The room is as damp as it is dark. There’s an odor that one could only assume is how a corpse would smell. Turn the corner and there’s a half-dead man lying in a bloodied bathroom practically holding his own heart. It’s as if you’ve entered a scene from the “Saw” series, and that’s because you have. Or, if you’re from Southern California, it’s just October.
More specifically, you’re at Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights, one of three nearby theme park attractions that undergoes a murderous makeover one month out of the year. Halloween Horror Nights, Magic Mountain Fright Fest and Knott’s Scary Farm Halloween Haunt take Halloween into their own hands, hoping to provide their year-round thrills but also some long-lasting chills.
Universal successfully promotes the park and the movies it produces simultaneously with attractions such as this year’s “Saw: Game Over” maze, which pulls participants into Jigsaw’s secret lair and twisted mind.
No maze is complete without what seems like an endless supply of ghoulish goons popping out at every turn. This is a feature all three parks have expanded throughout most of the grounds. They have all hired hordes of actors whose makeup transforms them into a multitude of demonic creatures.
Jigsaw’s pig-headed underlings prowl up and down Universal’s walkways, with the sound of their chainsaws ready to attack. Knott’s and Magic Mountain play on the classic childhood fear of many with their armies of terrorizing clowns.
The rides stay open late into the night and are one of the few safe zones, where people won’t be terrified by flesh-eating zombies. However, Knott’s Black Widow’s Cavern train ride, which is the family-friendly Calico Mine Ride the rest of the year, proves no one’s ever safe. As riders take a trip through a haunted cavern, they are accompanied by costumed creatures leaping out of the vast darkness. Knott’s is the only park of the three that completely transforms its rides, in addition to adding the scare zones and shows that all the parks boast.
Alfred Isais, a third-year psychology student, appreciates that Knott’s goes the extra mile.
“(Knott’s) was a lot more active, it was more lively than Universal,” Isais said. “I definitely would go again.”
Justin Chang, a third-year chemical engineering student, has been around the haunted block. Since his senior year of high school, Chang has gone to either Universal or Knott’s every October and plans to add Fright Fest to his list this year. From what he has experienced so far, Chang confidently gives his vote to Knott’s.
“(Knott’s Scary Farm) is just a lot scarier and I just feel the whole aura of the place in itself is more of a haunted area rather than Universal where it’s kind of sectioned off,” Chang said.
Ryan Mullen, a third-year global studies student, recently took his first trip to Universal and experienced what it has to offer. In addition to being scared by the plethora of costumed monsters roaming the streets, he also took the tram ride that takes riders to old movie sets such as the Bates Motel from “Psycho,” something he doesn’t think could be found back home in Northern California.
“It’s definitely unique to Southern California,” Mullen said. “I really enjoyed it.”
Horror-themed attractions are definitely not for everyone. Paying upwards of $25 to lose your voice from screaming so much is not a universal appeal. For some, though, it just isn’t Halloween in Southern California without it.