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09-15-2015, 05:49 PM
Last week, John Murdy led a small group of press on a preview tour of two new mazes, "Halloween: Michael Myers Comes Home," and "Insidious: Return to the Further," undergoing final preparations to debut September 18 at Universal Studios Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights.
During the afternoon tour, Halloween Horror Nights' widely regarded sets were illuminated by bright sunlight. Though intended for dusk, the detailed sets withstood the afternoon glare; many scenes conveyed the impression of being in a real house. Nearly every element of each scene was there for a purpose; nothing seemed lacking in intentionality.
Working From Movies
Most Horror Nights mazes are inspired by movies or television shows. Some maze sets closely mimic specific movie sets, conveying the feeling of stepping into a movie; others are more loosely inspired by the film's emotive character. Overall, the mazes are designed to convey selected aspects of the tenor of a movie or series.
Murdy and his art director, Chris Williams, begin by meeting with intellectual property owners and representatives, whom they work with throughout the design process. Some wish to be highly involved; others trust the Horror Nights designers to remain true to the spirit of their inspirational source. For instance, film director Guillermo del Toro zealously helped with Crimson Peak: Maze of Madness, giving Murdy many suggestions.
After conceiving and researching a maze theme, Murdy and Williams work together in their own offices. "We watch these movies endlessly, so we don't miss anything," Murdy stated. In discussing how to incorporate scenes from the movie, they often exchange initial design ideas via Post-it notes.
When creating mazes based on movies being produced, they'll sometimes change their maze designs to reflect alterations in the movie.
Murdy writes an elaborate 100-page treatment for each maze nearing completion. "The point of that is to capture every single detail for all of the hundreds--or thousands--of people that work on Horror Nights," he explained. "Every audio cue, what the lighting's doing, every single prop is identified in the treatment. And then I do a ton of research."
Murdy's enthusiastic devotion to his work and his wholehearted desire to communicate its intricacies were apparent throughout the tour. Despite their unfinished appearance, we envisioned complete mazes as he annotated the walkthroughs, describing actors' positions and explaining the mechanics of their scares.
Halloween: Michael Myers Comes Home
A Halloween-themed maze appeared at Horror Nights in 2009. This year's maze, based primarily on John Carpenter's original 1978 movie, differs in the way that it highlights Michael Myers' paranormal qualities.
"He's very much a slow burn," Murdy said of the main character. "He almost acts like a ghost in the movie--he's there, he's gone." He compared Myers to the shark in Jaws in that that he acts like a killing machine, lacking any emotion. The maze begins and ends in the Myers house and features iconic murders from the movie.
"We wanted to treat it more like a ghost house," he said. The façade is modeled after a dilapidated, abandoned version of the Myers' house. Visitors waiting in line will hear the movie's iconic theme music and see video projections of a shadowy Judy in an upper window, as well as Dr. Loomis, whose voice narrates the maze interior.
Inside the foyer, the first paranormal transition occurs with Sheriff Brackett's voice declaring, "Everyone in Haddonfield thinks this house is haunted." Thunder and lightning reveal the static figure of young Michael, dressed in a clown costume at the top of the stairs, having just murdered his sister.
The first scare is around the corner. Visitors enter a hallway and see Michael appear as a ghost behind a window. The first live performer (or "scareactor," in Horror Nights parlance) is behind what Murdy called a 50/50 mirror: lit from within, it's transparent enough to see inside; lit from outside, it's opaque and looks like a mirror. Accompanied by a shattered glass effect, the performer may also open the window and appear to attack visitors. Murdy classifies this as a "boo scare," meaning that it is based on an element of surprise and shock, as opposed to more theatrical scares which are carefully choreographed and typically involve more than one character.
Actors often control the sound and lighting effects accompanying their scares. According to Murdy, the maze utilizes every music cue from the Carpenter movie. Music and sound effects were choreographed for every scene. Multichannel audio is recorded in a sound studio, and mixed on site as for a movie.
"There are these moments in the film where they don't show you what they're talking about," Murdy declared as we entered the next scene. Movie dialogue implying that Michael Myers was eating a dog is explicitly reified as a gory gutted canine. "You don't see that in the film; but you get to see that in our maze."
The same scene features Myers' shrine to his sister Judith. A hidden door opens for another "boo scare."
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John Murdy opens a secret compartment that will conceal an actor. On the floor nearby lies the gutted dog.
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Michael Myers' shrine to his sister Judith. He scratched out her eyes in the photos because he felt so guilty for having murdered her that he couldn't stand to look at them.
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A custom-cut jack o'lantern in the shrine room.
Outside, digitally printed foliage creates the effect of hedges. Between them, Michael appears and then vanishes in a "Pepper's Ghost" illusion. "It's just another way to deliver the almost paranormal quality of Michael," said Murdy.
Trick or treaters dressed as a pumpkin, witch and skull from Season of the Witch will be played by little people. "What's funny about Season of the Witch is that there's elements of it that have become very iconic for fans of Halloween," Murdy explained. So, even though the maze is based on the original Halloween movie, they put in Season of the Witch "Easter eggs" for fans.
"We're trying to give the sense of Halloween night, trick or treaters out so there's not just Michael Myers everywhere you go."
Michael Myers appears 15 times throughout the maze. Some of the characters for choreographed scenes are double-cast for 30 minutes of acting, followed by a 30 minute break; whereas many of the "boo scare" actors are trained for 4 or 5 scenes on a "swing system" so that fewer actors are needed as backups during breaks. Murdy trains all of the scareactors himself.
Next is the 1970's kitchen scene where Bob gets impaled on a cupboard. Audio and video will distract guests to heighten the scare: Michael will be silhouetted behind a window; the actor controls his own audio and lighting cues. A phone will ring on its own channel endlessly. That scene features about seven audio channels.
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The period 1970's kitchen where Bob will be impaled.
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In the kitchen scene, Michael will appear as a ghastly silhouette in the window.
"Now we're heading into real 70's ugliness," Murdy declared as we left the kitchen. Set dressers were sent to swap meets and antique stores to find period-appropriate décor. Because of copyright laws, pictures found on the Internet can't be used; so photos adorning the walls are mostly personal photos belonging to members of the prop crew.
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Judith Myers' body.
The next few scenes are choreographed murder re-enactments. A strangulation scene will be enacted by an actor playing Michael with a sheet over his head, and an actress wearing a necklace resembling a phone cord. This choreography will be repeated every ten seconds on what Murdy calls a "scare cycle." Also notable was a passageway with sheets blowing in the wind, which Murdy jokingly referred to as "free animation."
As we re-entered the Myers house near the end of the maze, Murdy told us that various areas of the maze will be scent-infused: pumpkins for the jack o' lanterns, for instance; decomposing flesh for the dead dog.
In the final choreographed scare, occurring at 5-second intervals with actors lip-synching to looped audio, Dr. Loomis will shoot Michael, who will lunge at visitors passing through.
The most impressive scene of the maze is an octagonal room of mirrored walls. Several Michael Myers dummies in the center of the room are endlessly duplicated in the mirror reflections. Three different performers playing Michael will be hiding. Some will pose like statues and will come to life; others will hide in secret compartments behind mirrors.
"This isn't in the movie at all, this is just our homage to the idea that you can't kill the boogeyman; the boogeyman is everywhere," Murdy explained. "It's going to look like he's everywhere." This room was actually inspired by a scene in Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai.
Their desired effect was difficult to envision. To study possible stratagems before creating the set, he and Williams built a small model, followed by a full scale mock-up.
"It's so complicated, because you also have to think about the guests being able to navigate this space and actually walk through it," he said. Endless reflections of dummies make passage confusing. In the end, lighting will indicate the correct path.
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Two scenes from the mirrored room finale. All dummies will eventually be dressed as Michael Myers.
As we exited the maze, Murdy showed us a secret door camouflaged behind a mirror. An internal handle will enable an actor to pop out for the final scare. Murdy intimated the psychology of his finale: uncertainty as to whether or not the maze is over leads to a culmination of fright. Visitors are likely to think that the recreation of the movie's final scene, with Loomis shooting Michael, is the maze finale. Yet the maze goes on and ends in the mirror room. Then, the actor popping out of the mirror is the post-climax scare.
"It's like horror movies--'It's over, no it's not; it's over, no, it's not,'" Murdy concluded.
Insidious: Return to the Further
An Insidious-themed maze in 2013 was one of Horror Nights' highest rated mazes.
"We didn't want to rest on our laurels, but we wanted to revisit this maze. Even in this case, we had the façade as the Lambert house last time ... but everywhere we went, we wanted to see, what can we do different, what can we tweak? One of the simplest things we wanted to tweak with the outside of the maze was to start the whole thing like you're in the Further."
In the movie, the signature of the Further is low-lying fog. Dry ice is necessary to create such an effect, Murdy said.
"We challenged our special effects crew to R and D a new way of looking at dry ice. And that's what you see in these little hoses tucked away back here--" he pointed to small black hoses near the ground. "We're going to try to do low lying fog throughout this maze." Four extra rooms were built just to house all the equipment for the fog, which will be piped to different parts of the maze.
Before entering, visitors will encounter Tucker and Specs, the paranormal investigators from the film. They will be played by the same performers as in 2013. Their scripted interaction with guests will set up the idea that the house they're about to enter is haunted.
Leigh Whannell, who wrote Insidious and worked with Murdy on the maze, felt strongly that there should be no scares in the first scene. The beginning of Insidious itself is mundane in order to belie the movie's scares. Murdy heeded his suggestion, but added a window in which the Black Bride, a signature spirit from the film, lights up a "paranormal moment" to inaugurate an eerie atmosphere.
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John Murdy introduces Insidious. The Black Bride will appear in the mirror to the right.
Dalton's bedroom is next, suggesting his spirit entering the Further when he goes into a coma. It features printouts of the creepy artwork in the film.
In this scene, Murdy and Williams experimented with tying video in with the performer's scare. An actor hiding in a niche in the wall will push a trigger that will cause the Red Demon (another of the movie's villains) to walk across the wall.
"It's a different thing that we've never done before," Murdy said. Preparing the effect involved pre-recording a film of the red demon crawling in place; and photographing the wall under show lighting so that the photo could be projected back onto the real wall.
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Dalton's bedroom séance scene. The Red Demon will appear to walk across the wall behind his bed.
The following corridor also features an interesting technological experiment in which walls will suddenly vanish and visitors will find themselves in the Further. Photos printed on perforated metal walls resemble a hallway, complete with framed pictures and grandfather clock. A change in lighting will cause the walls to become invisible and the hallway to transform into the movie's signature corridor of glowing candelabras.
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A close-up of the perforated wall in the disappearing hallway. When the lighting changes, the printed picture will vanish to reveal candelabras.
The maze takes guests through all three movies in the Insidious series. In the maze, red doors separate each movie; passing through each of them symbolizes passage into the subsequent movie.
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John Murdy demonstrates what the actor will do in the strangulation scene from the end of the first Insidious film. "Poor Lin, I'm sure she'll be here. She comes every year," he said of actress Lin Shaye, upon whom the dummy is modeled.
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Parker Crane, dressed as a girl in his childhood bedroom.
Multitudes of carefully engineered lights were suspended above. Black papers were slit and torn around the lights to customize the beam size and direction.
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Black paper is attached to lights to control beam direction and intensity.
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Visitors will have to navigate several bodies hanging upside down in this closet.
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Spirits from the Further.
A séance room full of occult furnishings is the final scene, and re-creates the finale of Insidious 3.
"If you look at the film, this is pretty spot on," Murdy declared of his re-creation. In the final scene, all three major demons from the movie are encountered.
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A scene from the séance room finale.
Horror Industry
Murdy's love of horror originated around the age of four, when he gave his mother a card that said "Happy Mummies' Day," featuring his drawing of a mummy. Later, his interest in the macabre led him to pursue an education in theater and eventually to design Universal Studios rides, including "Revenge of the Mummy."
During his tenure as creative director since 2006, Halloween Horror Nights has expanded from seven to 25 nights. The number of mazes has increased from one and a half to six. In conjunction with the event's increased popularity, Murdy himself has become something of a celebrity.
His iconic status was apprehensible in his anecdotes; he spoke equally earnestly of working with celebrities and of interacting with his own fans. Horror Nights is so popular among film and music industry luminaries that Murdy frequently gets calls from filmmakers, directors, producers, and stars wanting to be included in the event.
"Horror goes through genres, and it goes through cycles," he reflected. He tries to anticipate horror industry trends and factor them into designs. He feels that currently, much of the best creative work is being done in television. "If you look at horror movies, box office wise, Insidious 3 is one of the rare hits," he said. He thinks that a prevailing current may soon become apparent among horror films.
Optimization
Throughout its run, the event is a "24-7 operation," Murdy said. For every maze, elaborate notes are taken each night assessing damages and necessary alterations. Meetings are held every morning to determine needed changes for that night. A maintenance crew makes repairs before the event opens.
Before leaving, Murdy advised us to go to the mazes at the backlot first and work in reverse towards the entrance for shorter wait times. Most visitors start at the entrance where lines are longer.
To mitigate long lines, Murdy urges partners to provide him with giveaways for guests. Visitors waiting in line should look for workers giving away freebies like movie tickets and conducting trivia games for guests' entertainment. Also to lessen wait times, a certain percentage of guests arriving before 6:15 will be allowed in before the actual opening.
Halloween Horror Nights opens on September 18. For more information, see http://www.halloweenhorrornights.com/hollywood/2015/. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. (http://start.westnet.ca/newstempch.php?article=terms.html/) It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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During the afternoon tour, Halloween Horror Nights' widely regarded sets were illuminated by bright sunlight. Though intended for dusk, the detailed sets withstood the afternoon glare; many scenes conveyed the impression of being in a real house. Nearly every element of each scene was there for a purpose; nothing seemed lacking in intentionality.
Working From Movies
Most Horror Nights mazes are inspired by movies or television shows. Some maze sets closely mimic specific movie sets, conveying the feeling of stepping into a movie; others are more loosely inspired by the film's emotive character. Overall, the mazes are designed to convey selected aspects of the tenor of a movie or series.
Murdy and his art director, Chris Williams, begin by meeting with intellectual property owners and representatives, whom they work with throughout the design process. Some wish to be highly involved; others trust the Horror Nights designers to remain true to the spirit of their inspirational source. For instance, film director Guillermo del Toro zealously helped with Crimson Peak: Maze of Madness, giving Murdy many suggestions.
After conceiving and researching a maze theme, Murdy and Williams work together in their own offices. "We watch these movies endlessly, so we don't miss anything," Murdy stated. In discussing how to incorporate scenes from the movie, they often exchange initial design ideas via Post-it notes.
When creating mazes based on movies being produced, they'll sometimes change their maze designs to reflect alterations in the movie.
Murdy writes an elaborate 100-page treatment for each maze nearing completion. "The point of that is to capture every single detail for all of the hundreds--or thousands--of people that work on Horror Nights," he explained. "Every audio cue, what the lighting's doing, every single prop is identified in the treatment. And then I do a ton of research."
Murdy's enthusiastic devotion to his work and his wholehearted desire to communicate its intricacies were apparent throughout the tour. Despite their unfinished appearance, we envisioned complete mazes as he annotated the walkthroughs, describing actors' positions and explaining the mechanics of their scares.
Halloween: Michael Myers Comes Home
A Halloween-themed maze appeared at Horror Nights in 2009. This year's maze, based primarily on John Carpenter's original 1978 movie, differs in the way that it highlights Michael Myers' paranormal qualities.
"He's very much a slow burn," Murdy said of the main character. "He almost acts like a ghost in the movie--he's there, he's gone." He compared Myers to the shark in Jaws in that that he acts like a killing machine, lacking any emotion. The maze begins and ends in the Myers house and features iconic murders from the movie.
"We wanted to treat it more like a ghost house," he said. The façade is modeled after a dilapidated, abandoned version of the Myers' house. Visitors waiting in line will hear the movie's iconic theme music and see video projections of a shadowy Judy in an upper window, as well as Dr. Loomis, whose voice narrates the maze interior.
Inside the foyer, the first paranormal transition occurs with Sheriff Brackett's voice declaring, "Everyone in Haddonfield thinks this house is haunted." Thunder and lightning reveal the static figure of young Michael, dressed in a clown costume at the top of the stairs, having just murdered his sister.
The first scare is around the corner. Visitors enter a hallway and see Michael appear as a ghost behind a window. The first live performer (or "scareactor," in Horror Nights parlance) is behind what Murdy called a 50/50 mirror: lit from within, it's transparent enough to see inside; lit from outside, it's opaque and looks like a mirror. Accompanied by a shattered glass effect, the performer may also open the window and appear to attack visitors. Murdy classifies this as a "boo scare," meaning that it is based on an element of surprise and shock, as opposed to more theatrical scares which are carefully choreographed and typically involve more than one character.
Actors often control the sound and lighting effects accompanying their scares. According to Murdy, the maze utilizes every music cue from the Carpenter movie. Music and sound effects were choreographed for every scene. Multichannel audio is recorded in a sound studio, and mixed on site as for a movie.
"There are these moments in the film where they don't show you what they're talking about," Murdy declared as we entered the next scene. Movie dialogue implying that Michael Myers was eating a dog is explicitly reified as a gory gutted canine. "You don't see that in the film; but you get to see that in our maze."
The same scene features Myers' shrine to his sister Judith. A hidden door opens for another "boo scare."
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John Murdy opens a secret compartment that will conceal an actor. On the floor nearby lies the gutted dog.
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Michael Myers' shrine to his sister Judith. He scratched out her eyes in the photos because he felt so guilty for having murdered her that he couldn't stand to look at them.
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A custom-cut jack o'lantern in the shrine room.
Outside, digitally printed foliage creates the effect of hedges. Between them, Michael appears and then vanishes in a "Pepper's Ghost" illusion. "It's just another way to deliver the almost paranormal quality of Michael," said Murdy.
Trick or treaters dressed as a pumpkin, witch and skull from Season of the Witch will be played by little people. "What's funny about Season of the Witch is that there's elements of it that have become very iconic for fans of Halloween," Murdy explained. So, even though the maze is based on the original Halloween movie, they put in Season of the Witch "Easter eggs" for fans.
"We're trying to give the sense of Halloween night, trick or treaters out so there's not just Michael Myers everywhere you go."
Michael Myers appears 15 times throughout the maze. Some of the characters for choreographed scenes are double-cast for 30 minutes of acting, followed by a 30 minute break; whereas many of the "boo scare" actors are trained for 4 or 5 scenes on a "swing system" so that fewer actors are needed as backups during breaks. Murdy trains all of the scareactors himself.
Next is the 1970's kitchen scene where Bob gets impaled on a cupboard. Audio and video will distract guests to heighten the scare: Michael will be silhouetted behind a window; the actor controls his own audio and lighting cues. A phone will ring on its own channel endlessly. That scene features about seven audio channels.
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-09-13-1442174531-2227173-DSC01677-thumb.JPG (http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-09-13-1442174531-2227173-DSC01677.JPG)
The period 1970's kitchen where Bob will be impaled.
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In the kitchen scene, Michael will appear as a ghastly silhouette in the window.
"Now we're heading into real 70's ugliness," Murdy declared as we left the kitchen. Set dressers were sent to swap meets and antique stores to find period-appropriate décor. Because of copyright laws, pictures found on the Internet can't be used; so photos adorning the walls are mostly personal photos belonging to members of the prop crew.
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-09-13-1442175107-9765496-DSC01721A-thumb.JPG (http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-09-13-1442175107-9765496-DSC01721A.JPG)
Judith Myers' body.
The next few scenes are choreographed murder re-enactments. A strangulation scene will be enacted by an actor playing Michael with a sheet over his head, and an actress wearing a necklace resembling a phone cord. This choreography will be repeated every ten seconds on what Murdy calls a "scare cycle." Also notable was a passageway with sheets blowing in the wind, which Murdy jokingly referred to as "free animation."
As we re-entered the Myers house near the end of the maze, Murdy told us that various areas of the maze will be scent-infused: pumpkins for the jack o' lanterns, for instance; decomposing flesh for the dead dog.
In the final choreographed scare, occurring at 5-second intervals with actors lip-synching to looped audio, Dr. Loomis will shoot Michael, who will lunge at visitors passing through.
The most impressive scene of the maze is an octagonal room of mirrored walls. Several Michael Myers dummies in the center of the room are endlessly duplicated in the mirror reflections. Three different performers playing Michael will be hiding. Some will pose like statues and will come to life; others will hide in secret compartments behind mirrors.
"This isn't in the movie at all, this is just our homage to the idea that you can't kill the boogeyman; the boogeyman is everywhere," Murdy explained. "It's going to look like he's everywhere." This room was actually inspired by a scene in Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai.
Their desired effect was difficult to envision. To study possible stratagems before creating the set, he and Williams built a small model, followed by a full scale mock-up.
"It's so complicated, because you also have to think about the guests being able to navigate this space and actually walk through it," he said. Endless reflections of dummies make passage confusing. In the end, lighting will indicate the correct path.
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Two scenes from the mirrored room finale. All dummies will eventually be dressed as Michael Myers.
As we exited the maze, Murdy showed us a secret door camouflaged behind a mirror. An internal handle will enable an actor to pop out for the final scare. Murdy intimated the psychology of his finale: uncertainty as to whether or not the maze is over leads to a culmination of fright. Visitors are likely to think that the recreation of the movie's final scene, with Loomis shooting Michael, is the maze finale. Yet the maze goes on and ends in the mirror room. Then, the actor popping out of the mirror is the post-climax scare.
"It's like horror movies--'It's over, no it's not; it's over, no, it's not,'" Murdy concluded.
Insidious: Return to the Further
An Insidious-themed maze in 2013 was one of Horror Nights' highest rated mazes.
"We didn't want to rest on our laurels, but we wanted to revisit this maze. Even in this case, we had the façade as the Lambert house last time ... but everywhere we went, we wanted to see, what can we do different, what can we tweak? One of the simplest things we wanted to tweak with the outside of the maze was to start the whole thing like you're in the Further."
In the movie, the signature of the Further is low-lying fog. Dry ice is necessary to create such an effect, Murdy said.
"We challenged our special effects crew to R and D a new way of looking at dry ice. And that's what you see in these little hoses tucked away back here--" he pointed to small black hoses near the ground. "We're going to try to do low lying fog throughout this maze." Four extra rooms were built just to house all the equipment for the fog, which will be piped to different parts of the maze.
Before entering, visitors will encounter Tucker and Specs, the paranormal investigators from the film. They will be played by the same performers as in 2013. Their scripted interaction with guests will set up the idea that the house they're about to enter is haunted.
Leigh Whannell, who wrote Insidious and worked with Murdy on the maze, felt strongly that there should be no scares in the first scene. The beginning of Insidious itself is mundane in order to belie the movie's scares. Murdy heeded his suggestion, but added a window in which the Black Bride, a signature spirit from the film, lights up a "paranormal moment" to inaugurate an eerie atmosphere.
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John Murdy introduces Insidious. The Black Bride will appear in the mirror to the right.
Dalton's bedroom is next, suggesting his spirit entering the Further when he goes into a coma. It features printouts of the creepy artwork in the film.
In this scene, Murdy and Williams experimented with tying video in with the performer's scare. An actor hiding in a niche in the wall will push a trigger that will cause the Red Demon (another of the movie's villains) to walk across the wall.
"It's a different thing that we've never done before," Murdy said. Preparing the effect involved pre-recording a film of the red demon crawling in place; and photographing the wall under show lighting so that the photo could be projected back onto the real wall.
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Dalton's bedroom séance scene. The Red Demon will appear to walk across the wall behind his bed.
The following corridor also features an interesting technological experiment in which walls will suddenly vanish and visitors will find themselves in the Further. Photos printed on perforated metal walls resemble a hallway, complete with framed pictures and grandfather clock. A change in lighting will cause the walls to become invisible and the hallway to transform into the movie's signature corridor of glowing candelabras.
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A close-up of the perforated wall in the disappearing hallway. When the lighting changes, the printed picture will vanish to reveal candelabras.
The maze takes guests through all three movies in the Insidious series. In the maze, red doors separate each movie; passing through each of them symbolizes passage into the subsequent movie.
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John Murdy demonstrates what the actor will do in the strangulation scene from the end of the first Insidious film. "Poor Lin, I'm sure she'll be here. She comes every year," he said of actress Lin Shaye, upon whom the dummy is modeled.
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Parker Crane, dressed as a girl in his childhood bedroom.
Multitudes of carefully engineered lights were suspended above. Black papers were slit and torn around the lights to customize the beam size and direction.
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Black paper is attached to lights to control beam direction and intensity.
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Visitors will have to navigate several bodies hanging upside down in this closet.
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Spirits from the Further.
A séance room full of occult furnishings is the final scene, and re-creates the finale of Insidious 3.
"If you look at the film, this is pretty spot on," Murdy declared of his re-creation. In the final scene, all three major demons from the movie are encountered.
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A scene from the séance room finale.
Horror Industry
Murdy's love of horror originated around the age of four, when he gave his mother a card that said "Happy Mummies' Day," featuring his drawing of a mummy. Later, his interest in the macabre led him to pursue an education in theater and eventually to design Universal Studios rides, including "Revenge of the Mummy."
During his tenure as creative director since 2006, Halloween Horror Nights has expanded from seven to 25 nights. The number of mazes has increased from one and a half to six. In conjunction with the event's increased popularity, Murdy himself has become something of a celebrity.
His iconic status was apprehensible in his anecdotes; he spoke equally earnestly of working with celebrities and of interacting with his own fans. Horror Nights is so popular among film and music industry luminaries that Murdy frequently gets calls from filmmakers, directors, producers, and stars wanting to be included in the event.
"Horror goes through genres, and it goes through cycles," he reflected. He tries to anticipate horror industry trends and factor them into designs. He feels that currently, much of the best creative work is being done in television. "If you look at horror movies, box office wise, Insidious 3 is one of the rare hits," he said. He thinks that a prevailing current may soon become apparent among horror films.
Optimization
Throughout its run, the event is a "24-7 operation," Murdy said. For every maze, elaborate notes are taken each night assessing damages and necessary alterations. Meetings are held every morning to determine needed changes for that night. A maintenance crew makes repairs before the event opens.
Before leaving, Murdy advised us to go to the mazes at the backlot first and work in reverse towards the entrance for shorter wait times. Most visitors start at the entrance where lines are longer.
To mitigate long lines, Murdy urges partners to provide him with giveaways for guests. Visitors waiting in line should look for workers giving away freebies like movie tickets and conducting trivia games for guests' entertainment. Also to lessen wait times, a certain percentage of guests arriving before 6:15 will be allowed in before the actual opening.
Halloween Horror Nights opens on September 18. For more information, see http://www.halloweenhorrornights.com/hollywood/2015/. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. (http://start.westnet.ca/newstempch.php?article=terms.html/) It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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