Horror That is an American Werewolf Comes to Universal Studios This Halloween

Gabe Zaldivar
by Gabe Zaldivar
Last updated: 1:00 PM ET, Tue September 16, 2014

Image via YouTube

A future visit to Universal Studios Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights will feature the pleasant sights and sounds of grisly werewolf attacks.

The Los Angeles Times' Brady MacDonald reports organizers will offer a spectacle known as An American Werewolf, a maze dedicated to the 1981 horror filmAn American Werewolf in London directed by John Landis.

MacDonald has the skinny on the maze, which will closely resemble the beats of the popular movie, including an ominous trip to a pub and a glimpse at a werewolf transformation in process, because grotesque terror is all part of a balanced diet of entertainment.

The reporter does warn readers that they may want to skip the bottom of the article if they want to stay spoiler free, so we have to caution you the same.

According to the report, however, Universal Studios is going above and beyond to bring the scary this Halloween. John Murdy, who serves as the creative director, spoke with media and offered a breakdown of the maze, via MacDonald:

"Visitors enter the maze through the front door of the white brick Slaughtered Lamb pub as Jack summarizes the backstory of the film via an audio track.

Amid dart boards, chess boards and a portrait of the queen of England, the unfriendly villagers in the pub offer the backpackers (and us) some sage advice: Stay on the road, avoid the moors and beware of the full moon."

Anyone who has enjoyed the film will be familiar with the setting and music, right down to the bar with a "five-pointed star" and Sam Cooke's "Blue Moon." It seems organizers are going for shock and awe with a dose of creepy for this maze.

We will leave the rest of the maze production for your imagination, but we will offer that there will be elongated claws and blood. Oh, there will be blood.

MacDonald reminds that the film this maze is fashioned after actually won makeup artist Rick Baker an Academy Award, an accolade that came after one of the more visceral scenes at the time.

Here is David Naughton, playing David Kessler, turning into a ravenous werewolf. Warning, the scene is NSFW but entirely captivating:

All of this serves to remind that backpacking around the world is a treacherous undertaking. There are some sinister elements out there, including beasts that can take out your best friend and pass on a horrible curse all in the span of a few short moments.

We imagine visitors to Universal Studios this Halloween will be safe from impromptu shape shifting. That's the hope anyway.


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