Halloween 2009

Universal Studios Hollywood has released a photograph offering a glimpse of “Saw: Game Over,” their new maze for Halloween Horror Nights 2009. Or rather, it’s a posed publicity shot intended to give an impression of what the attraction will be like. It’s a nice image, but it does not provide too much information beyond showing someone in a pig mask menacing a pair of female victims – and pig-faced maniacs have been a staple of Universal’s annual Halloween event since it re-started in 2006.

Halloween Horror Nights 2009 begins on October 2 at Universal Studios in Hollywood. Tickets are on sale now.

It’s a brave, new world of information soundbites in which we live. Universal Studios theme park in Hollywood has been twittering updates to rabid fans for weeks, regarding this year’s Halloween Horror Nights in October. Delivered in bits and pieces, this fragmentary information is little better than a box of unassembled jig-saw puzzle pieces, but gradually a picture of the 2009 haunt is emerging, and the picture is not pretty. Basically, the studio seems to have little confidence in its own classic horror legacy, so it continues to sub-contract other horror franchises in order to appeal to today’s audiences. The result sounds like a hodge-podge of gore and camp with little genuine Halloween flavor