An article concerning Halloween Horror Nights VIII written by Cory Lancaster from the Orlando Sentinel:
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The path through the S.S. Frightanic is only 520 feet long, a fact that may comfort visitors when they're deep inside the haunted house at Halloween Horror Nights and start running and screaming for the exit.
The Frightanic ghost ship serves as the setting for two of the five haunted mazes that await visitors to the annual fear-fest at Universal Studios Florida, which begins today and runs through Oct. 31.
Universal knows few things spook quite like a haunted house. That's why Universal designers work almost year-round to create the scary sets, props, music and costumes for the mazes.
This year, the park has added two more haunted houses, offering five instead of three. There are the two routes through the ghost ship. Another takes visitors through Hell's High, a high school where the filming of a horror movie turns deadly. And two wind through the Museum of Horror, where classic horrors such as Frankenstein and the Bates Motel await.
"We sit in a room for months and say, 'What scares people?"' says Michael Roddy, a Universal show director. "We want you to feel trapped in a horror story."
For those who haven't been indoctrinated, Halloween Horror Nights begin after the theme park closes and require a separate ticket. For 19 nights, visitors can see a parade of the dead, watch three nightly horror shows, mingle with hundreds of ghoulish characters in the park and ride the park's major attractions.
This year's theme is Primal Scream. Visitors will get bombarded by those frights that never seem to loosen their grip on people's psyches - dentists and insects and monsters and severed body parts and death.
Returning for the eighth annual event will be many of Universal's most chilling characters. The Rat Lady will be there with furry rodents crawling all over her body. So will the Chain Saw Drill Team, men and women who wander the park and the haunted houses, dripping in blood and revving their saws.
"Everything that happens to you happens without you being touched," Universal spokesman Tom Schroder reassures. "Hands never go on a guest."
But what about a chain-saw blade? Or rising water in a sinking ghost ship?
Universal designers have talked about making a ghost ship for years. With the recent popularity of Titanic, this year seemed like a perfect time, said Jason Surrell, a manager of show concepts and scripts for Halloween Horror Nights.
According to the story line, the Frightanic has just docked in San Francisco after a bizarre voyage to Hawaii in which the ship passed through another dimension and returned in a state of perpetual decay.
"It's like the Titanic gone bad, if that could have gotten any worse," Surrell said.
Inside, lights flicker and water sprays, accompanied by the sounds of creaking metal, as if the ship is sinking. Narrow corridors with low ceilings empty into rooms of horror. In the office of the ship's dentist, a corpse is sprawled in the chair, his teeth drilled so painfully that the smell of burned tooth enamel lingers in the air.
Rotting bodies of crew members lie on bunks in the ship's quarters. In the smoking room, the chandelier and ceiling sway back and forth, evoking feelings of seasickness.
Roaming through the ship are 80 actors - in costumes and makeup as the carnage crew and dead passengers - trained to spring on visitors when they least expect it.
A soft carpet moves underfoot. The level of the floor changes height. The path ahead veers off in confusing directions. Those tricks are designed to distract visitors momentarily and then, while they're disoriented, rush at them with a big scare.
"All it takes is one second of not paying attention and we get you," boasts Roddy, the show director.
It probably sounds like too much anxiety for most people. But the teenagers, college students and adults who visit Halloween Horror Nights year after year have come to expect only the best in scare-tactics, the designers say.
Universal, for instance, operates its own prosthetics lab where workers make bloody limbs, decomposed skulls and severed human torsos. Dozens of disgusting scents, including the burning tooth enamel and rotting flesh, are ordered from a New York perfumery.
Universal hires more than 500 actors and workers for the event. Construction on the haunted houses began months ago, and rehearsals have been under way for weeks.
It's a lot of time and energy to scare the pants off people.