Movies
Major Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights Announcement!
One of the coolest things I did last October was Universal Studio Hollywood’s “Halloween Horror Nights,” which features mazes for A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, FRIDAY THE 13TH and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. One of the downfalls was the weak horror tram ride, which is now promised to be revamped, along with the ELM STREET maze. In addition, THE STRANGERS will now be part of the event taking place October 3-November 1. Read on for full details and get ready for (more than) one good scare.
Issuing a dare to “Live Your Worst Nightmare,” Universal Studios Hollywood has ratcheted up the intensity level to present a new “Halloween Horror Nights” for 2008. This year’s event will pair Hollywood’s top entertainment scenic and special effects artists with a cast of thousands to create terrifying new experiences including a “Terror Tram” excursion that will feature a stopover inside the infamous Bates Motel, a new scare zone based on the hit movie, “The Strangers” and a bloodcurdling new “Nightmare on Elm Street” maze, all contributing to Southern California’s most intense Halloween experience.
“Halloween Horror Nights” begins on Friday, October 3 and will extend over an expanded 13-night run concluding Saturday, November 1. Tickets to “Halloween Horror Nights” are on sale now at www.UniversalStudiosHollywood.com.
In line with the “Live Your Worst Nightmare” theme, “Halloween Horror Nights” will boast a new “Nightmare on Elm Street: Home Sweet Hell” maze, a painstakingly surreal recreation of the notorious house at 1428 Elm Street. The looming, sinister structure will incorporate live re-enactments of never-before-presented nightmare sequences from the classic film series and will follow a storyline that will be recognizable to fans of “The Nightmare on Elm Street” films but equally terrifying to anyone who enters. “Halloween Horror Nights” will also feature the return of two other notorious horror icons: “Friday the 13th’s” Jason Voorhees and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s” Leatherface, each featured in his own meticulously crafted maze of shock corridors.
The newly re-envisioned backlot horror experience will take guests aboard the “Terror Tram: The Nightmare Tour” — which expands to double the length of previous Halloween tram experiences — and for the first time, incorporates a series of spine-chilling mazes, treks through the timeless set from “Psycho,” and a walk through the tortured landscape of “War of the Worlds” set into a unique and unforgettable experience that will raise the bar of terror to a level that only an authentic Hollywood studio can equal.
In addition to the new “A Nightmare on Elm Street”-themed maze, “Friday the 13th: Camp Blood,” “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Back in Business” and the “Universal House of Horrors” mazes will return with significantly elevated fear quotients. New characters based upon the Rogue/ Universal Pictures hit movie, “The Strangers,” will hauntingly roam within a dedicated “scare zone.”
Universal Studios Hollywood’s favorite thrill-ride attractions will also remain open for “Halloween Horror Nights” nocturnal affair, many with menacing twists. “The Simpsons Ride,” “Jurassic Park – In the Dark,” the “Revenge of the Mummy” psychological thrill-ride roller coaster and “WaterWorld,” aptly transformed into “Slaughter World” for the occasion, will all seem like tranquil respites from the mayhem of Jason, Freddy and Leatherface. The standing sets and themed streets of the theme park will also be transformed into a bloodbath, as if scenes from horror films that were left on the cutting room floor had exploded to life.
An all-new “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure” show will make an encore performance along with the distasteful “Chucky’s Insult Emporium” show bringing guests face-to-face with the scathing sarcasm of the sociopathic doll from Universal’s “Child’s Play” movies.
“Halloween Horror Nights” will continue on consecutive weekends beginning on Friday, October 3 through Saturday, November 1. Event dates are: October 3-4, 10-11, 17-19, 24-26, 30-31 and November 1. The event will begin nightly at 7:00 p.m.; closing hours vary by night throughout the event. Tickets to “Halloween Horror Nights” are $54 and are available for purchase online at www.UniversalStudiosHollywood.com or at the Universal Studios Hollywood ticket booths.
“Halloween Horror Nights” tickets will also be sold in advance at Ralphs
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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