The next time you think your 9-5 sucks and you think life would be great if only you were a Hollywood actor/actress....consider those wannabe thesbians entertaining Richard and I (and our friends Bob and Leslie). So we took in Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights.....an evening where the 'Entertainment Capital of the World' turns goulish and tries to scare all the people more than the fact that they paid $50 to get get in.
I have been to Halloween Horror Nights before. My best friend, Scott, used to coherse a bunch of us into going every year in Orlando. But the last time I went was probably 1995, and I am extremely happy to announce that the productions have improved significantly in the last 13 years. (13....ooooooo).
At 7 p.m. we stood in the wanna-be-TSA security line to enter the park, when in many of the attractions had been spiked with a ghastly theme to celebrate the season. In addition to blood-spiked waredrobe thrown into their regular attractions, they had haunted houses around the park, and roaming zombies and psychopaths hiding in dark corners ready to scare all high-school aged-girls into the arms of their boyfriends.
We started on the "Back Lot" Tour, which capitalized on a few of their horror movie sets. Universal did, afterall, give us Psycho and the never-should-have-been-made-with-Tom-Cruise War of the Worlds. The only good thing about the War of the Worlds remake was the opportunity to turn the airplane crash set into a gory accident scene complete with freshly placed corpses....including passengers in still strapped to seats 22 A &B - now hanging out the side of the airplane - giving new meaning to the term "exit row".
In this, and the other haunted houses in the park, were employed people who should make you thankful for your day job....even on the most mundane of days. Imagine, for a moment, that you are an aspiring actress looking for your big break. Would your resume be enhanced by Halloween Horror Nights? Perhaps, if you could spend 5 hours in the front seat of a VW bug constantly pretending to try to turn on the car and escape from the other aspiring actor in the room who's stint as Jason (the beloved villan of Friday the 13th movies) means he spends 5 hours stabbing a fake knife through the top of the VW in an attempt to make passers-by believe he would have you dead. 5 hours. Day after day. How exactly do you sell that skill to a Hollywood talent scout?
And I am not sure which is worse, faking that kind of monotonous activity for five hours, or doing a convincing job in the face of people like Richard, Bob, Leslie and I, who were so rapt by the fake murderous scene unfolding (repeatedly) in front of us that we devolved into a discussion of exactly what the building we were in was when it was not inhabited by the special HHNs exhibit. So engrossed were we in the need to solve this crime (much to the disappointment of the girl trying to escape in the non-working VW) that we turned to the other Universal employee in the room.....who was probably stunned that Bob was talking to her.
You see, there might be a patron or two either caught up in trying to protect someone or trying to prove something that they might strike out against the actors trying to make you urinate involuntarily...and that patron might try to become part of the pseudo-action. In the dark, in the midst of their 5-hour shift, is a park employee responsible for the safety of the actors in the room. You can walk by and be plenty scared, but you may not touch the actors/actresses. These individuals stand, in near dark, ready to jump on you if you disobey the code of conduct. I think this girl jumped quite a bit when Bob turned to her and asked "what is this exhibit normally?"
Who knows, it may have been the highlight of her night.
But Halloween Horror Nights was a highlight of our October.....and it is helping us survive L.A.
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