When it comes to the annual Halloween Horror Nights celebrations at Universal Studios Hollywood and Orlando, you can typically expect a good mix of original ideas turned into mazes, presented alongside haunts based on iconic horror films. In previous years, the event had mazes featuring practically every horror franchise imaginable, but there’s one that keeps happening over and over: John Carpenter’s Halloween.
Over the years, nine different mazes have been centered on the Halloween films, including a number of takes on the original story. Yet, once again, the first Halloween film is the basis for mazes on both coasts in 2022. Given that Horror Nights often has repeat customers year after year after year, it made us wonder how, exactly, those visiting the parks haven’t tired of seeing Michael Myers’ story told time and again. As it turns out, though, even a movie from 1978 like the original Halloween can still be interpreted in all new ways that the creative teams at theme parks haven’t done in the past.
“We’ve done the movie before, but every time you experience it, it can be a completely different thing,” senior show director Matt Flood told GameSpot. “And that’s true for really any house that we have. Every time you go through it you can get a little bit of a different scare from here and there. But because this is this iconic slasher film, to live it again and again and again, is also really cool.”
And thankfully, with so many previous Halloween mazes, there is plenty of reference material for the team to look back on. According to senior manager of show direction Lora Sauls, “The first thing we did was look at our house that we did several years ago. It was a great haunted house for us… But also we look at the film again. We really kind of dissect that film again. We’ve all seen it hundreds of times, but we look at it differently with a new eye. I think we all brought something new to it this year. I looked at it differently this year.”
