday.

I feel a particular affinity for this event. Back in my early days in LA, I worked at Halloween Horror Nights for one particular October. My roommate Scott and I both got hired to be performers in the park, and it turned out to be one of the most fun day (or night, in this case) jobs I’ve had in my nearly twenty years in town. I got lucky, too, because Scott was placed in one of the mazes, where he was evidently tapped to play the part of Naked Alien, his costume consisting of a dance belt, a nude-colored skin-tight leotard, and a big fake alien head. I’m not sure what the idea of the costume was, but it certainly scared the shit out of me every time I saw it.

Me? I got tapped to play Leatherface. Sometimes being a big moosey fucker actually pays off. I was one of about six Leatherfaces that year, all of us positioned at different parts of the park, and we had to go through a little chainsaw boot camp at the start of things. You end up using a real saw, but with no blade, and there was something deranged about the group of us learning how to coldstart the saw and how to use it to scare people most effectively. They put me in one part of the park during rehearsals, then moved me out onto the tram route for the opening night, but at a spot where it just wasn’t scary, and then a few nights later finally figured out where to place me for the most impact.

Back then, part of the tour led through the greens department, where all the camera-ready plants were stored outside. There was a metal cargo container set up on the driver’s side of the tram, totally innocuous. My job was to stand inside that container, waiting for the sound of an approaching tram. I could hear when it pulled up alongside, and as soon as it was even with the container, I’d start the saw up, revving it as high as possible. The sound it made as it echoed off the container walls was thunderous, and always got a few screams right away. Even better, though, they had me on a safety line so I could run to the end of the container, throw the doors open, and leap at the tram, waving the saw, both feet off the ground, only to snap back at the last second. I wish I’d had a camera each time so that I could have put a book together of all the faces twisted in fear, those little snapshots of terror I got to see eight times every hour. If they’d really wanted to, any of those tram passengers could have reached out and touched me when I jumped towards them, but it never happened. Not one person ever laughed or shrugged it off. I got the reaction I wanted each and every time. At the end of the event, I was given a prize for “Best Scare” out of the entire park, chosen by judges who walked through every maze and took the tram ride, and I got a cash bonus for it. That was nice, but by that point, I’d already gotten more than enough out of the experience. When you spend all night every night scaring the shit out of people and running around with a chainsaw, you find that the residual effect on your personality is that you are very mellow and sedate the rest of the day. You almost have to be. There’s nothing left in the tank. That was one of the most peaceful months I’ve ever had, frankly.

So like I said, I almost didn’t make it this year, but when I got back to town at the start of the week, my wife mentioned that she was interested in going with her sister, and I told her I’d been sent a press invite for opening night. As soon as I was able to find it in the inbox and contact Universal, I set up a pair of passes for us, and so on Friday night, we showed up at 7:00, just in time for the EyeGore Awards, hosted by Corey Feldman. Awards were handed out to genre stalwarts like Tobe Hooper, Roger Corman, Gunnar Hansen, and Julie Benz. It was an informal atmosphere, with a smattering of Chinese finger foods and an open bar, and I recognized a fair amount of the genre press mingling in the crowd.

Quick highlight: I ran into Derek Mears, who played the Father Demon in PRO-LIFE, my second season episode of MASTERS OF HORROR. Derek’s been getting a lot of genre press lately because he’s the new Jason in FRIDAY THE 13TH, which was written by a few buddies of mine, Mark Swift and Damien Shannon. I ran into Mark outside the event, where he told me he’d just seen the first cut of the film the night before, and he couldn’t have seemed any happier about it. Derek was equally enthusiastic about what he think they’ve made, and I wish I’d had a little longer to talk to him about it. By the time the EyeGore Awards ended, though, my wife was ready to hit the park and see as much of it as she could.

This year, they set up four major mazes, each one tied to a different film, as well as the Terror Tram route and several of the regular attractions that have been converted. We went to the front of the park to meet my sister-in-law, the lovely Lorena, who joined us as we started with a maze based on THE STRANGERS. This was probably the weakest of the mazes overall, especially since there’s not much you can do with the characters in THE STRANGERS besides have them stand around silently with knives. I’m glad we did that one first, actually, because it set the bar low.

Next up was the FRIDAY THE 13th maze, and I’ll give them credit for not skimping on the gore. It’s always fun to watch people walk through these mazes, trying to act like they’re not scared. If they’re done well, and the ones at Universal are ingenious in the way they’re laid out, they pretty much force you into these crazy bottlenecks where you know something’s going to happen, but you don’t know when, and no matter how cool you try and play it, chances are something’s going to startle a reaction out of you at some point. My favorite of the tableaux that had been set up was a Volkswagen that was stalled out, with a crying, screaming girl inside begging each person who walked by to help her while Jason walked around the car, trying to find a way in. Having live performers in each scene makes it genuinely unsettling at times.

There was a guy walking through in front of us who spent the whole time pointing into each room before walking in. “I see you! I know you’re gonna jump out from right there! You’re not hiding, dude! I can totally tell that’s the door!” He was trying to look cool for his girlfriend.

That only made it fifty times better when, just as we were leaving the maze at the end, a door flew open and Jason charged the guy, machete up. The little girly scream he let out as he threw his girlfriend into Jason’s path so he could run was funnier than any comedy I saw from Hollywood this year.

We made our way towards the Starway, a giant four-part escalator to the lower half of the park. There were free-roaming costumed monsters and killers all over the park, and the most unnerving of them were these pig-headed chainsaw freaks who felt free to intimidate everyone who dared walk near them. Other guys had been given devices to wear on their hands so they could slide across the pavement and cause sparks to fly. My wife and sister-in-law were both freaked out the whole way through the park as various guys jumped out at us over and over.

Downstairs, they had set up the best of the mazes, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre one, and it had the longest line of the night. It was upsetting in all the right ways. As you walked in, you were greeted by a greasy redneck in a wheelchair who sneered at each person. “You’re dead. You’re dead and you don’t even know it, you turds.” Each room took you through a kitchen or a dining room, someplace where meat was either being prepared or served, and I’m not sure what they were using, but there was a stink to the place that seemed authentic. The sets were so detailed and so well-dressed that I found the dining room really difficult to step into. I’ve seen bad shit happen in that dining room, damn it. At their best, these types of attractions should make you feel like you’re stepping into a shared nightmare. Obviously, you’re meant to have fun, but if it’s not scaring you a bit, it’s not working.

After that, we rode the Jurassic Park and the Mummy rides a few times. The Jurassic Park water ride in particular is a lot better at night. It makes the animatronics more effective when you’re outside, and when you’re inside, it’s actually sort of scary when the raptor puppets or the T-Rex pop out at you. I went looking for the tram and realized that it’s not on the lower level anymore. Shows how long ago I worked there and how long it’s been since I’ve taken the tram ride. They’ve got a whole different loading area that they built for it at least a decade ago, so we headed back upstairs so we could find it.

I was surprised by how little actual tram is involved in the tram ride, but it doesn’t matter. It was probably the highlight of the evening for all of us. The premise is that your tram “breaks down” a few minutes after it starts, and you’re told you need to get out and walk. They drop you off by the still-standing sets for Ron Howard’s GRINCH (a nightmare by itself for most film fans), but the whole way out there, you’re watching a film about the historical idea of nightmares and, specifically, Wes Craven’s NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series. As soon as you walk into the GRINCH sets, things get really fucking strange, really fucking fast. Demented bunny people and mutant brides surge at you from all directions, and there’s nothing typical about the way things unfold. We followed a path up a hill where all the bushes have hidden speakers, with sounds of growling and hissing, then around to a the parking lot of the Bates Motel, where you have a great view of the Psycho house behind it. I don’t care if the set’s not in the same place it used to stand... it’s still a hell of a sight to see that house while you’re standing by the manager’s office. We walked around to a smaller version of the Texas Chainsaw maze, where Leatherface lunged out at us from behind hanging sides of beef, then right by the front of the Psycho house.

The last major part of the walk was the most impressive in terms of overall immersion. You remember the plane crash in Speilberg’s WAR OF THE WORLDS? Well, they kept all that stuff, and they’ve set it up for the tram tour, and you end up walking through this debris and the torn up neighborhood street where it all “landed,” and it really does work. Here’s where the Wes Craven connection was played up the most, since the street was supposed to be Elm Street, and you had strange surreal images playing out in windows or on the street around you, mixed in with the plane wreckage and all sorts of carnage from the crash.

Finally, it was back to the tram, and then back to the drop-off. On the way, they played the teaser trailer for THE WOLF MAN for the crowd, and it seemed to go over pretty well. It’s a shorter, tamer version of what they showed at Comic Con this year, but it’s an effective trailer, and I really am eager to see Benicio Del Toro’s work in the finished film. He looks like he went for it in the role, and it’s not often we see a world-class actor like him playing a monster in a movie like this.

The last maze we went through was the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET maze, and it recreated many of the more bizarre moments from the films, like Freddy force-feeding the girl till she ruptures or the big weird WormFreddy eating the girl on the bed. I don’t think this maze was particularly scary, but it was very impressive on a design level, and very strange. It’s probably also at least in part because four of those mazes in one evening dulls the effect a bit. You get used to having people pop out at you after a while.

The final event of the evening we saw before leaving was what normally plays as the WATERWORLD stunt show. For Halloween, it’s been renamed the SlaughterWorld show, and it’s the most adult thing in the park. Raunchy, incredibly violent, and filled with puerile humor, it’s the regular stunt show as if staged in an S&M club with actual snuff onstage. Heads blow up, gallons of blood are spilled, and lots of hot bodies, both male and female, disrobe and run around the elaborate sets while soaking wet.

The event’s come a long way from when I worked there, and it was a genuine pleasure, a nice way to kick off this month. If you’re in LA, I recommend it as a great Halloween evening out. It runs the 10th, 11th, 17-19, 24-26, and then the 30th, the 31st, and November 1st. You can find out more at the official site if you’re interested.

Thanks to Universal for having us out to the event.

Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles