I've been going to Halloween Horror Nights for a few years in a row and it's always one of the best haunts out there because of their attention to detail, the well trained scare actors, intricate sets, and sound design. There isn't a bad maze or scare zone in the bunch.
* Ash vs. Evil Dead
As a person who watches the show, this maze had a lot of small details from it like so many things inside Ash's trailer and the Ashy Slashy graffiti outside his childhood home. Many Deadites populate the maze, including his sister from the first movie and his elderly neighbor from the trailer park. The cabin in the woods has Pablo with the Necronomicon on his face and Ruby's creepy demon children. The most inhuman monsters are saved for last. Although this maze is less scary because of the humor of the show, I thought it was represented accurately and
* The Shining
Wendy Carlos' soundtrack the the movie sets the eerie, uncomfortable tone right away. Jack Torrance attacks throughout the maze while you run into iconic scenes from the movie, such as the bathroom scene with the ghost woman, the twins in the hallway, the chase through the hedge maze, and the elevator filled with blood. The room with the typed papers all over the wall that grow in size as you go and devolve into All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy is incredibly creative and effective with the loud sounds of a typewriter. The barriers between rooms are even giant typed paper. The skeletons at a dinner party were not in the film, but a nice touch to show the old inhabitants of the hotel. It's amazingly well done and creepy.
* Saw
Although the Saw movies are much too numerous and generally lacking in quality, this maze was one of my favorites. It combines the most creative and frightening kills of the franchise plus a glimpse into Jigsaw's workshop. My favorite scenes are the disemboweling scene when Amanda is frantically trying to get the key to the reverse beartrap on her head, the Pit and the Pendulum kill, and the whirring saw blades kill (from the new movie). I could have done with less pigheaded cloaked guys, but it may have been too cheesy to put them in the Jigsaw doll masks.
* The Horrors of Blumhouse
This maze starts with The Purge franchise, which I usually don't like this as an attraction, but so many set pieces are well done.The most annoying character from the third film is included with her iconic white outfit and car covered in white Christmas lights listening to a Miley Cyrus pop song. The later depictions of violence with the Star Spangled Banner piccolo solo over them were chilling. Both American flags shown were amazing. One was made of assault rifles and grenades while the other was made of bones and turned into the Confederate flag when its lights were on. It's topical and more hard hitting about current politics than I expected.
Next is Happy Death Day. The details of the dorm room are pretty exact, which was cool. Entering the same room conveys the Groundhogs day feel, but seems like a waste of a room. The creepy baby masked killer follows throughout the maze with an axe or a knife. I liked the music box "happy birthday" music and the main characters labored breathing because it gave an eerie tone. I'm a sucker for a room of figure where you don't know which ones are real people and which ones are mannequins. This was the weakest part of the maze.
The last bit is Sinister, one of my favorite movies. It starts with the poster come to life, a girl smearing blood on the wall. The music is one of the most frightening in horror movies and my heart started racing because of the weird percussive theme and the symbols on the wall. Some of the most grisly kills are included like the axe dismemberment and the only good kill from the second installment: putting rats under metal bowls and heating them up to force them to eat through the victims bodies to escape. Bughuul appears throughout the maze for jumps scares, which I didn't find as effective since he hardle makes an appearance in the film. I also liked the inclusion of two of the home videos, the iconic tree hanging and the film version of the rat kill.
More to come!
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