Last night marked the first time since 1993 that I attended Universal Halloween Horror Nights. My girlfriend hadn't been since 1999. We don't even have a legitimate excuse for not going more often, and after last night we've decided that we won't be missing it again. To backtrack a little bit, in 1993 I was 16 years old. Wow. My memories of that night are pretty vague, but key things I remember are a People Under the Stairs walkthrough, An American Werewolf in London werewolf FX show, Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Movies (Birds 3D and Psycho shower scene reenactment), Bill & Ted (which is still a thing), and a hot girl running concession. It was a lot of fun, being that age especially, but is just no comparison for what Halloween Horror Nights is now. This year was a complete blast from when you walk in through the entrance from the moment you leave the park. We didn't have time for any rides, and that was okay because we were mainly there for the houses. Unfortunately, the place was packed as hell, so we didn't get to hit up the exclusive houses (La Llorona, Havoc, and Afterlife), but the ones we did hit were mostly freaking awesome. Now that that's out of the way, it's recap time!
Spoilers Throughout
- If you look closely at this pic, you'll notice that it's two images I spliced together to give more of a panoramic feel of the entrance. It's not perfect, the color and lighting are little off from the left side of the image to the right, but I did my best!
So, as I said, the minute you walk through this section and then hand over your ticket, it's pretty much full on awesome. Almost the entire park is made up in Walking Dead fashion. We walked in and the first thing we saw was the little girl from Season 1/Episode 1 carrying her teddy bear. Zombies (or Walkers if you wanna be all fanboy about it) were everywhere. Not so much scary is it is awesome. Though, if I said it doesn't get a little unsettling at times, I'd be lying. They walk right up to you; some sniff at you, some come up calmly and then lunge towards you. It's pretty freaky. For me, one of the absolute best aspects of the TV series is the music. I think it's simply brilliant. So it's needless to say that it feels awesome to walk around the set-dressed streets of Universal hearing the main theme, as well as other familiar tunes. Being a fan of the show, comics, and Telltale games, I was pretty much in horror heaven.
So after my lady and I made it through our first mess of the undead, we got our drink on. The first beverage we got was Dead Walker, which consisted of Rum, Full Throttle, with Orange and/or Pineapple Juice. I can't really remember, but it was pretty weak. They fill your glass with ice unless you specify otherwise. We slammed that shit and headed to another bar section. Met a bartender named Dave who was the absolute shit, and got some Jack and Coke, light on ice and coke, heavy on Jack. It ruled. Then we headed for The Evil Dead.
You're not really allowed to take pics inside of the walkthroughs, so the following pictures are from the Halloween Horror Nights Website.
Even if you aren't a fan of The Evil Dead remake, this is one hell of a badass walkthrough. These above pictures are really just a small taste of how awesome it is. Candarian Demon audio playing in the background, Abomination Mia hiding in corners, Eric reading the passages in a replica room of the cabin, it's just straight up awesome. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't scream out and grasp on to my rather brave girlfriend. It was good damn time.
Then it was time for another Jack and Coke and An American Werewolf in London!
We were feeling pretty good at this point, thanks to Dave's awesome drinks. I think the wait time said 45 minutes. It felt about 10. Making it more awesome were the pictures we managed to get of a brightly lit moon coming out of the clouds and shining the night above us.
Talk about really putting you in the mood. It was perfect.
Whoa, how'd this get in here!? DRUNK.
Sorry ladies, I'm taken.
So, we got up to the front door and the dude there told us we could take pictures inside as long as we didn't use flash. I was surprised but excited. Two pics in and we got told otherwise. It's all good, I understand why 'n all. Either way, I am pleased with the two pics we got...
Freakin incredible. The following pics are from the Halloween Horror Nights Website.
Needless to say, this walkthrough was straight-up incredible. You go through pretty much every entirely awesome horror aspect of the movie, from the Slaughtered Lamb to Piccadilly Circus. A few awesome reenactment scenes from the movie, Undead Jack lunging out at you in the porno theater, with audio from great moments of the film. It's a seriously good job, and if you grew up loving the movie like I did, it will be impossible not to smile (and scream) the whole way. Loved it.
At this point, the night was tops, but I figured no other walkthrough would do what An American Werewolf did. I was wrong.
Continued HERE
