Halloween Horror Nights celebrates opening night with the Eyegore awards

We were invited up for the opening night of Universal Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights and the Eyegore awards last Friday night. 
First we'd like to send a great thank you to the park for inviting us up. This was our first time covering a Universal Hollywood event and to be honest, it was kind of a dream come true and kind of overwhelming (in a very good way). 

It was a great night of Hollywood Stars, Hollywood moments and top-notch scares at Halloween Horror Nights. 

A couple of hours before the event, we found ourselves outside of the front gate. 

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Have to admit, when I arrived and saw our own little press spot it was very cool and overwhelming. 

We had a great spot where we could see all of the red carpet

The Man, The Myth, The Legend ... The one and only Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig)

Brighton Sharbino from The Walking Dead

Greg Nicotero and Robert Kirkman from The Walking Dead

The Nerdist himself, Chris Hardwick

Chris was nice enough to take a selfie with me. No surprise, he's the better looking of the two. 

DJ Cotrona from the From Dusk Til Dawn: The Series. If you haven't checked out the show yet, you should. It's pretty awesome. 

Face Off judges Lois Burwell, Glenn Hetrick and Ve Neill. 

John Murdy lurking in the background. 

One of my main goals for the night was to shake Danny Trejo's hand. I'm glad to say that he was the nicest man and spent over an hour going down the red carpet and talking to everybody. And yes, I got to shake his hand. 

Machete!! 

Eiza Gonzalez also from the From Dusk Til Dawn: The Series

Brandon Soo Hoo - From Dusk Til Dawn: The Series

The incredible Robert Rodriguez gives Park Journey two thumbs up!! 

Ok ... story time: 
At about the age of 8 my best friend showed me this movie that proceeded to give me nightmares. It was also the movie that started my love for Horror Movies, despite the nightmares. The three men in the picture below were mostly responsible for those nightmares and my love of Horror Movies. 
So I got to thank Rick Baker, David Naughton and John Landis for giving me Nightmares after seeing American Werewolf in London. And I mean that in the most awesome way possible. It gave them all a nice laugh. 

After the red carpet, it was time to head inside to the Special Effects stages for the awards. 

The host of the awards was McKenzie Westmore from Face Off

John Landis accepting his Eyegore award from Rick Baker

Robert Kirkman and Chris Hardwick presenting an Eyegore Award to Greg Nicotero. If you've ever seen one of the Comic Con panels hosted by Chris you know how entertaining it was. 

Danny Trejo presenting an Eyegore to Robert Rodriguez. Or as Danny calls the Eyegores, the Bad-Ass Oscars. 

Robert Rodriguez

The last Eyegore Award was presented to Slash who played "Nothing Left to Fear" with Myles Kennedy. 

All of the presenters and award winners. Great group this year!! 

After the awards it was time to head out into the event. We've also included some maze pictures from the park. 

First we headed to the lower lot. 

An American Werewolf in London
Given my love for the movie this was easily my most anticipated maze of the event, and I'm happy to say that it didn't disappoint. The scenes were great, the werewolves were amazing but the transformation scene, wow. So well done. 

Roughly 90 minutes into the event, the three backstage mazes had about an hour line. So expect to spend awhile down here. 

As we reported last month, the walk back to the mazes, which was actually not a bad walk at all. 

Heading to Terminus

First maze up on the Backlot was From Dusk Till Dawn

From Dusk Till Dawn

The maze itself was great, it was "The Twister". Unfortunately this maze suffered from "Conga Line Syndrome" which really eliminated the scares. 

Alien Vs Predator
This is the Dark Horse hit of this years event. Great talent, great scenery, great effects. But once again, Conga Line (which did allow us to get some pictures). 

One other thing that we noticed with both AvP and The Walking Dead was a food cart in the Gate A line. Which meant that stand-by guests were in the Gate A line to get food, and then they'd stay in the Gate A line. Which made Gate A about 25 minutes for AvP even though maybe 40% of the people didn't have Gate A as the employees were letting everybody through. 

Hopefully this is something they'll fix by next weekend. Food is needed when people are spending 3 hours on the Back Lot mazes, but they need to find a better spot. 

The Conga Line did allow us to get some pictures. 

The Walking Dead
It was close to last years, although I do think it was slightly better this year. The "Tunnel" room going to Terminus was actually pretty awesome. 

Due to time constraints I had to skip Clowns but will be sure to do it next time we are at the event. When that is, still trying to figure it out. =)

But here are some pictures provided by the park of Clowns 3D - Music by Slash

I love the Slash clown

As you can see, by about 9:45pm the lower lot and back lot mazes had very long lines while the two upper lot mazes were essentially walk-on's. 

Which is pretty much what we noted in our HHN Guide. 

Dracula Untold: Reign of Blood

On the upper lot, Dracula Untold was essentially a walk-on. This is another great maze with some great talent. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to going through this a few more times. 

Was glad to see how well the scare zones turned out with their show lighting. 

Exceptionally creepy

Dark Christmas was AWESOME!! So looking forward to spending some time just observing in this area next time we are at the event. 

Still creepy

The Purge: Anarchy

Face Off: In The Flesh 

Really great and IMO, the best of the makeovers in the House of Horrors spot. They didn't try to shoehorn a theme into the maze and just let the Face Off designers do what they do best. Be sure to check it out when you are there. Not to be missed. 

One last look at the wait times. 

From what we heard from opening night and Saturday night, taking advantage of the Annual Pass "First Stab" allows you to get two walk-through's of AvP, Walking Dead and From Dusk Till Dawn as well as American Werewolf in London and Clowns 3D prior to most of the HHN guests arriving in that area. 

So it technically would be possible to not do the Front of the Line, but you have to plan ahead. 

This was the creepiest picture I took all night ... who can tell me why? =)

That's going to wrap it up for this update. We hope you enjoyed this look at the Eyegore Awards and HHN. Thanks once again to Universal for having us out to the event, we were humbled and thrilled to be included. 

Can't wait to be back at HHN very soon. 

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