Halloween at Universal Studios...EEEEEEK!!!

I'm always up for a good scare and apparently so is my fabulous husband. I think before we even arrived here in LA Ryan had scoped out the Halloween situation and we were both delighted to discover Halloween is a big deal in these parts.

Of the Halloween night festivities Ryan chose the one at Universal Studios - Halloween Horror Nights.

The Bates House from the movie Psycho

There were lots of people, but it wasn't too crowded. This may have been more the case because we paid extra to avoid lines. Even still it took us several hours to visit all 6 mazes and 3 rides.

First we went on the terror tram that took us to a trail that had been taken over by zombies from the AMC show The Walking Dead. I've watched the show a few times, I can see how perhaps these actors on television really aren't acting. The zombies were so damn real I was running around like a real chicken with its head cut off. I nearly kissed the dirt running away from one extremely tall and incredibly bloody, tattered zombie. Thankfully I corrected my near fall. I don't know how, but I did.

Towards the end of the zombie trail the Bates' house from the Hitchcock movie Psycho stood available for folks to get their picture taken in front of, but I kept getting attacked by stray zombies so we didn't wait around. We took a picture and fled.

Through the park itself there were crazy, demented killer clowns, and there was a section of witches, and another section of the park was covered by evil toys. They all roamed their own sections of the park so no visitor was ever truly safe. Some of these characters walked on stilts, others wielded chainsaws, and they all chased folks around.

Ryan just outside the Clown zone

There were six mazes - Universal Monsters Remix, La Llorona, The Walking Dead (inside, which was different than the terror tram), Alice Cooper 3D, Silent Hill, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The scariest and creepiest of them all was definitely the Texas Chainsaw Massacre - The Saw is the Law. It was just like you had stepped into the original movie. I was terrified and Ryan may not admit it, but I think he was scared too.

In the Silent Hill maze Pyramid Head and these knife toting nurses lurked everywhere. Awful!!!

Creepy Pyramid Head

Wicked Nurses

The scare tactics were the same in each of the mazes, but this didn't make any of them less scary then the others. Essentially you walk into a house or space where you walk through and it's dark and decorated like the set of whichever given movie you are walking through. In Texas Chainsaw Massacre we walked through the dining room scene with a crying bloody survivor begging for help as she is being tortured by this cannibalistic family from hell (or Texas as the case happens to be). As you walk through the maze actors who are very well made up jump out and scare you. Some even follow you around.

We ran into this creepy bastard from the movie The Strangers, in the Universal Monsters maze

Thankfully the rides at this theme park fright night were not nearly as terrifying! There were three rides - a Simpson's ride, Transformers, and The Mummy. The Jurassic Park ride was closed on this given night :( But overall all the rides were all essentially a simulation of a real roller coaster, which was pretty neat. Without the the visual effects the rides may have been mediocre at best, but probably more like putting a quarter into one of those spaceship rides outside Zayre's when you were 4 years old.

Just outside the entrance to the Simpson's Ride

Lastly, there was a Bill and Ted's Halloween show. It was kinda all right. Highly imaginative, sometimes funny, definitely entertaining and there was a lot of talent in it. The show was like a variety broadway show. It was very theatrical. The performers acted their skit out in the aisles, had an audience participant and the show was heavily riddled with all things popular culture. From the Hunger Games, Magic Mike, and Snooky, to the song "Call Me Maybe," and Nikki Manaj it was all there.