Halloween Horror Nights Video Part 3: My Bloody Valentine & Chucky’s Funhouse

Part Three of our video tour of the 2009 Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood includes two mazes and two scare zones: My Bloody Valentine, Chucky’s Funhouse, Meat Market, and Welcome to Hell. Overall, we were impressed with how much Universal Studios tried to mix things up this year, taking old, familiar locations and revamping them for new purposes. For example, the Welcome to Hell scare zone is located on the New York city street scene, which was the site of a toxic spill of the last few Halloweens, and Meat Market is set in the Old West street, which used to be a ghost town (which was nice but too reminiscent of the Knotts Scary Farm Ghost Town scare zone).

My Bloody Valentine exceed our expectations. Although the franchise is nowhere near the level of the one it is replacing (Nightmare on Elm Street filled this space the last two years), the 3D remake from earlier this year provides ample opportunity for interesting settings. We were a bit disappointed with the reuse of some Elm Street elements, like lockers and a boiler room: it made sense for nightmare-man Freddy Kruger to pop out of a locker but not a human slasher. (Note: you won’t see this on the video.)

Chucky’s Funhouse is probably the biggest disappointment of the mazes at Halloween Horror Nights 2009; basically it’s a re-branded version of Universal Studios Hollywood’s year-round House of Horrors walk-through attraction, with lots of Chucky dolls instead of the more appropriate Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man, Frankenstein. Except for a doll shop setting designed to house Chucky, most of House of Horrors looks like a crumbling castle and/or a mad scientist’s lab from an old black-and-white horror movie; Chucky just does not fit inot this environment.