Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights 2021: Mazes

Universal Studios Hollywood, Universal City, CA

Happy hump day! After a brief detour to some Knott’s Scary Farm news just before the original Halloween Haunt kicks off its run tomorrow, we’re back looking at Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights. If you missed our overall thoughts, click here for our general review. Today, though, we’re diving into the mazes in a little greater detail and providing a body bag’s worth of photos from the seven haunted walkthrough’s featured at HHN this year.

The following mazes are listed in general order of our favorites, but of course, mileage may vary. The unique thing about haunt mazes is that they can provide a different experience for each person, and it’s sometimes luck of the draw whether a walk through happens to be timed to the perfect scares and action, or whether it happens to catch a series of lulls in the maze.

To reach The Curse of Pandora’s Box and The Haunting of Hill House, go through the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and out the backstage access opening, following the signage from there toward the backlot parking area overlooked by the Curious George parking structure.

This year’s seven mazes are organized slightly differently than past years. Three mazes can be found on the Upper Lot—Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers at the Water World location, Universal Monsters: The Bride of Frankenstein Lives adjacent to Universal Plaza, and AMC’s The Walking Dead Experience in its regular, permanent location just across Baker Street. There are two mazes in the Lower Lot—The Exorcist occupies the soundstage next to the Transformers ride last used by the Stranger Things 2 maze in 2019, while The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is located behind The Mummy roller coaster building. And in a twist, the remaining two mazes are not located at the Metro Lot but rather on the back lot close to the Curious George Parking Structure. Access is through the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and while the walk over there is about half the distance as the old walk to the Metro Lots, it’s still about ten minutes to traverse. So keep that in mind for timing.

This year’s early access mazes are the two Lower Lot offerings (plus the Terror Tram apparently). Guests can enter as early as 5:00, obtain a wristband, and get in line for the pair. As usual, Upper Lot mazes typically fill up early in the evening and then wane halfway through the night as guests start making their way to the Lower Lot or the Backlot mazes, before spiking briefly near the end of the night. But go on an off night like Thursday or Sunday and even a maze as popular as The Bride of Frankenstein Lives can be near empty at the end of the night.

With that strategy and lay of the land out of the way, lets check out some haunted mazes!

Universal Monsters: The Bride of Frankenstein Lives

This year’s Halloween Horror Nights did not feature the strongest line-up. Most of the mazes ranged from fine to good, but there wasn’t anything that was particularly top-notch—except for one. Universally (pun intended) lauded, the Universal Monsters: The Bride of Frankenstein Lives maze was a master class of immersive theming and sets, startling theatrical effects, fantastic wardrobe, energetic talent, sumptuous storytelling, and marvelous creativity. The third in the Universal Monsters series, this maze was actually an original story envisioned as a sequel to the 1935 Bride of Frankenstein, picking up where the original classic ended.

The Bride fends off Dracula’s Brides as they follow her to the hermit’s cottage.

As HHN Hollywood Creative Director John Murdy explained at Awaken the Spirits, the Bride only appears on screen for five minutes in the movie that bears her name, and the Horror Nights team wanted to craft a story that set out to answer what happened after the destruction of the lab of Dr. Pretorius. The resulting plot begins with the Bride having survived the destruction, only to find the monster trapped under rubble and gravely injured. Faced with a choice to save herself or also save the monster, The Bride chooses to help the only creature who has shown her kindness. The emotions in this prologue scene are incredibly striking, and it sets a great tone for the rest of the maze.

Her quest is immediately encumbered by the pursuit of Dracula’s Wives, who stalk the Bride and the monster to the burned out blind hermit’s cabin featured in the Bride of Frankenstein movie. Realizing that she and the monster will never be safe with such fiends trailing them, the Bride turns the tables on her hunters and begins pursuing them instead. She kills one and imprisons the others, beginning experiments with their blood after realizing that it may hold the key to life and to saving her beloved.

The Bride sets to work to try to heal the monster.

In a new laboratory, the Bride conducts experiments and keeps her eternally damned prisoners sustained by feeding Dracula’s Wives the blood of imprisoned innocent victims. But ultimately, when the vampires prove too troublesome and try to escape, she kills the remaining fanged villains before patching the monster’s legs back together and infusing the vampire blood into the monster. This operation works, and the maze concludes with the Bride uttering Dr. Frankenstein’s famous lines about the monster being alive, with the two now able to live a new life together.

In her effort to save the only creature who ever showed love to her, the Bride becomes a vampire hunter.

With a tight, cohesive plot, excellent sets, wonderful timing, and a clearly developed and understandable visual storytelling, The Bride of Frankenstein Lives is a spectacular maze experience on par with or arguably even better than the original Universal Monsters maze from 2017 and definitely superior to the solid Frankenstein vs Wolfman iteration two years ago. Paired with another killer soundtrack from Guns ‘n’ Roses guitarist, Slash (his fourth soundtrack for Horror Nights now), and this maze hits all the marks for best in show. The chapter artwork serves a clear, understandable transition between each scene (and is much preferred over black hallway transitions), and the illustrations themselves echo the classic horror novel aesthetic.

Through opening weekend, the latest Universal Monsters maze has been a huge hit for both guests and critics—a rare example of a maze that lived up to the hype. And if the extremely lengthy queue that winds through the Despicable Me line is any indication, Universal anticipates potentially very long waits to parallel the great anticipation.

Having successfully distilled the vampire blood into a healing and regenerating tonic, the Bride brings back a towering monster, becoming the new Doctor Frankenstein!

The Universal Monsters mazes highlight John Murdy’s strong passion for the classic Universal monster movies, and this creative new story showcases what a great job Horror Nights can do when it’s not constrained by following Intellectual Properties. We appreciate the slow shift toward including more and more original creations, and even though this maze is based off a franchise, the unique plot crafted for the maze provides a fresh and fulfilling experience. That it features a badass, strong female character facing off against vicious, female villains is a bonus. Without unnaturally amplifying it, The Bride of Frankenstein Lives has spotlighted an empowered female presence that provides valuable representation for women.

The Curse of Pandora’s Box

One of the best mazes of 2019 is back this year. The Curse of Pandora’s Box was one of a few original, non-IP mazes created for Horror Nights Hollywood a couple of years ago, and it proved to be a big hit, bringing guests into a store where everything goes awry once the enchanted container is opened. This year’s iteration is essentially the same maze, and while normally, we’d like to see some tweaks and enhancements (especially since Universal prides itself with mostly new mazes every year), this maze honestly did not need any improvements. It was wonderful just the way it was.

That’s because, similar to the Universal Monsters haunted house, The Curse of Pandora’s Box features strong storytelling mixed with full and photogenic scenes in each room, vibrant with detail and visual pop. After starting in the shop, the environment quickly descends into chaos with stints in the underworld and with Greek mythological figures and into caverns filled with heinous creatures.

Tricky skeletons lunge from cages in The Curse of Pandora’s Box.

Even though this maze does feature a plethora of repetitive boo box scares (some almost absurd because the scareactors wear flailing rubber gloves with overly long fingers), the timing and energy of the cast keeps the excitement level high and the visual interest even higher. Ultimately, you don’t need to fix what isn’t broken, and The Curse of Pandora’s Box executed its return with aplomb.

The maze is exceedingly colorful and photogenic—a departure from most HHN mazes.

The Exorcist

It seems more recent than that, but it really has been five years since The Exorcist was the one of the most highly anticipated mazes in HHN history. This top billing maze generated a lot of excitement when it was announced in 2016, and John Murdy even admitted that this was one of the IP’s that he had been chasing (and fans had been demanding) for a very long time.

The problem with the resulting execution, however, was that the maze suffered from an endless series of long, black hallways between sets, felt lifeless due to an over-reliance on mannequins and puppetry—with much less live scareactors than usual, and was obnoxiously redundant with the exact same type of boo box scare. This was effective in scaring the lights out of many guests, but from my disgruntled perspective (after waiting nearly three hours in line) and from the point of view of the psychology of scares, this grew stale very quickly. Plus, the gaps between the scenes felt superficial.

Fully possessed, a demonic Regan spins her head entirely backwards and sprays vomit.

Fortunately, this year’s version seems to have gone with a more efficient layout that reduces the long, black corridors, reworks some of the scenes that were lackluster into areas of greater substance, increases the number of live scareactors, and even dials back the water effects so that they’re not so obnoxious (actually, less water in the mazes seemed to be a general feature throughout the park, which we appreciated).

Despite this very best efforts, Father Merrin succumbs to the evil forces possessing Regan and dies.

The fact that The Exorcist is set in the soundstage location this year helps, because the production values and environment control have seem to have increased. From the moment guests enter and see the richly detailed brick facade of the MacNeil House to the chaotic sound and lighting accompanying each of the exorcism scenes, the scale of this year’s maze felt bigger and allowed more space for it to breathe. The talent was also fabulous here, especially the scareactor playing Regan after Father Merrin has died. Her disturbing facial articulations and body contortions were viscerally unsettling, and she certainly made an impression on passers-by.

The Exorcism was a noticeable step down from the first two mazes, but our experience was positive enough to land it third place in our overall rankings!

The Haunting of Hill House

Located across from The Curse of Pandora’s Box, the Haunting Hill House maze was my personal most anticipated maze of this year. With the promise that this would be a different type of maze not subject Halloween Horror Night’s usual emphasize on jarring noise / bright strobe startle scares, I expected an experience that would build up and start to feel haunting before hurtling down the back end with increasing intensity.

Unfortunately, the maze ended up being the typical HHN maze, with boo boxes a-plenty and set pieces not quite visually spectacular enough to really do justice to the house. There were a few positives—the scene with the Bent Neck Lady floating over Nell looked fantastic, while the appearances by the Tall Man looming over guests provided a different dimension of jump scares.

The Crain children continue to be terrorized by the spirits of Hill House.

But all too often, this maze felt like simple a wandering of hallways and a witness of scenes occurring rather than an organic exploration of an intimately haunted house. The spaces never really held the variety of Hill House—no compression and release, and no visceral experience of the various rooms. Even the vaunted Red Room was just something to pass through, with no approach or anticipation. It didn’t even have the red door leading into the space, an example of some of the interior design generalizing and reduction of detail that prevented this maze from reaching its potential. The theming was pretty solid overall, but not quite to “Crimson Peak” level—one of HHN’s highmarks for intricately and richly immersive maze ambiances.

In the basement, a ghoulish creature emerges from a hold in the wall.

I suppose this should have been expected. When the facade of the maze is literally just a flat wall poster with an image of Hill House instead of any physical set with relief, texture, and depth, there’s a good chance that the contents inside aren’t going to be a lavish and sumptuous as the HHN Orlando version press photographs portrayed. And it’s a shame, because this really could have been an epic experience if it was given a more immersive build and a longer layout touching more of the series’ iconic locations (imagine the opportunities in the mortuary featured at Nell’s funeral, for example).

Perhaps in five years Universal will bring this back as a sound stage maze to try to do it greater justice.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

I’m not sure which franchise has the record for most appearances at Halloween Horror Nights, but it’s got to be either the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or the next maze, Halloween. The TCM maze was the other Lower Lot maze and followed the aesthetic of the original 1974 classic, hitting its own interpretations of the infamous and iconic scenes of the Tobe Hooper treasure. From the first meeting of Leatherface when wandering into the house to Leatherface mutilating a body via chainsaw to the Sawyer family dinner gathering, this maze dutifully follows the film in a “greatest hits” approach.

Kudos go to the Leatherfaces scareactors, who portrayed the tortured and unhinged soul quite disturbingly. From peeling a face off to gutting various victims, they really captured the butchering, depraved, but ultimately non-cognizant and child-like nature of the fearsome villain. At the same time, the aggression and sadism was cuttingly disturbing.

What’s a TCM maze without some chainsaw mutilation?

Scare-wise, this was straight out of the HHN playbook, with people bursting out of closed doors, windows, and hidden compartments. Ultimately, the strength of the maze laid in the recreated scenes that guests could observe, as though they were witnesses within the movie. In injecting a little more acting scenes, this year’s TCM maze felt a little more varied and an overall satisfactory experience.

Here, Leatherface does his best Face/Off impression.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Interestingly, it was only three years ago that Universal did Halloween 4 as a maze. Although it made sense to bring back a repeat maze on this first year back from a pandemic (while said pandemic was still going on), it seemed surprising that said Halloween maze would be based on one of the middling films in this legendary franchise that was average rated.

Michael Myers is back with a vengeance in the Halloween 4 maze at Horror Nights.

That said, this was another returning maze that was made more efficient, with the weak areas of the original tweaked and folded into more action and more concise scenes. This year’s layout started out at the service shop, like the 2018 edition, and continued through to the Abe Lincoln and then out into Haddonfield. With several kill scenes recreated—including Kelly Meeker’s iconic shotgun impalement (plus Michael Myers ripping the head off of a hapless teenager—which I don’t really recall happening in Halloween 4)—the maze basically runs through MIchael Myers’ bloody spree in search of his niece Jamie. Jamie also makes a few appearances in the maze, culminating in her trying to stab guests from the stair above.

Uniquely, rather than end with a series of boo box jump scares, the maze sends guests through a house of mirrors, with multiple Michael Myers waiting. Which one is the real one? That’s the fun of a statue scare, and there’s always a little bit of credit given when Universal opts for something other than its usual jump scares.

The Halloween 4 maze ends with a rare not-boo box finale and instead has guests guessing which Michael Myers is real.

We went through Halloween 4 during the start of the evening, before the it was dark, and later in the night also. This amplified some of the actions that seemed to be taken in response to COVID, including a large number of scareactors behind plexiglass and more open air settings than seems to be usual. In separating most scareactors from guests, Halloween 4 seemed to endeavor the most amount of social distancing. And in having open air spaces, the maze also reduced the likelihood of any pathogen recirculation within an enclosed space. While these design elements were present in other mazes, they seemed most prevalent here.

AMC’s The Walking Dead Experience

Last but not least, we have The Walking Dead maze, which closed permanently last March, right before the pandemic shut down this country with stay-at-home orders. It turns out Universal hasn’t really done anything with the interior of this space, and that allowed it to be added to the HHN line-up.

The burning cabin near the start of the Walking Dead maze is still visually impressive.

The maze is the same as before, starting in the hospital and venturing out into the woods and moving into the prison before escaping out into the alleyway of the town. And while this maze should be the lowest priority for any guest visiting Horror Nights this year, it did feature by far the most number of scareactors that we’ve seen in any prior TWD walkthrough. In past years, we’ve heard of the maze receiving more talent but have rarely seen that pan out. This year, though, there were plenty of walkers and other characters to increase the adrenaline and excitement of the maze.

Going through the prison and trying to escape the walkers is no easy task.

That takes care of the seven mazes at this year’s Halloween Horror Nights. Stay tuned for scare zones and more next. This year’s seven mazes are a far cry from 2019’s ten-count (although there was no Terror Tram that year), but Universal can be forgiven but remaining conservative during a pandemic and not investing too many resources, in case the event needed to be shut down. Hopefully, that won’t be the case.

Overall, we though the mazes offered solid, but generally not spectacular experiences, with the exception of The Bride of Frankenstein Lives. After The Curse of Pandora’s Box, there is a noticeable drop-off, but none of the mazes were particularly poor either. Maybe the gratitude of being able to go through mazes again influenced the sentiments, but it really was nice to just walk through a maze and enjoy the artistry, ambiance, and scares happening around us, even if that was 95% HHN formula-based.

Even though the mazes at Halloween Horror Nights long ceased to actually scare us on account of their repetitive nature, we enjoyed our experiences on opening night. There are definitely a lot of other elements to appreciate, including the set design, soundscape, and technical theatrics. And some of the complaints of previous years, including excessive water effects, overuse of foul smells, and extended black hallways were noticeably reduced this year.

All of this balances out to a solid maze performance for 2021. It’s not the best HHN has ever had, but in the wake of a year off, it’s more than appreciated!