Universal Studios Hollywood
Halloween Horror Nights 2011 Report
Sept. 27, 2011
After the Terror Tram, we decided to do Wolfman: The Curse of Talbot Hall. This all goes down in the "Chamber of Horrors" year-round walkthrough, and in my limited experience, the HHN mazes here usually don't do much to the existing assets other than add some more Scareactors. That was pretty much the case again, but to be fair, the gothic Chamber of Horrors suits this classic Universal movie monster theme adequately as is. Plussing things slightly, the "Frankenstein's Lab" space was completely strobe-lit and that was wicked. And there were lots of extra Scareactors, most of them in impressive werewolf masks. I wasn't too taken with the Benecio Del Toro movie ("Let the beast RUN FREE!"), but this maze was good fun.
The rest of the mazes were so good, each in their own way, I can't really rank them in any clear order. They all rock extremely hard and they should all be experienced, no matter how long you must wait for them.
If you've seen House of 1,000 Corpses and you dug it, then you will be highly entertained by this maze. (For the record, I'm a fan, and love The Devil's Rejects even more.) Did it really need any "3D?" Probably not, but that's always my position. Maybe if I had 20-20 vision...
Oh, to be able to take home this enormous piece of exterior set decoration. Beautiful. And your favorite characters are all here: Baby, Otis, Mother Firefly and...
Doctor Satan, "the evil master surgeon who believed he could create a race of super-humans!" I do think seeing the film before going through this maze would be helpful to appreciate the goings-on. That said, you'll be plenty freaked out regardless. Some of the gore make-up in here is extremely gooey and grotesque, just the way I like it. And "Otis" got up in my face in a very threatening manner. I wish there was a smidgen more of Mr. Zombie's uniquely wacky, garish, redneck horror sensibility in this one, but it was a blast. Here's a request for next year: a "Haunted World of El Superbeasto" maze!
Alice Cooper: Welcome To My Nightmare is inspired by songs from the legendary rocker and if you know the lyrics, this maze will be a very rich experience (I got a chuckle out of the "billion dollar babies"). But even if you don't, you'll still enjoy the surreal trip through various scenes of nightmarish imagery and some truly stomach-churning gore. Cold Ethyl is one very hot mess, and a room full of insect illustrations and stuffed snakes in terrariums creeped me out a ton. There were plenty of jolting scares, but Welcome also chills with macabre dread.
Because it is a disjointed series of unrelated scenes, the maze did not hold together quite as well as some of the others. But I got plenty scared and repulsed in here. Again, production values were through the roof.
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