Editorials
[Special Report] Bloody-Disgusting Checks Out The ‘Eyegore Awards’ And Mazes At Universal’s ‘Halloween Horror Nights’!
This past Friday the Eyegore Awards kicked off the opening of Universal’s annual Halloween Horror Nights exhibition of mazes, trams, people in masks lunging at you and… long lines (if you get there too late at least). Not only was this my first time attending Halloween Horror Nights, it was my first time (after 6 years of living in Los Angeles) being on the Universal backlot while it was actually open to the public. I’d been to parts of it before, for various reasons at various times, but never while it was teeming with so many people.
While the red carpet didn’t bear much fruit, it was cool to see some genuine talent get props at The Eyegore awards and the mazes themselves were a blast.
Hit the jump for the full report.
The Eyegore Awards themselves took place against a rather cool backdrop of a corn field that simultaneously evoked Children Of The Corn and The Wizard Of Oz. It was somewhat intimate event, taking place amongst dining room and cocktail tables as opposed to the environs of a theater or auditorium. Corey Feldman (and his hair) hosted the proceedings which, despite going over the target time by over half an hour, managed to move along briskly enough at 70 minutes or so.
Rainn Wilson, Bailee Madison (Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark), David Arquette and Jamie Kennedy all received accolades. As did Emma Bell, whom I already liked in Frozen, but whose clip reel (after a heartfelt introduction by Adam Green) reminded me of her work in “The Walking Dead” as well as the still-unseen-by-me Final Destination 5. In that moment it kind of dawned on me that we may actually have a new scream queen of sorts on our hands.
At the tail end of the awards we also got to check out the contest-winning short film Monsters In My Swimming Pool directed by newcomer Brent Bokovy. It ran under 3 minutes and was obviously culled together with extremely limited means, but it actually had some nice, creepy imagery. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more from him in the future.
But, let’s get real, you’re here for the mazes. How are they? Let’s break them down one by one (in the order attended)*.
ALICE COOPER: WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE
As mentioned earlier, I had never been to HHN before this evening. I was expecting the typical horror mazes of my childhood, just people jumping out at you in masks basically. While Universal’s mazes lack the literal darkness (I’m talking pitch black lack of light here, not thematic stuff) they more than make up for it with copious amounts of gore.
The Cooper maze is somewhat random, it incorporates bits from his stage show and mixes them with just flat-out weird sh*t. The music is a blend of his own along with some stuff apparently repurposed from the Friday The 13th maze from years gone by.
Overall I was kind of expecting this to be the worst one of the night (maybe something to do with Alice Cooper in general seeming like expired goods to me), and while it certainly wasn’t the best, it’s definitely a good bit of fun and well worth checking out.
ELI ROTH’S HOSTEL: HUNTING SEASON
The first “new” maze of the evening was also the shortest. And it taught me a vital lesson for enjoying these things as a movie fan – check your ideas about continuity at the door (for me this was brought on by the fact that the maze gets a lot of mileage out of a certain mask only worn once in the original film – by our reluctant hero Paxton). This realization was vastly helpful in this maze and every single one that followed it.
However brief the Hostel maze is, it’s not lacking for intensity. One of the first things we encountered was the crazed gun-toting businessman from the first film – you know, the guy who wants to know if he should do it quick or slow – and I have to give props to the performer based on how intense it must be to keep that act up the whole night.
The rest of the experience features plenty of mutilation, mostly dead corpses reaching out for help a nice nod to Bijou Phillips’ character from the sequel and even a translucent homage to one of the sex clubs from the beginning of the first film. A lot of the set, from what I’ve been told by my companion, is repurposed from the Nightmare On Elm Street maze but it makes total sense to have boilers and furnaces in this dungeon so it doesn’t affect it negatively.
If you’re a fan of Hostel, or the line is short, it’s a definite recommend.
BTW Spoiler – these are horror mazes. They’re all fun. I’d recommend any of them depending on line length. Which brings me to….
THE WOLFMAN: THE CURSE OF TALBOT HALL
This maze is easily the longest of the bunch. So if you have to choose only one line to stand in for 3 hours, you might want to factor that into your decision.
The Wolfman is a fairly luxurious stroll that incorporates plenty of characters, designs and soundbites from the 2010 film. Of course, there’s not just one werewolf, there’s sh*tloads of them. Which helps. It’s also a multi-leveled maze that even has a rotating room which might make you a bit dizzy. It’s fairly obvious that the maze is a pre-existing structure with a bunch of Wolfman ephemera tossed in but, again, it’s long with lots of decent scares.
Also – it has Chucky and the remnants of a “Good Guy Doll” assembly plant. Remember what I said about continuity? Yeah, don’t bring any with you.
ROB ZOMBIE’S HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES (IN 3D)
The 3D actually kind of works! I assumed it wouldn’t but this is also a fairly fun trek through some scenes from the film (and some images from Devil’s Rejects) along with a bunch of other stuff thrown in – including a pretty dead-on Sid Haig lookalike.
Lengthwise House Of 1,000 Corpses feels about average – somewhere between Hostel and Wolfman but if you’re a fan of hillbilly horror and 3D this is probably the one for you. In terms of gore and scares it’s right up there the the rest of `em.
THE THING: ASSIMILATION
The second “new” maze of the evening was pretty great. Definitely longer than Hostel and it did good job of incorporating the vibe of the 2011 film. In fact I suppose some of the images could be kind of spoilery to those who don’t want some of the cooler effects from the film ruined for them, but there’s so much other stuff in there that isn’t from the movie I guess it doesn’t matter too much.
It was probably the most consistent maze of the evening in terms of maintaining a specific mood and it definitely offered a lot of jump scares (my glasses were almost knocked off my an animatronic monster) to go with the cool designs. While it’s not as long, or as layered as an overall experience, as Wolfman I’d say that if you have real love for the 1982 Carpenter film or any real curiosity about the 2011 prequel, then make this first on your list. If last night was any indication, the line for this one grows the longest most quickly.
*We didn’t have time to hit up “La Llorona: Villa De Almas Perdidas” or the Scream 4 terror tram. Maybe next time!
Halloween Horror Nights continues on September 24, 30; October 1,7, 8,9, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31.
Genre fans rejoiced this week as Peacock finally released a teaser trailer for the upcoming Crystal Lake TV series starring Linda Cardellini as horror’s favorite killer mommy. This sneak peek is actually the first footage of an official Friday the 13th project since the Platinum Dunes remake came out over 17 years ago, so it makes sense that we’re all incredibly hyped for this long-awaited prequel.
While we’ve since received more information about the show -including how all eight episodes will be released at the same time on October 15– fans wasted no time in speculating about the direction they think showrunner Brad Caleb Kane intends to take the franchise next. After all, Kane’s team is free to adapt elements from the entire Friday the 13th franchise, so it seems that anything goes at this point. That being said, I doubt we’ll be seeing young Jason depicted as a fun-sized killer with an affinity for hockey masks, as I’m of the opinion that the show is likely reaching back to the original actress behind Pamela Voorhees herself in order to fill out the prequel’s story.
You see, after sifting through behind-the-scenes interviews and plenty of special features from my own Friday the 13th collection on physical media, I learned that the late, great Betsy Palmer had come up with an elaborate backstory for Ms. Voorhees that was never properly explored in the films. She may have only accepted the iconic role because she needed money for a new car, with Palmer notoriously referring to Victor Miller’s original script as a “piece of shit”, but that didn’t stop her from taking her work seriously – and eventually even warming up to the now-iconic film.
Trained in the Stanislavski Method, an infamous system where actors use the “art of experiencing” to more realistically portray their characters, Palmer decided to build off of Miller’s script and make her own notes in order to characterize Pamela as a more complex and arguably sympathetic figure, even if only a fraction of her contributions would actually make it onscreen.
The only real information she found in the script concerned her character’s prominent class ring, and from there Palmer extrapolated an entire backstory where Pamela had a high school boyfriend during the 1940s that got her pregnant and then skipped town. This led to Pamela being forced to raise her child all on her own during a deeply conservative period in American history – another reason why the character is so bothered by the camp counselors’ promiscuity.
It was Tom Savini who first revealed to Palmer that Jason was going to be depicted as being disabled (an idea that wasn’t in the original screenplay), with this crucial addition making the actress realize that Ms. Voorhees was already overburdened even before the death of her son. The tragedy only pushed her over the edge as she became a puritanical vigilante attempting to shut down Camp Crystal Lake at any cost.
For Palmer, this means that “Camp Blood” never had any curse, as the multiple fires and poisoned water incidents that kept the camp from reopening before the summer of 1979 were merely part of Ms. Voorhees’ years-long vendetta against the property’s owners. Palmer also insisted that the killer in the sequels isn’t the original Jason, as he definitively drowned at the bottom of Crystal Lake. According to her, having Pamela’s child return even as a killer revenant would undo her entire character arc, meaning that the masked murderer who takes over her legacy must be someone or something else entirely!
CRYSTAL LAKE — (Photo by: Matt Infante/PEACOCK)
These ideas match up with most of what we’ve heard about Peacock and A24’s plans for the upcoming series, which is set to follow Linda Cardellini as Pamela after she gives up a career as a singer in order to take care of her disabled son, played by Callum Vinson. That’s why I wouldn’t be surprised if the writing team decided to borrow from the woman behind the machete in order to make the series more authentic to the source material.
Of course, there are rumors floating around that the show could also feature a teenage Jason in some capacity, so we’re still not sure about how exactly Kane and company plan to adapt their project to the franchise’s ever-changing mythology. That’s why I’d like to invite fellow readers to comment below with your own theories about where you think the prequel show is headed!
For now, I think it’s safe to say that Friday the 13th fans are more than ready to binge-watch Pamela’s bloody origin story when it finally drops this October. And who knows? Maybe the show’s success could finally lead to a new mainline film…
CRYSTAL LAKE — Pictured: Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees — (Photo by: Peacock)
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