An article concerning Halloween Horror Nights IX written by Maggie Gunther from the Central Florida Future:
Transcription[]
The other night I was walking down the street in New York City with my friend when suddenly a crazed zombie with a chainsaw started chasing us! We jumped with fright and looked around to see the entire street full of zombies and ghouls, waiting to pop out of the shadows and scare us!
Though this may seem odd to you, it was just what we wanted. We were at Universal Studios, and it was terrifying business as usual at Halloween Horror Nights IX "The Last Gasp",
This year's tribute to Halloween is by far the best Halloween Horror Nights ever, with five new haunted mazes and spectacular live entertainment.
The night of Saturday, October 2, was the second of the series of Halloween Horror nights that run in October. Opening weekend had some big-name bands, including Virgos Merlot, Citizen King, and Tonic on October 1, and Fuel and Dishwalla that played on Oct. 2.
The haunted mazes came into focus this year with five original concepts, including "Psycho", "Through the Mind of Norman Bates", "Insanity", "The Mummy", "Doomsday", and Florida's first 3-D haunted maze, "Creature Features".
College Press Members from all over Florida, including myself, were able to take a special tour of the "Psycho" maze on Oct. 2 with T.J. Mannarino, as Scenic Designer for Halloween Horror Nights and Universal's Mardi Gras Celebration. Mannarino works in all aspects of the design of the haunted mazes. If you do not run like I did, you may notice through the "Doomsday" maze that the graffiti on the walls bears T.J'.s name.
The Scenic Designers pulled out all the stops this year with the "Psycho" maze. The concept of the maze was not what you would immediately think of when you picture themes from Alfred Hitchcock's classic scare-flick: Psycho. Instead of sticking to a common theme from the movie such as the Bates Motel, you are going inside the mind of Norman Bates.
The maze begins in an asylum. The patients are on the loose. It begins in the same room that the "Insanity" maze starts off in. You move on through corridors and rooms filled with the crazed thoughts of Norman Bates. The rooms represent his memories.
They include thoughts of his victims (you should note that his victims are in the state that he left them in), inside his brain, his mother's closet, and the most frightening of all: inside the shower from Psycho. During the day, the shower room was startling, but at night it was sheer terror.
Mannarino was very proud of the work he and the other Scenic Designers put into the haunted mazes. He told us that in the five mazes there are over 80 rooms, each with their own unique themes. He explained that conceiving the scares in the mazes is based psychology. Each of the mazes work hard to play with your perceptions and they attempt to catch you off guard and scare the pants off of you.
Mannarino said that the designers use many different types of scare tactics so that everyone will be frightened in some way. He said that if you ask people what scared them, they come up with different responses. Because what scares people varies, the designers work very hard to provide customers with many different kinds of scares.
The mazes had quite different themes. "Insanity" tries to give you an idea of what it is like to be insane. You are forced to pick between mirrored corridors, and if you take too long to decide, a scare-actor will come along and make the decision for you. "Doomsday" was a millennial scare that places you in New York City at the year 2000. "Doomsday" is located near "The Mummy", which was inspired by Universal's summer hit movie (and our homecoming feature) The Mummy. It takes a less traditional approach to its theme and puts you in the mummy's embalming room.
The final maze is the much-hyped "Creature Feature". This maze is in 3-D. The maze was decent, with creeps such as Halloween's Michael Myers chasing you, but it is very overrated. If you only have time for four of the five houses, skip this one.
The 3-D glasses do more to disorient you than make the maze scary. To say that this is not a good maze is wrong, however, it just is not 3-D in the sense that one would think. It does not compare to other 3-D attractions such as "Captain EO", the old EPCOT 3-D or "Terminator 3-D" from Universal.
Fuel rocked the audience. They performed their song "Bittersweet" virile rock energy. When they took the stage, lead singer Brett Scallions mused. They got the two ugliest bands they could find to play Halloween Horror Nights, yet there was nothing ugly about either band's performances.
Dishwalla gave an awesome performance, with some catchy new material and their immensely popular hit song of a few years ago: "Counting Blue Cars". The audience loved them, and they made a fan out of me with their raging performance of Soft Cell's '80s favorite, "Tainted Love".
The "Festival of the Dead Parade" is a good choice to snag some Mardi Gras-style bead necklaces and candy.
The parade comes along several times each nigh so there are many opportunities to collect the all-important beads for your rear view mirror.
Halloween Horror Nights also has other live shows such as "Deadly D'Illusions", a magic and illusion show, "Bill and Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure VIII" romp through time with those excellent dudes, Bill and Ted, Tricks or Treats: Dead Man's Party heavy metal band of monsters, and "Midway of the Bizarre" sinister sideshow carnival.
If you liked Halloween Horror Nights last year, or are thinking about attending this year, you will love it. It is a fun and frightful ride that I would take again and again. For the rest of the month of October, it will run on the 14-17 and 21-31.
The regular price of tickets is $27.95 plus tax; however reduced-price tickets are available in the Student Union for UCF students. Halloween Horror Nights IX: Be there and be scared.