Universal parks take a “Shining” to Halloween events

After Jack Torrance terrorized me, chopping his way through doors in the creepy Overlook hotel and stalking me as well as his poor son, Danny, in its hallways, I felt a sense of relief and a tinge of joy when he got his comeuppance. There he was, ax in hand, frozen amid the snowy hedges in the hotel's maze. But when I passed a ghostly bartender fixing drinks in the Gold Room, witnessed blood oozing out of the elevators, and saw the soulless eyes of the Grady twins fixate on me, I began to understand how the possessed inn could cause Torrance to go stir crazy — or just plain crazy.

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That's the genius of Halloween Horror Nights, which is running on select evenings through November 4 at Universal Studios Florida (sister park Universal Studios Hollywood has its own HHN event through October 31). Rather than passively watch scary films such as Stanley Kubrick's 1980 tour de force, The Shining, visitors become characters in carefully reconstructed sets from the movies. There's no hiding behind a bucket of popcorn. When Torrance threatens to huff and puff and blow the house in (Jack Nicholson's distinctive dialogue from the movie is piped in), guests know they had best hightail it out of the Overlook

The Shining is the best of the nine houses presented at this year's Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando. With its lavishly detailed scenes and doting references to the source material, the maze pays homage to the film in grand style. But with its menacing characters, it sets a foreboding tone that sends tingles down the spines of those who dare to enter.

"In the popular zeitgeist, The Shining is one of the hallmarks of horror," says Patrick Braillard, a creative development show director at Universal. "As fans, it's a treat for us to be able to play inside that world."

Another world Braillard and his team got to play in is the television anthology series, American Horror Story. A house dedicated to the show is presented in three acts and covers three seasons: Asylum, Coven, and Roanoke. With 14 scenes, it is the event's longest maze. Like The Shining, AHS boasts impressive sets and production values.

"If you've seen the show, you're going to constantly be in a state of 'look at that,' " Braillard says. "And if you've never seen the show at all, you're just going to get scared."

Put me in the latter category. In one of the maze's more disturbing scenes, a character tenderly combs the hair of a life-sized doll and then lashes out at guests in fits of rage. Set in a nursery, the unmistakable scent of baby powder lingers in the air. That's part of the multisensory assault Universal takes in designing its Halloween attractions. Among other odors represented at the event, there is the pungent smell of burning flesh. HHN is decidedly not for the squeamish.

Jigsaw, the game-loving sadist from the Saw films, invites visitors to become one of his victims and try to make it through his maze. There are characters attempting to escape traps by — squeamish alert — amputating their own limbs. The Horrors of Blumhouse maze includes scenes from three of the production company's horror franchises: Sinister, The Purge, and Insidious. Comedy, albeit in a sick and twisted form, mixes with horror in the maze based on the television show, Ash vs Evil Dead.

Universal's HHN event in Florida is the largest, most elaborate, and arguably the best theme park Halloween event in the country. In addition to using popular movies and television shows for inspiration, there are homegrown haunts as well. The four original houses really shine.

The best of the bunch is Dead Waters, which takes guests to the New Orleans bayou for a confrontation with the Voodoo Queen and her minions. The set design, which includes a half-sunken riverboat, is stunning. When brutish scarecrows weren't attacking me to defend their depression-era farm, crows were pooping on me (how's that for multisensory immersion?) in Scarecrow: The Reaping. Hive features old-school, Nosferatu-like vampires, and The Fallen invokes a gothic vibe with winged creatures looming in its crumbling cathedral. While they are sometimes easy to miss, acrobatic characters in The Fallen's rafters lunge at guests from above.

The event's scare zones, which are set up throughout the park's streets, are especially good this year. Retro aliens straight out of a schlocky 1950s B movie cause hilarious havoc in Invasion. In the Trick 'R Treat zone, a sea of handcrafted, glowing pumpkins illuminate the trees, while foreboding characters from the film seek candy for their Halloween baskets from panicky guests. The Purge, which has become a staple at HHN, returns for more scare zone anarchy.

Universal's Hollywood event also has mazes based on The Shining, American Horror Story, Ash vs Evil Dead, Saw, and Insidious. The vehicles used for the park's famous Studio Tour are rebranded as Terror Tram for HHN. Visitors brave enough to board the tram and wander the studio's backlot encounter four iconic Titans of Terror: Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Freddy Krueger of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Chucky from Child's Play, and Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th infamy.