Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights 2021: Terror Tram, Ambiance, and Scare Zones
Universal Studios Hollywood, Universal City, CA
Happy Friday the… not 13th, folks. Today, we’re finishing off our Halloween Horror Nights coverage by taking a photo tour through this year’s returning Terror Tram, a brief look at the general Horror Nights ambiance, and then strolling through the three (really two and change) scare zones offered at this year’s event. I feel like the scare zones are where Horror Nights offers more freedom and flexibility than the repetitive mazes where scareactors generally perform the same role and motions repeatedly, thousands of a times through a run. And though this year featured the fewest scare zones in quite some time (or perhaps ever), what was around was still pretty enjoyable.
So sit back, put on your favorite spooky soundtrack, and lets check out the non-maze offerings of Horror Nights Hollywood!
Terror Tram: The Forever Purge
Last year was dark for Halloween Horror Nights, and the previous year didn’t have a Terror Tram in favor of two additional mazes down in the area near the backlot tram loading. This means it’s been three years since the Terror Tram has shuttled guests to the same premise with a different theme, and as they say, time heals all wounds, and absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Although the Terror Tram has long ceased to be a truly innovative and fresh offering, its return was still an exciting development that HHN were looking forward to. This is because nowhere else can one experience anything quite like the Terror Tram. Head off to a movie studio backlot and walk through actual, iconic, and (in)famous movie sets? It’s still quite a unique experience.
Welcome to another edition of The Purge on the Terror Tram—Universal’s favorite way to conduct patriotic murder!
This year, the theme of the Terror Tram is The Forever Purge, after the latest Purge movie. Much like the mazes, this was a clear sign of HHN playing it safe and producing something that would require minimal effort and could leverage previously produced sets, costumes, and visuals. However, despite the essentially recycled theme, this year’s Terror Tram was actually the best we’d experienced in some time. This is because the Horror Nights folks trimmed the fat off of this year’s layout, eliminating the frustrating bottlenecks and keeping guests focused along a succinct pathway that kept the action at the forefront.
Much like previous years, guests board the backlot tram cars and begin their drive out to the movie sets. A cheerful tour guide on video helpfully announces that on tonight’s Purge Night, the guests are being transported to a safe zone, and it’s faaaaantastic! Of course, all of this is a trap, as the video cuts to a security camera feed showing a desperate mother with a baby begging to be saved. As chance would have it, guests spot the mother cradling her child as they approach the drop-off area, only to see the mother revealed as one of the Purge killers! A chainsaw brigade is summoned, and it’s cacophony as guests are greeted the Universal way!
Norman Bates and the Pyscho House are once again on the main (and only) path of the Terror Tram.
The pathway continues past a line of cars behind chainlink fencing at the now-demolished Whoville set and the moves along the Bates Motel, where more kills are witnessed. Then, instead of taking the long route up the hill and behind the Pyscho House, guests simply turn toward the Psycho House and pass by, stopping for an opportunity to take a picture with Norman Bates if they’d like. Then it’s onto the War of the Worlds set, where more Purgers await. Here, the path actually splits in two for a hot minute before recombining just before reaching the end of the line. From there, survivors are picked up and taken back to the tram load.
And Log Bunny is back! Our favorite wacky Horror Nights thing has been a staple and has its own Instagram!
We really enjoyed and appreciated how the layout of this year’s Terror Tram kept guests moving and pulsed them along in manageable groups, circumventing the pedestrian traffic and haunted conga lines that have plagued parts of past Terror Trams. Once past the Bates Motel, things were clear sailing. Even the mini-maze component was efficient and unique, with a series of camo monsters hidden among jute netting waiting for unsuspecting or inattentive guests to pounce upon.
This doesn’t look menacing at all…
In this way, the Terror Tram showed off how less was more. Everything flowed capably and smoothly, and it made for a nicely effective experience that did not drag as much as we were used to!
Horror Nights Ambiance
In the past, Horror Nights has been about the mazes, the scare zones, and the Terror Tram, and that’s it! This was certainly plenty to do, especially for those without Express Lane privileges, but it still left some gaps in Horror Nights immersion, such as non-scare zone atmosphere and food offerings. Fortunately, Horror Nights has been moving toward integrating these items more into the HHN vibe, and we saw clear evidence of that stronger than ever this year!
Hogwarts has some dark arts projection on it during Halloween Horror Nights, and it looks awesome!
The first and arguably most exciting development was the opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter to Horror Nights guests. This was done on a limited basis in 2019 as a trial run, but it’s a regular occurrence this year. “Harry Potter Land” has taken on an ominous look during Horror Nights, with Hogwarts receiving a passive version of the Dark Arts projection show. The resulting visuals provide an eerie environment that is fantastic to behold, and the feast for the eyes is also helped by the operations of Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey and Flight of the Hippogriff, helping increase park capacity by giving guests more to do than just waiting and going through mazes. This is something we have advocated in the past in order to help with the crowds, and we’re really glad that the park has finally adopted the practice. Now, could Death Eaters be next, like in Universal Studios Japan’s Halloween Horror Nights?
In addition to the visual feast, Universal has moved to up its actual food feast options with themed food stands and dining areas. There’s a Texas Chainsaw Massacre BBQ stand called Leatherface’s Texas Family Barbecue down in the Lower Lot, not too far from the maze, that’s a clever and charming temporary quick serve station offering pulled pork sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, hot dogs, nachos, fries, and drinks. Unfortunately the nachos that Dan had were rather poor, but the sandwiches did look pretty tasty.
Little themed quick serve placed tied into some of the HHN mazes are a nice touch.
Upstairs, the most prominent and elaborate Horror Nights food area could be found in Universal Plaza. The Día de los Muertos Bar and Little Cocina offered Mexican food and alcoholic beverages, ringed by a series of sets evoking the spirit of the Mexican Day of the Dead. There were several wonderful displays and a couple of non-scare characters around for photo ops. Further over, there were also a couple of animatronic skeletons that bantered back and forth with each other, having dialogues that came straight out of a goofy, haunted Jungle Cruise. Although the conversations seemed to run a little long, we appreciated the effort in the little touches like this that helped enrich the overall atmosphere of Horror Nights!
Universal Plaza has been repurposed into a large dining and bar area with seating. This is a way better use than a queue, and while it’s unclear if this was done to add more outdoor seating and dining areas due to the Coronavirus, we hope this type of setup becomes permanent at Horror Nights!
In a very strangely non-Horror Nights type of thing to do, these two animatronic skeletons share minutes-long joking banter filled with bad puns and corny jokes. It’s entertaining and certainly not serious like HHN normally is!
There were a couple of other themed dining options for Horror Nights, including Freakshow Vin Bistro behind Universal Plaza and Terror Lab, a bar by the Jurassic World attraction. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite pick up on them during our evening last Thursday (this is where a physical map would have helped), but we’ll pay more attention next year!
Silver Scream Queenz
Just as Universal Monsters: The Bride of Frankenstein Lives seemed to be the consensus #1 maze of the event, its corresponding Silver Scream Queenz was also the popular favorite scare zone. Located on French Street, this scare zone actually allowed guests coming the other way to experience it, though few would go back to French Street from the rest of the park due to a lack of any attractions or even dining options by Super Silly Funland.
The Bride of Frankenstein in her doctor outfit greets guests exiting the Universal Monsters maze.
Nonetheless, Silver Scream Queenz was buoyed by its fantastic cast of female horror icons and iterations, as well as a series of fantastic movie poster sets and dioramas that enriched the cinematic-style ambiance. The take on classic Universal monsters provided great characters, including the Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula’s Daughter, the She-Wolf of London, Anck-Su-Namun, and other female vampires and mummies. Rounding out the line-up was the towering Frankenstein’s monster, fully healed and repaired thanks to the Bride’s help.
Dracula’s Daughter and the She-Wolf join forces in Silver Scream Queenz.
Anck-Su-Namun makes for a cutting figure in the fog on French Street.
The foggy atmosphere, daring energy, and constant focus on scares made this an excellent scare zone to just kick back and enjoy the guests as bait and entertainment. Clearly, the extra effort put into this scare zone—above previous years, it seemed—was noticeable and paid off. Silver Scream Queenz was utterly fantastic, and it is probably the best scare zone that has occupied this area of Halloween Horror Nights!
Demon City
Normally the top billing for scare zones, the New York Street sector was actually bumped to “S3” this year. But like other years, Demon City provides a strong showing that brings it just about on par with Silver Scream Queenz. Here, everything has been bathed in red, and gruesome and hellish creatures emerge from the shadows to terrorize. Towering, bony stilt monsters, horned demons, and repugnant monsters shuffle and stomp around, bounding with endless energy, looking for victims.
Stilt walkers are almost as much of a staple of Halloween Horror Nights as chainsaws, and this demon certainly knew how to pose for the camera!
The fiery atmosphere was more than just metaphorical to describe the color palette.
The area is also decorated with Universal’s usual cavalcade of horrific creature pops. In addition, the fire towers have returned after one season’s absence. It was a welcome site to see the flames spew up, occasionally going off all four at once. With the tower at Universal Plaza in the background, it made for a plethora of great photo ops.
Although the static prop decorations seemed a little lighter this year, the area around New York Street still looked terrific!
Chainsaw Rangers
Finally, the third scare zone was Chainsaw Rangers—though scare zone is really stretching the definition. The entrance area featured an army of chainsaw-wielding maniacs wearing masks styled as the faces of wild animals in nature. From opossums to stags to wild boars, these creatures seem to disregard their natural lack of opposable thumbs and revel in their chainsaw equipment.
Framing fire at the entrance of the park, as well as the entrance of the Chainsaw Rangers scare zone (technically).
Beyond that, however, there was no other sign that this zone was anything noteworthy. Interestingly, there was literally zero theming throughout the entire main avenue toward New York Street, and truthfully, scareactors from both Chainsaw Rangers and Demon City frequently intermingled into each other’s territory. Effectively, Chainsaw Rangers and Demon City functioned as one scare zone.
Chainsaw Brigade poised for chaos at the end of the night.
A saving grace for this area came at the end of the evening, approximately half an hour before closing. This is where every chainsaw-wielding scareactor in the entire park congregates for the traditional Chainsaw Chase Out. This unofficial but regular event has become beloved among fans, and it’s fun to witness on nights when most guests don’t know or aren’t expecting what’s to happen.
In short, it’s a gauntlet of chainsaws for guests to navigate and try to push through as they are leaving the park. The scareactors being in spread, latticed position, standing motionless as guests uneasily filter through the throng and between the monsters. At the signal of the leader, however, all hell breaks loose, as scareactors chase and lunge and intimated guests with their revving and thunderous chainsaws, sometimes chasing guests around in terror!
The scareactors from Chainsaw Rangers were among the chainsaw wielding fiends from all over the park gathered for the Chainsaw Chase Out at the end of the night!
Opening night has diluted the entertainment value of this half hour series, since most guests who attend on opening night are big fans who aren’t scared by (bladeless) chainsaws swung to and front close vicinity. But for the rest of the run, and especially when the park is filled with more casual haunted attraction fans, it can be a hysterical bout of turbulence to just watch and enjoy!
And that wraps up our 2021 coverage of Halloween Horror Nights! If you missed them earlier, check out our general review and our deep dive into this year’s mazes. Definitely a lot more pictures to browse there, if you enjoy that sort of thing.
Now, we move on to Knott’s Scary Farm, which we visited last night, and Six Flags Magic Mountain Fright Fest, whose media night is tomorrow. It’s the first half of haunt season, which means the commercial haunt big guns come out to play before home haunts take greater precedence deeper into October. The spoopy season is in the thick, and we hope you’ll enjoy the ride!
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
