Daily Dead Previews AMERICAN HORROR STORY and KRAMPUS Mazes at Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood 2016

Along with several other journalists, Daily Dead recently had the opportunity to chat with John Murdy, the Creative Director of Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights, as he gave us a tour through their upcoming American Horror Story-themed attraction that opens this Friday night in Los Angeles. During our tour, Murdy filled us in on a few details about what fans can expect from the American Horror Story haunt, and he gave us a few tidbits on several other attractions as well.

Here are some highlights of what we learned from speaking with Murdy, and below is a photo gallery from both the American Horror Story and Krampus mazes (as well as a sneak peek at the Freddy vs. Jason facade) to give you guys a look at just some of what you can expect from the 2016 Halloween Horror Nights in Hollywood. For more information and to get tickets, visit: http://www.halloweenhorrornights.com/.

During our tour, Murdy discussed how the Hollywood maze for American Horror Story will be based on three seasons—Murder House, Freak Show, and Hotel—and even hinted at several Easter eggs planted throughout the attraction for longtime fans of the series. “When I pitched the maze to Ryan Murphy back in February, and I told him I wanted to do some Easter eggs for the fans, he stopped me during my pitch and said, ‘I’ve got an idea.’ And if you go back and watch Murder House, you may remember how Jessica Lange mentions that she has four children, but you only meet three of them. And I guess that’s been a big deal with American Horror Story fans over the years.”

“And the fourth child was something that they had originally cast on AHS, and then eventually cut out the character because it didn’t feel necessary, so it ended up on the editing room floor. Ryan said, though, that whenever he does a Q&A or a panel, it’s always the first or second question he gets asked, ‘What about the fourth child?’ So Ryan thought it would be really cool to incorporate that into this maze. You will only get to see that character at Halloween Horror Nights.”

Due to the scale of certain set pieces (and materials that may have been deemed hazardous if they appeared in their original state), Murdy utilized 3D printers to achieve some of the looks he was going for in the American Horror Story maze, and attendees can expect to be tormented by the likes of Rubber Man, Piggy, Larry Harvey (and his charred victims), Black Dahlia, Twisty the clown, Edward Mordrake, The Countess, James March, various pint-sized bloodsuckers from Hotel, and more.

Murdy also discussed details for several other Horror Nights attractions, giving us a look into his process for putting themes together each year. One of the properties he has sought since the very beginning of HHN has been The Exorcist. “I chased the rights to The Exorcist ever since I began doing Horror Nights ten years ago. The funny thing is that fans thought, with that being the case, that I would have everything already all planned out, and just had to take it off the shelf once we got the approval this year. The fact is, there’s nothing on the shelf because we just don’t have the time to work on something we aren’t actually doing.”

“So I had a moment of panic going into The Exorcist, because even though I finally got to do it, it’s also the hardest movie I’ve ever had to adapt for a maze. Because what you have with The Exorcist, when you break it all down, is a movie that primarily takes place in a bedroom with a 12-year-old girl (which is not easy to cast), and she never gets out of bed. On paper, that’s not terribly scary. And when you look at that film and what made it such a landmark—the rotating head, the puke, the levitation over the bed—those are all practical effects that aren’t necessarily in-your-face scary. They’re more theatrical.”

“We ended up spending a lot of time on that maze in particular, just redesigning and redesigning, because we had to get those scares in there. And what I ultimately landed on that gave me the idea on just how to make this thing truly scary, was a trailer that has often been referred to as the ‘banned trailer’ for The Exorcist, which starts off typically, but then amps up with all these bizarre cuts and negative images going back and forth quickly. It has this one piece of music called ‘The Night of the Electric Insects,’ and I remember seeing that when I was six-years old and it terrified me. But I knew that was ‘the maze.’ I didn’t know how it was going to translate into what we were planning initially, but I wanted this to feel like you were inside that trailer.”

And for those who are curious, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ll see the infamous “spider walk” in The Exorcist maze, too, so prepare your nerves accordingly now.

Murdy also mentioned that while most of this year’s Halloween-themed attraction will celebrate Halloween II and its hospital environment, fans can expect a bit of a nod to Halloween III: Season of the Witch as well, and if you have attended this event in prior years, what you’ll see this fall will be a wholly different experience than past Horror Nights.

Another attraction Murdy gave us the lowdown on is their upcoming Freddy vs. Jason haunt, and although it’s inspired by the 2003 film, don’t expect to see a direct recreation of that movie’s key scenes. “I’ve dealt with both Freddy and Jason four different times now, but what fans will get this year is something entirely new. It won’t be a rehash of Freddy vs. Jason, either, because those previous mazes actually pulled scenes from that movie, so what we’ve done is created an original maze that is just inspired by the movie.”

“When you go through our Texas Chain Saw Massacre maze, it ended up being almost like our own sequel that we’ve made. It’s been several years since we did a Texas Chain Saw maze, but when we did it, it was based on the original film. And there will still be scenes in this that will obviously play up some of those iconic moments, because you’d be a fool to ignore it, but the difference is that I really wanted to get Chop-Top into this. He’s become a cult favorite over the years, and so I needed to come up with a storyline to explain why Chop-Top would even be there. So we set it five years into the future from the end of the first movie, and Chop-Top was away in Vietnam during the original, so he’s come home and sees how his family takes the next steps towards starting their BBQ business after converting their gas station into a restaurant.”

“We also wanted to explore the idea of them robbing graves,” added Murdy, “because if they’re doing it so much, they must have an interesting way of getting back and forth between the house and the graveyard.”