John Murdy and Chris Williams have been the creative powerhouses behind Universal Studios Hollywood Halloween Horror Nights for years, bringing all genres of horror to life. During the their HHN panel at ScareLA on Sunday, we got to hear why these two are the right guys for not only the job they have done so far, but for bringing the Universal Monsters to Halloween Horror Nights for the first time ever.
John Murdy and Chris Williams offered up details on the HHN Universal Monster maze to a packed house at ScareLA. Photo by Annie Thornton
For John, his lifelong passion for the classic monsters started at the young age of four when he watched Frankenstein for the first time. From then on, he was obsessed. He always chose to be a Universal monster for Halloween (and shared some amusing photos of him as a kid dressed as the Wolfman donning a red cape (Yeah… he had no idea why either) and the Mummy (wearing sneakers and gym socks because monsters are cool but comfort is key).
It’s fitting that he now owns one of the largest collections of Universal monster memorabilia given that he grew up in the “Monster Mania” era and owned several of the toys that now go for small fortunes. “This is the world that Chris and I were born into. This is the world we grew up in”. He recalled having all of the Aurora monster model kits and that his brothers blew the models up with firecrackers one Fourth of July. Once he added them to his impressive collection as an adult, he made sure to show his brothers the Creature from the Black Lagoon and let them know that it’s worth $1,000 and that they blew his up with m80s.
Chris talked about how he saw his first Universal monster movie at four or five, and how he’d watch monster movies each weekend as a kid. “I’d go down to my public library that was this old, old five story building that had all of the creepy books at the top. What I’d do actually is use my dad’s 8mm projector and I would rent 8mm reels of the classic monsters, and it would be a mishmash of different stuff, but I’d rent those and on Friday and Saturday nights would have my own little creature feature show at night in our living room”.
He talked about making his monster costumes and having the a love of special effects makeup early on, making Halloween even more fun for him. He had the Dick Smith monster makeup kit at eight years old (and still has it!). “That was a big thing for me, being able to crawl up into my own imagination and come up with these characters, especially during Halloween time”
Fast forward to years later, and it was these iconic monsters that actually led John and Chris to meet. Chris retold the tale: “I was working The Chicken Run experience- believe it or not- with the creative department down in the lower lots and also had an office where I’d worked on Halloween Horror Nights, and this was during a time, during 1997-2000, when during slower times I’d work on other things, like I mentioned The Chicken Run experience. I was in my office area and kept looking into this individual’s office who had this huge six foot poster of Frankenstein’s monster. So, I’m like, wondering who this guy is, and it was several months before I met John actually and got to know him and understand how much of a monster movie freak he is”
“The classic monsters is actually the first thing we worked on together” said John. The first thing they worked on together was classic monsters themed- a show for Universal Studios called “Special Effects Stages” that had a set called “Creature Factory”. Chris was responsible for the art direction while John wrote it. They also went on to create Universal’s House of Horrors that was a popular year-round walkthrough attraction that starred the Universal monsters. From there, they started working on Halloween Horror Nights together.
The duo has brought dozens of horror’s most popular properties to life by ways of HHN mazes, like The Thing, House of 1,000 Corpses, Saw, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Shining to name just a few, and this year, they finally add to that list the horror that started it all for them: The Universal Monsters. “We approached this with one goal, which was the scare the living fill-in-the-blanks out of each and every one of you, and to do it with the Universal Monsters characters” John said enthusiastically.
Although every maze they have created thus far has been incredible, I think it’s safe to say the classic monster maze will be a masterpiece thanks to all of the details John and Chris provided during the HHN ScareLA panel.
I had the chance to talk to the duo after the panel and asked them to further expand on the importance and challenges of bringing the iconic characters that truly launched horror films to Halloween Horror Nights after all these years.
John: “They are the essence of Universal if you boil it down. I think every movie studio becomes associated by the movie-loving public with a certain genre of film- you think of Disney, you think of animation, you think of Universal, and more times than not, people think of the monsters and their movies, even though they were done in the 20s, 30s, 40s, o they have the legacy of the brand and genre which is a huge responsibility, but then you have this challenge of how do you take something that was made, in some cases, almost 100 years ago and make it relevant and scary to a modern horror audience, but still respect but still respect where it came from, and I think that was our number one challenge.
Chris: “Exactly, it was a fine line to walk, but we were up for it (laughs)”
DM: Were there any monsters you didn’t get to include that you would’ve loved to?
John: “Yeah, he’s green! (laughs). Definitely The Creature from the Black Lagoon. We had versions of the maze where he was in, and then had versions where he was out, but one of the biggest challenges was the place. You know, Chris and I talked about this a lot- The Mummy takes place in Egypt, The Invisible Man is England, Frankenstein is in Germany, so we tried to ground it in one place which how we came up with this idea of a castle with all of the specific rooms of the castle. But, we also wanted to leave something for the future also!
Chris: Yes, so keep those fingers crossed because that would be a treat to bring to Horror Nights for sure!”
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