Not since 2018 have John Murdy and Michael Aiello shared the stage at Midsummer Scream. This year, they began with a Q&A from questions submitted from X/Twitter, and that led into a deep dive into their Terrifier maze, joined by the creators of the hit franchise.
For the Q&A portion, they explained that Terrifier and Five Nights at Freddy’s came to be because of years of fan demand. They expected that FNAF would’ve been impossible to do correctly, but they had help from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.
Beyond that, a question about the crossover of local HHN icons, like Orlando’s Jack the Clown or Hollywood’s Hollywood Harry, was left open-ended after giving a short history lesson on them.
Before getting into Terrifier, though, they spent some time discussing the Horrors of Wyatt Sicks house and how it was to collaborate with the WWE.
Every scene will have a lantern, as a tribute to Bray Wyatt. It’s up to the guests to find them. While Hollywood begins at the compound, Orlando will instead begin backstage at the WWE proper.
Then they each revealed how they do treatments for each house. While Murdy goes room by room from the guest’s POV, of about 100 pages of descriptions, Aiello has it broken up by discipline for their roles, along with guides.
The sharing of IPs each year has led to a collaboration that hasn’t been formally established before, and that came together perfectly for Terrifier, which is why they chose it for their deep dive.
Both coasts will begin with guests entering the safer clown side of the fun house featured in Terrifier 2; they have a different take on the attraction out front. Hollywood will have Art coming out of the gate, getting up close to the guests, while Orlando will have a screen showing the different characters strolling by. Orlando’s also featured a slight design change, putting more of Art into the clown on the facade, rather than the existing one, since the original design was a little too close to Jack the Clown.
Vicky Heyes will be in the maze as well, in her most gruesome form.
As will the little pale girl. They went into detail about how she was rushed into production because of all the women cosplaying as a female Art the Clown, and they wanted to make sure they had an official character design out there before it became a problem.
And finally, Sienna Shaw is featured as well.
Of course, it wouldn’t be Terrifier if it didn’t have over-the-top violence. And those scenes are handled differently between the coasts, but they align in the specific kills they wanted to portray, like the hacksaw scene in the first film, and the Santa one from Terrifier 3.
On that note, you will get very wet in these mazes, and only Orlando will offer a way to avoid the “car wash of blood,” as Aiello described the ending.
Finally, in a new twist on HHN, the character will be free-roaming like never before. Art the Clown will be wandering the parks, and no public area is off limits. RIP tour lounge? He can appear there. Restaurants? He will go inside. Stores? Oh, you can be sure he will. There’s no escaping him this time. No longer will throngs of people successfully escape the scare zone monsters by bathing themselves in the fluorescent glow of a gift shop.
In a little bit of a teaser for the Fallout house, they did reveal that it will include the opening wedding ceremony, and it will be sure to feature Some Enchanted Evening by The Castells.
Halloween Horror Nights in Hollywood begins September 4th and runs select nights through November 2nd. Tickets are available at universalstudioshollywood.com.
Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando begins August 29th and runs select nights through November 2nd. Tickets are available at universalorlando.com.
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