Universal Horror Unleashed: Still on the Leash

When I heard that a horror-themed park run by Universal Studios was coming to Vegas, I had mixed feelings. I love the idea of a year-round haunted attraction, don’t get me wrong. But the couple that have tried to open here in the past have gone under within a couple of years. One was even built by a famous movie director, but it had so much wrong with it. There was also the fact that we had gone to haunted attractions at Universal during October. They are always overbooked and under-acted.

All that being said, I don’t like to knock an activity before I try it. And it helps that I work somewhere that finally gave us free passes to the park. The tickets are a bit expensive and we had been waiting until we didn’t have to pay full price. So a group of coworkers and friends decided to get together one Sunday evening after work and give it a try.
My best friend was in the group with us, and she told me over and over that she was pretty sure it would not be a long evening. There wouldn’t even be that many lines. After the bad experience I had with 3 hour wait times at Hollywood Horror Nights, I was a bit unsure about her statement. But she was correct. There was barely even a line to get in the park, and most of the haunts had less than a 5 minute wait. There are 4 haunts, plus themed zones and restaurants/bars. Two haunts are based on horror franchises, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Exorcist. Scarecrow, The Reaping is based on a haunt that has previously been run at the larger Universal park. The Universal Monsters house is themed after the original horror monsters from older films, like Frankenstein and Dracula. The weekend we went, they also had a Resident Evil theme, with live shows and displays from the films. That is not a regular part of the park, and may or may not still be up by the time you read this. The shows were pretty fun though. First, some zombies stormed the crowd, and we had to be “protected” by troops in zombie protection gear. Then some of the main characters from Resident Evil had a gunfight with a very big monster above our heads.

We tried some themed drinks, ate a cake pop shaped like a heart, and browsed a shop. I wanted to walk the scare zones, but they weren’t very big. For example, The Dragon and I went to a restaurant on one side of the exhibit, and could clearly see my friends on the other side. I remember maybe 4 strolling actors, zombies mostly. Even the lines for the haunts themselves didn’t have many actors. The Texas Chainsaw and the Scarecrow had one line actor each. The other two haunts had lines that were too confined to allow an actor to move well, so there was none. Since the lines were so short, I’m not so sure that was a bad thing, but it was different.
But I know what you really want to read about is the haunts. So, here we go!

Warning: None of the haunts were long enough for their own entries, so I mention parts of them in each category. Hope that works for you, My Readers.

Sets:

The couple of times I have gone through Universal Studios horror parks, I have noticed that their sets are the main character. They have the budget to make them well, and they do just that. While these sets were kind of small, they did do a very good job with the details. I tried to go last in my group, simply because I wanted to go slowly and look at every little thing. The Exorcist haunt, for example, has little details on the desks and walls that give nods to each of the films. The Scarecrow one had a lot of tactile details; I left feeling like I had cornsilk in my mouth.

A couple of the haunts used mirrors to make them look bigger, and it was a success in at least one. There was a maze section that actually only lasted for one line, a turn, and one more line. But the mirrors made it look at the start like you could actually get lost in a huge maze. Another haunt had a section that was supposed to be in a high tower. If you look over the edge, it looks like you could actually fall forever. But a bit of closer inspection lets you know it is just a set of mirrors, making it seem that way. Even knowing that, it still gave me a bit of vertigo.

Just like Universal Studios, the haunts relied heavily on soundtracks. One complaint I have about that is that one haunt even ran their chainsaws through a soundtrack. The sound and smell of a chainsaw are an integral part of going through a haunt for me. Having people swing dummy chainsaws with the soundtrack going was a total buzzkill (pun intended).

Some of the haunts had scenes for the people to watch, but only one of them had sufficient space in the room for the whole group to get in. The other one felt like I was missing parts because of trying to cram too many people in a small space.

Acting:

The actors that I saw get a real chance to act did a very good job. I especially liked the characters in the Universal Monsters haunt. One of them is an acquaintance of mine, but he was not the only one who did a marvelous job. The Brides of Dracula hissed with creepy beauty, Dr Frankenstein raised his monster for the crowds to see, it was awesome. There was a decent one at the start of Texas Chainsaw and Scarecrow as well. They made good use of the small amount of space and time they were given to put on a good performance for the guests.

A lot of the complaints I have about some of the rest have nothing to do with the acting itself, but with the way Universal uses their actors. They have actors in the same masks pop up at every corner and then fade away. They don’t do any actual acting, and you can’t tell if it is several actors with matching costumes or the same one with lots of hidden doors. They may be wonderful scare actors, or they may be terrible. But with the short scares, you could never tell. It feels like they did try to mix in some more acting in some of the haunts, but I would have liked to see more. For example, Leatherface pops up over and over, waves the chainsaw, and then steps back out of sight. It wasn’t scary, it was just redundant. I am a bit biased, as I don’t really like Texas Chainsaw as a franchise, but it happened in other haunts too. The same scarecrow character, the same demon. It’s just not a style I enjoy.

The strolling actors were all zombies, and did well as such. It was a lot of growling and staggering, but they had a good sense of timing and read the crowd well.

Theme:

Each of the haunts had its own theme, and each theme was done well. In this case it may have helped that they were short, as there was no need for filler rooms or roles. They had a condensed amount of space to represent a story, and they used it well. I mentioned the small things on the desks in the Exorcist. The Texas haunt had missing posters featuring some of the characters from the films. They even had the van from the first film in the front of the haunt. The middle space was too small for multiple sections and was mostly taken over by the Resident Evil theme. They had a Texas Chainsaw themed restaurant that was pretty cool, and a clown restaurant we didn’t end up visiting. I have heard good things about it, but it was a bit expensive and none of us really wanted to sit and eat.

Scare Factor:

Everyone has a favorite film, a favorite haunt and their own biases. That being said, I would say one of the haunts stood out the most to me. I loved the Universal Monsters haunt. They used some of the less well known monsters to give people something they didn’t expect, combined with the well known ones for a bit of nostalgia feel. The sets were awesome, with something to see everywhere you looked. Don’t forget to look up! Even the line had amazing busts of all of the famous historic Hollywood monsters and a fun stained glass window. Beautiful.

My main takeaway from this park was how small everything was. If you go in expecting a regular Universal size park experience, you might be disappointed. But for the amount of attendees they had, it was a good size. A wide open large park would have just looked empty. Even the somewhat small amount of actors was sufficient for scaring the amount of guests in the park. We spent maybe 2 hours there. It could have been more if we had wanted to eat or participate in the Resident Evil scavenger hunt type activity. But I wouldn’t expect to spend the entire day there. If you want the whole day, plan at least one more activity in Area 15.

Only the jumpiest person in our group was actually scared, but we all had fun. So go in with managed expectations, and you’ll do the same.