Horror Made Here 2018 - A Unique Festival of Frights
Every year around Halloween time in Southern California, we are greeted by advertisements for horror themed attractions whether it be Knott’s Scary Farm, Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights or even local haunts like the LA Haunted Hayride. This year, there was a new experience joining these iconic thrill attractions called Horror Made Here. This event was located at the Warner Brothers Studios backlot in Burbank, CA. Nobody really knew what it was, but they were selling a limited number of tickets which piqued a lot of people’s interest including mine.
Warner Brothers Pictures is known for some of the most iconic horror movies in this genre. They include The Exorcist, The Conjuring franchise, It, Gremlins, The Lost Boys, A Nightmare on Elm Street and many others. The night I went to this event it was a Friday so there were still shows being filmed in sound stages on the backlot. However, we got the main backlot all to ourselves. Anyone with a ticket to this event could partake in the Halloween fun. They had a stage with a DJ, monsters roaming about, buildings converted into a gift shop, a bar and an 80’s arcade. They replaced the iconic Gilmore Girls gazebo with a ride that shoots you up into the stratosphere. Occasionally you would see easter eggs from your favorite Warner Brothers films. For instance, “Wanted” posters on the Arcade walls from the movie It. The house they used for the filming of Gremlins, if you looked in the window you could see Mogwai sitting there looking out of the front window. What I liked most about this was how quaint it was. There was so much space to walk around unlike at other horror attractions. The monsters roaming around were not chasing people with chainsaws or harassing people. They were simply roaming and you could stop them to take selfies or photos with them which is discouraged at Universal’s Horror Nights and Knott’s Scary Farm. The best part about the monsters roaming was when a catchy song would come on, some of them would start dancing on the dancefloor and dance with the guests.
The main attraction at this event were the walkthrough experiences. I call them that because they were not mazes but more immersive theatrical experiences that also offered up some scares. The fake houses on the backlot were used to house these experiences. My favorite was the Batman Arkham Asylum Experience where you walk into Arkham Asylum, are forced to take a mugshot which you could later purchase and then you are led by the Joker into different areas of the asylum. All of the Batman villains were there and I was in awe of the amazing job the makeup fx and set designers did because I felt like I was in an actual Batman movie. There’s a portion of this experience where the Joker makes you split up from your group and he makes you choose a different path to go. It was fun, especially if you had played the video game this experience was based off of. Everything about this experience made me want to do it again and again.
Pennywise from It
Another experience was the It house. You are walking through this house and every room there’s a horrifying scene from the movie with characters from it that will give you nightmares for days. The interactive part of this was when you became faced with 3 doors and had to choose the right one to escape. It doesn’t matter though because Pennywise still shows up to torment you. Whoever was playing Pennywise did a really good job at it.
The Conjuring experience was also in a house, but this time you were being led by a paranormal investigator. You step into the Warren’s Museum and things begin to fall off the shelves. One of the people in line with you is a “plant” and gets pulled into a closet because they disrespected Annabelle. There’s a poltergeist scene when you’re in a hallway and there’s banging on the ceiling and the walls feel like they’re shaking. The chandelier above you is swaying. You are standing next to a set of stairs and out of the corner of your eye you see something run across the top of them. It was truly terrifying. This chain of events didn’t happen all at once either. They paced them out so well that it was gradual which built up the tension and made you very uneasy. The worst part was at the end you’re faced with the Nun painting and it unmounts itself from the wall and comes running at you. I get chills just thinking about this experience because the acting was so good in it.
They made use of the iconic church steeple on the Warner Brothers backlot which has been used in many iconic TV shows and films. I’ve been on studio tours before, but I had never been inside of this structure until I went to this event. It was the Exorcist experience. Again, I had no clue what to expect. We went in, sat down on one of the benches and all we were told was that they would be showing a clip from the film. We sat there in the dark as the scene played out. It was the scene with Regan being exorcized. Before the main part of that scene happened everything went pitch black. Then, we hear a blood curdling scream. The lights come back on and there is Regan at the front of the church live in-person freaking out. I don’t quite remember what happened after that to be honest. I think the lights came back on all the way and she was gone. My dad is a horror fan but even he was like, that was too much for me. It was brilliant.
The last thing we checked out was the tram experience. You board a tram that takes you to the wooded area of the backlot. There, you are transported into a Friday the 13th movie. It’s late at night and you’re at Summer Camp. We get off the tram and walk along the trail. There weren’t any people guiding us so you felt so vulnerable and exposed. We entered 1 of the cabins and there’s a camp counselor being chased around by Jason. While this is going on, someone comes up from behind me and whispers into my ear, “I’ll be seeing you in your nightmares.” I turn around and it’s Freddy Kreuger! Now I’m on high alert. Freddy and Jason have decided to do a collab. We exit the cabin and walk by the lake where there’s another counselor on the dock screaming for help. Unfortunately, Jason gets wind of this and kills her in front of us. We keep walking. There’s a campsite and we see Freddy sitting by the fire roasting marshmallows. Clearly he has taken over someone else’s campsite because there’s blood and clothes all over. At the end of the experience you board the tram again and they take you to the Warner Brothers Museum. There, they had props and wardrobe from famous spooky films like Beetleguese. You can take as long as you want looking at stuff and when you’re finished you exit back out into the main backlot.
Horror Made Here was by far my favorite Halloween attraction I had ever been to. I’m still a loyal Universal Horror Nights fan, but Warner Brothers coming out of left field and offering a unique one-of-a-kind experience during the same time as all of these other long standing Halloween attractions impressed me so much. I hope one day they bring it back because I miss it.
