John Murdy was creating haunted houses in his parents’ garage long before he took on the role of creative director and executive producer of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood in 2006. “I literally started when I was 10 years old,” he tells blooloop. He drew inspiration from Universal’s classic monster movies. “I was somehow allowed to watch Frankenstein when I was four years old. I was pretty much hooked from that moment.
“As a kid, I always begged my parents to take me to Universal Studios Hollywood because you can actually see where those movies were made. You could meet the monsters, potentially,” he adds.
Murdy started his career with Universal parks “right out of college as a summer job” in 1989 as a tour guide. After that, he joined Universal Creative as a show writer and creative director, working on projects including the Revenge of the Mummy coaster. In 2006, Universal asked him to bring Halloween Horror Nights back to the California park following a five-year hiatus. He has been doing it ever since.
The Last of Us and Evil Dead Rise
This year’s Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood boasts eight haunted houses, three original scare zones, two new live experiences, themed F&B and the Terror Tram experience.
One of Murdy’s highlights for 2023 is a haunted house based on The Last of Us, Naughty Dog and PlayStation’s award-winning post-pandemic video game. “The Last of Us is a big deal for us because we’ve never done a haunted house based solely on a video game. We worked very closely with Neil Druckmann, the creator of the game, and his team at Naughty Dog to hopefully make you feel like you’re living a video game,” he says.
Another new haunted house is based on Universal Pictures’ The Exorcist: Believer. This comes out in the US on 6 October. Murdy says the attraction is “a living trailer for the film”. He adds: “Guests can experience it before they see the movie.” Evil Dead Rise, the blood-soaked 2023 horror flick directed by Lee Cronin is the theme for a different haunted house. “It’s always fun to work with Sam Raimi‘s company and help bring [the Evil Dead franchise] to life.”
Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count features the slasher doll’s best kills in the TV and film franchise. “Probably the wildest concept is Chucky because it’s very meta. It’s something we worked out with the creator of Chucky, Don Mancini. The idea is that Chucky has hijacked his own haunted house at Halloween Horror Nights in order to create the ultimate kill count by killing all of you. And anyone who steps inside is fair game.”
Chucky’s ultimate kill count
The latest Halloween Horror Nights also brings to life Stranger Things’ ǝpᴉsdn uʍop fourth season and its newest villain Vecna – including his monstrous Mind Lair. “Stranger Things 4 is huge. Obviously the Netflix series is a massive, massive hit. So, we’re bringing that season of Stranger Things to life,” Murdy says.
More offerings this spooky season are a haunted house themed to Universal’s monsters, as well as two original haunted houses based on Latin American monsters and psychotic seasonal celebrations. Guests can also take on a Latin folklore-themed scare zone, a toy box of terror, and a scare zone filled with chainsaw-wielding ghosts.
The Terror Tram experience – a Halloween version of Universal Studios Hollywood’s Studio Tour – puts visitors in the middle of an insect uprising. It also includes a crossover experience featuring Jordan Peele‘s blockbuster movies, with ‘The Tethered’ from Us invading the Jupiter’s Claim set from Nope.
“Our world-famous Studio Tour out to a remote section of our backlot just happens to have some of the most iconic sets in horror history like Bates Motel, the Psycho house, the plane crash from Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds and in recent years, Jupiter’s Claim from Jordan Peele film Nope. We bring that all to life with a cast of around 200 actors,” Murdy reveals.
Insect uprising and giant crows
Entertainment experiences for 2023 are an original concept to showcase a selection of Blumhouse horror films, and The Purge: Dangerous Waters, a new live show located in the WaterWorld venue. As for F&B, Stranger Things fans can eat carbs and ice cream at Surfer Boy Pizza and Scoops Ahoy. Meanwhile, Hollywood & Dine has been turned into a Chucky-themed BBQ restaurant. The Carl Laemmle Patio is serving themed cocktails from The Purge and Chucky.
Murdy and his team have also expanded an enormous crow attraction: “We built this crazy hybrid costume. We debuted the first one last year as a test. We just had this one giant crow that was 12 feet tall walking around the park. The performer can fully articulate the big arms and things. It’s kind of shocking because you don’t expect anything that big to be moving.
“And then this year, we were like, ‘Okay, let’s start fleshing out the family. So last year, it was dad, the main character. Now we’ve got his grandpa and the teenage son with a crow mohawk and a piercing in his beak.”
Passionate horror fans
First launched at Universal Studios Hollywood back in the 1980s, Halloween Horror Nights is the industry’s leading eerie experience to mark All Hallows’ Eve. On its lasting popularity, Murdy says: “We’re lucky that we have such a loyal, dedicated fan base. Horror fans are very passionate about the genre in general, and the brands within that genre.”
“Our fans are not shy, we engage them year-round on social media. But also I physically run into them all the time in the park when I’m here and they’re always advocating for what they’d like to see at the event,” he adds.
“We’re always trying to top ourselves from the previous year. We’re always trying to take it to the next level with something we’ve never done before. And that is fuelled by the passion and desires of our fans who are constantly cheering us on to do that.”
Celebrities suiting up
As above, Murdy was introduced to horror through Universal’s classic monsters. However, he didn’t transform the intellectual property into a haunted house for more than a decade “because I just loved those movies so much”. He adds, “2018 was the first year we brought the Universal monsters to Halloween Horror Nights. It was a fan-favourite house of that particular year.” Universal Studios Hollywood has now done five Universal monsters houses, and musician Slash has provided the music for all of them.
Murdy’s favourite attractions in previous years include an Alien vs. Predator haunted house. “We built a full-size queen alien that was operated by three different performers. That was pretty crazy – walking in and seeing that brought to life was pretty mind blowing,” he says.
When he first worked with Jordan Peele on an Us-themed haunted house in 2019, actor Lupita Nyong’o reprised her role as a menacing doppelgänger. “She came in, suited up and performed in the house one night”, Murdy says. “For fans to walk in the room and there’s the star of the movie, playing the character they played in the movie right in front of them. That’s happened a few times over the years, where we’ve had celebrities who have decided to do that.”
“Getting to work with some of the people that would have been my heroes growing up,” is another high point, Murdy says. These include Alice Cooper, Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters).
Halloween Horror Nights all year at Area15
Universal Destinations & Experiences’ new year-round horror attraction at Area15 in Las Vegas was announced earlier this year. The upcoming venue is Universal’s first permanent horror experience outside of its parks. It will showcase Universal’s vast library of classic scary films and characters such as Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy and the Wolf Man. It will also be home to attractions based on its modern horror stories through collaborations with filmmakers including Jason Blum and James Wan.
As previously confirmed, fans of Halloween Horror Nights can expect to see many similar attractions and experiences to those on offer at Universal’s parks during Halloween, as well as new and innovative offerings. There will be immersive experiences, frightening F&B spaces, seasonal events and unique merchandise.
“I’m not directly creatively involved,” Murdy says. “That’s being done by the part of Universal that I used to work for, Universal Creative. But I did meet with the entire team and shared our knowledge of creating things. I’ve done over 100 of these haunted houses now in my career. So, I shared with them how we do it, the systems we put together to create and produce this.”
He adds, “Then I walked them through a bunch of our haunted houses before we opened the event, giving them the behind the scenes – here’s the art of the scare, here’s the tools we give our performers to make their scares more impactful, etc. So I guess consulting on the outside but not directly creatively involved with it.”
In a recent interview with blooloop, Area15 CEO Winston Fisher said the spine-chilling site is going to be “incredible and standout”. Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights, he added, is a “30-year concept that has incredible brand awareness… It’s edgy, it’s cool, it’s fun. It’s the right concept to be part of the Area15 district.”
Growing trend for horror LBE
Speaking to blooloop this year, Page Thompson, president of new ventures at Universal Destinations & Experiences, said the decision to open the new attraction at Area15 is due to a “huge and growing demand for immersive experiences”, particularly horror-themed ones. In recent years, an official Saw experience has been in London. Meanwhile, Vegas is home to an It-themed escape room and another escape experience based on the Blair Witch franchise.
Murdy likens horrifying location-based entertainment (LBE) to riding extreme coasters: “When I look at [Halloween Horror Nights’ younger guests], they remind me of kids waiting in line to ride a roller coaster for the first time. You see that kind of fear in their eyes. It’s an adrenaline thing. It’s two things – it’s adrenaline but it’s also a rite of passage socially. You build up your courage, and then it becomes a badge of honour that you did it.”
He continues, “It’s high thrills. We’ll just stand at the exit of one of our haunted houses and just watch what happens. It’s a great way to experience how your guests are enjoying the experience. You’ll see people come out and they’re screaming and then they immediately start laughing. To me, that’s the classic release of adrenaline.”
Halloween Horror Nights outside of parks
“With Las Vegas coming online, that’s a whole new adventure,” he says. But will Halloween Horror Nights ever make it to other parts of the world? Murdy, who has lived in Ireland for six years now, say’s it’s “interesting to see the growth of Halloween” outside of the US.
He adds, “When I first moved to Ireland, there was almost nothing that you could even buy for Halloween, a couple of costumes, a couple of masks. And now it’s big, it’s bigger. It’s really cool to see it grow. I ran into people in the park last weekend who were from England and it’s almost like a horror vacation. It’s not exclusively an American thing anymore.”
Halloween Horror Nights is a brand, he says. “It’s pretty amazing how much it’s grown. Universal CityWalk Hollywood now has a Halloween Horror Nights pop-up store. Hot Topic has an exclusive line of Horror Nights merchandise.” Across the country, Orlando International Airport’s Terminal B has also opened an official Halloween Horror Nights “scare zone” selling themed merchandise.
Halloween Horror Nights 2024
Murdy can’t tease Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween event for next year, but he is already meeting with filmmakers.
“I was literally yesterday at a movie studio meeting with the director of a film, starting to plan something else that you’ll see next year,” he says. “We actually start planning next year’s event in March. In about a week or so we’ll start designing next year.”
