It’s that time of year again, when the theme parks go all out for Halloween events, and nobody does Halloween fright quite like Universal Studios, with their history of making horror films for over 80 years. The hugely popular Halloween Horror Nights features the most authentic scares from some of the biggest horror properties in film and TV, and it includes the permanent walk-through attraction for The Walking Dead, along with mazes for American Horror Story: Roanoke, The Shining, Saw: The Games of Jigsaw, Ash vs. Evil Dead, Insidious: Beyond the Further, Titans of Terror (featuring Jason, Freddy and Leatherface), and The Horrors of Blumhouse (featuring The Purge, Sinister and Happy Death Day), three new scare zones, the Titans of Terror Tram hosted by Chucky, an all-new Jabbawockeez show, and access to Transformers: The Ride 3D, Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride, Jurassic Park in the Dark and The Simpsons Ride.

Collider (along with a handful of other press outlets) was recently invited to preview the Insidious: Beyond the Further and The Shining mazes to find out what went into bringing all of the little details to life. After taking the tour and chatting with maze creator John Murdy, we’ve compiled a list of 10 things to know about each of the mazes, which we’ve included with some photos (all images are via Christina Radish).

Halloween Horror Nights is at Universal Studios Hollywood on select nights from September 15th through November 4th, and tickets and special offers are available here.

And for more of our previous coverage on Universal's "Halloween Horror Nights", check out the stories provided below at the following links:

Insidious: Beyond the Further Maze:

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    This new Insidious maze marks the third time that they’ve worked with the franchise for HHN. In 2013, they did their first Insidious maze, after the second movie had just come out. In 2015, they did another Insidious maze when the third movie came out. Now, the fourth movie is coming out, but not until January 2018, so it’s more like the ultimate trailer for the movie.
  • The previous Insidious mazes were huge hits with the fans and are some of the most highly rated mazes they’ve ever done at HHN. Even though there was enough content to do the whole maze just on Insidious 4, they knew that fans would expect to see the Red Demon and some of the other characters from the previous films. With four movies, there are so many great characters to pull from.
  • Blumhouse didn’t restrict HHN in the content of the maze, even though it’s essentially a preview for what fans will see in the movie. They started reading scripts for the fourth Insidious movie at least a year and a half ago, but shooting scripts change so much during the production that they might end up with something in the maze that’s not actually in the movie.
  • For every movie that they do a maze for, they use the set photography as reference, going through as many as 30,000 images to inform the sets and the costumes.
  • The new Insidious movie gave them a lot of new places to explore for the maze. You enter through a facade of Elise Rainier’s house, from when she was a kid. The fourth movie finds Tucker and Specs getting a phone call from someone who has a paranormal occurrence, but when they tell Elise what the address is, she realizes that it’s where she grew up, and you realize that her relationship with the paranormal began when she was a child. She’s afraid to go back to the house, which is the leaping off point for the movie and the maze.
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    The front of the maze is Insidious 4, and then once you get to the red door, which is the portal from the physical world to the Further, that’s when you’ll be taken into the other movies, but from the Further version of the world.
  • When you’re waiting in line, you’ll see the Red-Haired Ghost appearing and disappearing in the windows of the house. Another character from the script, known as the Duck-Face Boy, who wears a homemade mask that kids would have worn in the ‘50s, will be the guide throughout the maze. The Key-Face Demon, which is the main demon in the movie, has keys for fingers. To create his look, they printed texture onto spandex material, which allows the performers to be free with their movements.
  • The ways that they scare people continually evolve and change. A lot of times, it’s about controlling where the guests look, so that they can scare you from the opposite direction. They also use scents and sounds to really help transport you. The performers work the maze from 45 minutes to an hour.
  • Once you step into the Further portion of the maze, it’s almost like a black-out maze because it’s so dark. They are little vignettes among the darkness, as you pass by props and characters from the previous Insidious
  • Towards the end of the maze, you’ll go through a prison where there will be characters in each cell, trying to get you from both sides. And then, at the very end, you’ll pass five separate character scares from throughout the four movies, that will take you to the end of the maze.

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The Shining Maze:

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Image via Universal Studios Hollywood
  • Like The Exorcist was, The Shining is one of the properties that they’ve been wanting to do for over a decade at HHN. It’s an incredibly difficult property to translate into a live walk-through experience. The film is very much a slow burn that takes a long time to get to what takes place. There’s an impending sense of dread that permeates the movie that’s difficult to communicate in a walk-through attraction.
  • To design the maze, they started off by making a list of all of the elements that had to be in the maze, and the trick was figuring out how to pull it all off. They didn’t want to immediately use jump scares because it’s not in the spirit of the film. The front end of the maze will have that impending sense of doom.
  • Because The Shining is a masterpiece of horror, they wanted to get all of the little details right. As a result, you may see things in the maze that are only in the movie very briefly.
  • The first thing you’ll see when you walk into the maze is the door with “Redrum” written on it. Next, you’ll see Jack sitting there and typing, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” before he picks up an axe and walks off. And then, you’ll walk into a hallway that’s covered with the pages that Jack has been typing, all over the walls and the curtains, and with lighting and black light paint. There will be one scare with a door that has a drop-down panel, so that an axe can come through the bathroom door, instead of having to actually chop through it.
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    The Grady twins had to be included, but not as pop-out scares, since they don’t actually attack or hurt anybody. They’re brought to life through the Pepper’s Ghost technology, but in a way that’s different from any version they’ve had to do before. In order to see the girls before they’re murdered and after they’re murdered, they had to get everything very precisely right, so it was all built off set and then set up once the dimensions worked.
  • It was very important that they get vintage wallpaper for the maze, and print their own custom carpet. Also, the font for the numbers on the room doors had to be correct.
  • When you walk into Room 237, you’ll come across the old woman, whose look was designed in the computer and printed on a custom designed suit that the performer can wear.
  • The scene in the movie that was set in The Gold Room was very quick, but they wanted to include it in the maze. There will be real performers mixed in with the skeletons that are around the room, as the music plays.
  • The elevator scene was very difficult to recreate for the maze. In the film, when the doors of the elevator opens, thousands of gallons of blood come out and obliterate the room. For the maze, they will have red paint all over the inside of the elevator.
  • You’ll leave through the hedge maze, which will be flocked with snow and have cold air pumped into it.

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