Fans of Universal Studios Hollywood’s annual Halloween Horror Nights event howled with disappointment as the theme park announced that the haunting festivities were put on hold for 2020 due to coronavirus concerns and the lack of reopening guidelines from the state.
Though the event is canceled, Horror Nights creative director John Murdy doesn’t want that to stifle fans’ fun and creativity, so he’s offered us some scary and safe ideas for creating spooky experiences for your quarantine crew.
“The best thing anyone can do in this world right now, with everything going on, is to be creative and use that creativity for good and to do something positive,” he said during a recent phone chat from his home in Ireland, where he lives with his wife and two young daughters.
Murdy created his first D.I.Y. Halloween production in 1977 in the foyer of his parents Hacienda Heights home. He was 10 years old at the time and had fallen in love with “Star Wars” in the theaters that summer, so Murdy themed his performance after the film, which was a hit with the neighborhood trick-or-treaters.
Each year, it got more extravagant and by 1981 he had kids lined up around the block to walk through his expanded haunted house that started in the front yard, snaked through the house and garage and came out into his backyard. Murdy dressed as Norman Bates, scaring patrons with a kitchen knife from behind a shower curtain. While his mother dressed as a vampire to greet guests, Murdy says his grandma, who dressed as a witch, was the scariest one of all.
“She was handing out the candy and no one would go get it from her, because she was so terrifying,” Murdy recalled with a laugh. “But that year my dad said that was enough.”
Murdy went on to work at Universal Studios Hollywood and eventually teamed up with Chris Williams to bring Halloween Horror Nights back to the theme park in 2006. Since then, they’ve produced over 80 attractions based on horror films, television shows, video games and several all-original concepts.
Now, in this unprecedented time, Murdy said “even the creative director needs to get creative” since it’s unsafe for masses to congregate during the pandemic. In searching for ways to keep his daughters – 5-year-old Addy and 7-year-old Izzy – entertained, he came up with tips to carry on the Halloween spirit from home this year.
Come Up With a Theme
It all starts with a solid idea and a stack of Post-it Notes.
To make a home haunt, Murdy says to come up with a theme or story. Each year, he and Williams stick Post-it Notes all over the walls with ideas for environments, characters and scares for the attractions. As the idea is fleshed out and the sticky notes are altered or shuffled around, it moves on to the storyboard phase.
“It’s kind of like outlining a television episode or writing a screenplay,” he said. “But starting with the Post-it Notes is a way you can look back at it and edit it and move things around until it’s just how you want it. That’s how we’ve designed almost every maze we’ve created.”
Get Creative With Homewares
By watching the work of award-winning special effects artists like Rick Baker and Stan Winston in his early haunt-building days, Murdy learned plenty of gags that he still uses in his big production mazes.
One of his staples is hanging threads from the ceiling inside a dark room so it feels like you’ve walked into spiderwebs. He creates versions of dot rooms (which allow costumed scareactors to blend into the background). A rope and pulley system can lower ghosts and skeletons in for a scare. There are also fake blood recipes on YouTube using everything from Kool-Aid and chocolate syrup to cornstarch and red dye. (Be careful, that stuff stains).
During quarantine, he said reviving building forts with sheets and cardboard boxes can be fun for climb-through experiences for the kids.
Costumes can be made with items found around the house or clothing hidden deep in the closet. For his first venture into haunt production, Murdy, his siblings and friends each made their own “Star Wars” costumes.
“My mask was the most painful thing I think I’ve ever worn,” he said of his homemade Tusken Raider costume. “It was made of chicken wire and burlap with that thick paste you use in elementary school holding together the layers of burlap. I used Dixie Cups for the eyes and wrapped them in silver contact paper.”
Since animatronics were out of the budget, Murdy used his mother’s Christmas decorations to animate certain scenes of his at-home experience.
“Those figures that are usually Santa or an Elf that run on batteries,” he said. “They’re usually creepy on their own, but I’d use those and put a zombie or monster mask on them and cover the bottom with rags, and when you turn them on they wiggled and it looked like something was coming to life. Some of them played music, too. I’d always leave the music on because you get four or five of those going at once and they all play different Christmas songs.
“It sounds pretty scary.”
Make Your Own Short Horror Film
Murdy and his daughters began doing a Stay-At-Home-Cinema series during the pandemic. They made storyboards, learned about stop-motion animation and used dolls and toy dinosaurs to create movie magic.
“We’d sit down at breakfast and have story conferences and collaborate on a script,” Murdy said.
Since trick-or-treating isn’t that big in Ireland and may not be allowed this year, the Murdys are working on a Halloween poem about a seasonal decoration dubbed, The Man in the Black Hat. They’ll storyboard the poem, film the scenes, the girls will narrate it to create a mini-movie for All Hallow’s Eve.
And it’s all done using a smartphone and an inexpensive video editing app.
“I’ve been doing this from my iPhone and using iMovie,” Murdy said. “We really haven’t left the house, so the whole premise of what we’ve done is making a movie with whatever is in the house. Anyone can make their own five-minute scary movie at home.”
In previous years, Universal Studios Hollywood hosted the Eyegore Awards in the Globe Theatre, which honored the best in the horror genre, but also included a fan horror film competition. Murdy said that idea should be revived during quarantine, suggesting HHN fans share their short films via the official Hollywood Halloween Horror Nights Twitter @HorrorNight or host their own mini-film fests online.
“Now you can do all kinds of things without spending a lot of money, but it really challenges your creativity,” he said. “It’s easy to be creative if you have all the resources in the world, but all of this is kind of full circle for me. This goes back to when I was 10 years old and had no budget to entertain the neighborhood kids.”
