Opening Night of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood

Welcome to another year of Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood, where your favorite scary movies come to life. 
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Our opening night report is here, we have some great pictures of the mazes and scare zones and we definitely recommend the event this year despite a couple of repeat themes. Enjoy! 

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Written by Gregg Condon
Pictures by Matthew Nelson and Gregg Condon

Welcome to Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood where we are kicking off another year of amazing Halloween events.

This was EASILY the lowest temperature for the opening night of HHN Hollywood for as long as we can remember. And it was AMAZING!! 

Before heading to the park we decided to head in early and grab some food and butterbeer. And since Wizarding World wasn't open for HHN, some Forbidden Journey. 

After leaving our extra people in the park we headed out to check in for the media portion of the event. No red carpet for us this year, we had another reason for getting here early. 

We wanted to check out this years Opening Scaremony with a whole bunch of new friends. 

The opening moments of HHN 2017 ... we shared this during the event and a lot of people loved it. We hope you will too. 

But Matt had other ideas and they headed in a bit earlier to see how the early entry worked (and since so many of you have been asking about it) 

Insidious 

Some sunset pics from the backlot 

As the sun began to fade it was time for the rest of us to head deep into HHN 

The Shining 

Would have loved to see an actual maze, but capacity would have been the scariest thing of all

How you doin' ... 

Here's Johnny!!! 

Heading into the backlot ... 

Really fun scare zone as you headed to the three backlot mazes 

Some sunset/nighttime pics for you to enjoy 

This scene was really hard to capture in pictures, but we wanted to give this actress a shout out. She was AMAZING. If you know who she is please pass it on. Her hard work was appreciated. 

Dead ... 

The first of the backlot mazes was American Horror Story 

This year they stuck with one season and I think it worked much better this way 

Ash vs Evil Dead which was my favorite maze of the night. But I'm a HUGE fan of Evil Dead and the TV show ... so that may have had some influence. 

Ashy Slashy ... Ashy Slashy ... Ashy Slashy ... 

Ash's room 

Saw

Not really our thing, but a lot of you love Saw so we totally understand why it's come back 

Let's head back upstairs 

Time for the Titans of Terror Tram with our amazing host Chucky 

They basically separated the three area's of the Terror Tram among the three Titans of Terror 

Sawyer Meats ... get it? 

Lots of different Freddy's running around 

Catawampus? 

We loved the theme of the Terror Tram but without using the back trail (which so many people complained about in years past) it just didn't seem long enough this year. 

Headed into the Blumhouse maze 

Started off with The Purge ... this part reminded us a lot of the Purge Gauntlet from last year, which we loved. 

Headed inside the maze portion 

The first part was dedicated to Groundhog ... we mean Happy Death Day. =) 

And finally Sinister 

Let's check out the Scare Zone on the upper lot 

Despite not having fire this year we really enjoyed this scare zone. Wish it would extend throughout the entire upper lot though. It was a lot of fun. 

Trick or Treat ... 

Lots of Chainsaws 

Our last maze of the night was Titans of Terror. We weren't really sure what to think of this one but we absolutely LOVED it. 

You could tell they had a lot of fun with this one 

Thanks again to Universal Studios Hollywood for having us out for another year of Halloween Horror Nights. We had an AMAZING time as always. 

​Check out my Maze rankings below (Gregg): 

• Ash vs Evil Dead (I'm a HUGE fan of the franchise and show, so no surprise here) 
• Titans of Terror (The true surprise of the night, don't dismiss it) 
• Insidious (Despite a repeat theme the maze was truly terrifying, and we got lost too)
• American Horror Story (Consistent theme throughout and some great scares)
• Shining (First time we went through we loved it, seems to be one you have to catch good "timing" on)
• Blumhouse (Despite not being terribly familiar with the franchises, a fun maze anyway)
• Titans of Terror Tram (Simply not long enough to justify ride to backlot) 
• Saw (it took us almost 20 minutes to get through this maze because it was one long line. 20 minutes of torture isn't scary to us)

Check back tomorrow as we'll have our update from the first two nights of Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando. 

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​Related Updates: 

• Preview: The Nighttime Lights at Hogwarts Castle 
• ​Universal Studios Hollywood Update and Fun Nintendo Land Speculation 
• ​Experiencing HHN Hollywood in a Wheelchair
• Photo Tour of Universal Studios Florida
• Photo Tour of Islands of Adventure ​​

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