Opening night at Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood

Last Friday was the grand kick-off of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood and we were there to experience the entire event and to get some great pics and video for you all to enjoy.

Overall this is definitely one of the stronger years for Halloween Horror Nights and we've also included our maze and experience rankings below.

Keep in mind our rankings (as with anybody's rankings) are purely subjective and only reflect our personal experience. Enjoy!

Pictures, Video and Written by Gregg Condon
Additional Pictures by Richard M Johnson

Welcome to Halloween Horror Nights (look closely and you may spot a celebrity)

Overflow queue for The Walking Dead that they didn't need opening weekend. Will be interesting to see if this is still here this weekend.

Our full walk-through and 360° video of The Walking Dead from the opening earlier this year.

We had heard from multiple people that there would be more talent in TWD than there is during the day, we didn't notice any additional people from normal park hours, and we did the walk-through twice.

Fire good

If you read our Survival Guide you'll know that you should start your night on the backlot mazes.

Mmmm ... Fog.

This year there is no tram to the backlot mazes which means 3 mazes down there instead of 2. It's not a bad walk at all.

Purge Tunnel

Note to the girl in front of us ... after stopping and asking the 20th actor to take a picture with you and they don't, it's time to just give it up. =)

Which leads into a Purge scarezone

Video of the Purge tunnel, scarezone and Gauntlet of Fear (more on that below)

Our first maze of the night was Krampus and it didn't disappoint at all.

The movie is a LOT of fun and the maze is as well. Since the movie was made by Mike Dougherty (who made the classic Trick R Treat) hopefully that means we'll get that maze one of these years.

Full walkthrough of the Krampus maze.

Beautiful tribute to the late Wes Craven

Really loved the setting of Freddy vs Jason but we got stopped for about 4 minutes in one spot so decided not to post the video.

Overall the crowd control was much better at HHN this year than previous years, this was the only maze we got stopped for a long time (other than Terror Tram ... more on that below)

Next up was American Horror Story. Now I'll freely admit that neither one of us were familiar with the show. I've tried getting into the show multiple times but somehow just haven't been able to.

That being said, we both enjoyed the maze much more than we thought we would.

Will add that as a non-fan, if the entire maze would have just been the "Freak Show" season we may have enjoyed it much more. That section was a lot of fun.

Below is our full walkthrough of American Horror Story.

Those who know me know that the original Halloween maze back in 2009 is one of my favorite mazes ever, not just at Halloween Horror Nights, but at any event. It wasn't just based on a single movie but had lots of great stuff from multiple films.

Last year Michael Myers came back and it was just based on the original Halloween. And it was AMAZING. There were some liberties taken with the ending of the maze which was totally fine because it worked.

Fast forward to this year, and Michael Myers is back again, but this time the maze is based on Halloween 2. There are so many touches from the movie here and it's amazing. But again, there are some liberties taken with the last 1/4 of the maze and it simply WORKS. And works well.

Below is our full walk through of Halloween ... maybe next year we'll get a Halloween 3 maze? (Guessing the fans of that one would be very small, but we'd love it)

Our last maze on the lower lot was The Exorcist.

Now, I've been doing Halloween events for close to 30 years. My first memory of doing an event was at the old "Factory of Nightmares" that used to be at Devonshire Downs in the San Fernando Valley (aging myself here). So it takes a LOT for me to get scared in a maze.

When I was about 10 I remember watching The Exorcist at a friends house, and I remember it scaring the crap out of me. So that certainly could have contributed to my anticipation/the amount of times I got freaked out in this maze.

Safe to say, this was the most I've ever screamed in any maze ever. We decided not to edit this at all so you can enjoy all the screams that we got in this amazing maze. This was definitely our favorite of the night.

Next up was the Terror Tram. Because they hadn't tried to shoehorn an existing franchise into the area we were very much looking forward to it.

A look down at the backlot mazes and Purge scare zone

Some great talent as you head down the escalator

As you head down to the Bates Motel you are treated to an amazing introductory video that sets up the story for you. And it's absolutely fabulous.

As you reach Whoville the theme starts to take shape and the first part of Terror Tram was pretty amazing.

Unfortunately once you reach the Psycho house the amazing set up is forgotten due to some small area's where you are herded through the rest of the area like cattle.

We love the idea of having walk-through maze parts of the Terror Tram but the bottleneck here is so severe that it makes it hard to get scared through the entire 2nd half of the experience.

Overall, this is EASILY the best "theme" for Terror Tram ever, unfortunately the execution is a bit lacking in a few parts. Let's hope they figure out the crowd control and bottleneck issues before this weekend. Because we'd love to see it be successful.

Be sure to check out some great pictures below of the Terror Tram

Photo: Richard M. Johnson

The Deer are the scariest part

We didn't get a chance to check out Jabawockeez this year, but our good friend Richard did so be sure to check out the amazing pics below.

Photos: Richard M. Johnson

Note: The Purge isn't scary ...

That being said, the Gauntlet of Fear was probably one of the more pleasant surprises of the event. Again, not scary, but a great utilization of the area and something that they should definitely keep in mind for future years and different actual scary themes.

Be sure to check out our slideshow of The Purge Gauntlet of Fear

Photo: Richard M. Johnson

Obvious movie cross promotion ...

The entire park scare zone had one theme this year, and was all The Purge. Nothing really different here than previous years, lots of Chainsaws and fire and girls ... not like those are bad things AT ALL.

But it would be nice if The Purge would get purged next year. We love the original scare zones they've had in years past and would love for those to come back.

Some more awesome pictures of The Purge scare zone on the upper lot

Photo: Richard M. Johnson

Our last maze of the night was Texas Chainsaw Massacre which was located near Waterworld.

I'm not the biggest fan of TX Chainsaw Massacre but it was a decent maze. This one did suffer from "repeated scares syndrome". Hallway, Room, Chainsaw, Hallway, Room, Chainsaw ... but it's TX Chainsaw Massacre so ...

Overall we had an amazing night at Halloween Horror Nights. The good definitely outweighs the "ok" (there is nothing really BAD this year) and are hoping we hear about some of the crowd control issues in Terror Tram being addressed soon. Because we really did love the theme of it.

Below are our maze rankings

#1 - Will admit that this maze greatly depends on "timing" and we hit ALL of it. Hands down the most "scares" I've ever had in a maze.

#4 - Despite not knowing the show this maze was really fun. If this was the "Freak Show" Season only it might have moved this up to #3.

#6 - Didn't notice any extra monsters but still fun and worth going through if you don't have a USH AP.

#8 - Despite "standing in one spot for 5 minutes" the maze was great. This maze is potentially great but we can only judge on our own experience.

#2 - If possible this version is even better than last year, and pumpkin spice brain is awesome

#3 - A fun fun movie makes a fun fun maze. Definitely not to be missed.

#5 - The best theme Terror Tram has EVER had. Addressing crowd control issues for 2nd half might move this up to #4.

#7 - Truly the one pleasant surprise of the night. While not "scary" we had a lot of fun in the "Gauntlet of Fear"

#9 - Not bad by any stretch, and it was opening weekend, but with so much good stuff, something had to be at the bottom.

We want to thank Universal Studios for having us out to enjoy the event, we can't wait to hopefully get back towards the end of the season for another go-round.

Did you experience HHN over the weekend? Be sure to share your thoughts below.

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Opening night at Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood

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