Halloween Horror Nights' 'Stranger Things' maze turned us Upside Down
One of Stranger Things' most powerful qualities lies in its strong sense of place.
So translating the Netflix hit into a live experience via a haunted house-like maze sounds like a match made in heaven.
Through its incredibly organic worldbuilding and performances, Stranger Things makes you feel like you're part of Hawkins, Indiana -- part of this rag-tag team of misfits. And that's exactly what John Murdy, Executive Producer of Halloween Horror Nights (happening now through early November at Universal Studios Orlando and Hollywood), set out to do with the new maze inspired by the show.
"Stranger Things is one of those rare properties where it kind of transcends the confines of the genre, and become a pop culture phenomenon," he said in our backstage tour of the maze as it was being constructed on a soundstage in Universal Studios Hollywood.
From Murdy's perspective, the maze had to be different from, say, Halloween 4, another haunted house offering this year where Michael Myers pops out for a jump scare every 30 seconds in the maze. Because while Stranger Things has a great monster (the Demagorgon), he also wanted to immerse the audience in its sci-fic, fantasy, and classic '80s throwback setting.
"So what was a little bit different about our approach [to Stranger Things] is that, in addition to trying to scare the living daylights out of everybody, we're also really trying to hit every beat of the show along the way."
He said that's also why they only stuck to Season 1, giving the maze more narrative coherence and fitting in all its most memorable moments from the original series. Without spoiling too much, the maze hits every major set piece that turned Stranger Things into the iconic, bingeable sensation it is today.
So of course, there's the Beyers' house, complete with the blinking Christmas light alphabet over the living room.
Murdy and his team worked hard to recreate the exact time period of the furniture, too. Because while the show might be set in the 80s, the Beyers' house remains stuck in the last decade. But don't worry: You'll still get your '80s fix with the soundtrack they play while you're waiting in line.
"You really gotta nail the show, which is hard to do in a temporary experience," said Murdy.
But despite all this hard work being inevitably torn down come November, "You still want to go through the trouble of the details that we obsess over to make you feel the difference -- even if you can't put your finger on what it is."
In the Beyers' house, the team didn't just find the exact wallpaper from the show to sell you on the recreation, either. They went through the trouble of putting actual, real parquet floors under our feet.
Also, for the final scene when Eleven faces the Demagorgon in the Hawkins middle school classroom, Murdy was adamant about having that classic T-Bar ceiling with fluorescent lighting. It's a look everyone who ever went to grade school in America will immediately recognize.
With the exception of the monster from an alternate dimension flailing in pain on the chalkboard, of course.
"A lot of the time, we don't even worry about what's under your feet, because people's focus tends to be straight ahead in Horror Nights. They don't look up or down," said Murdy. "But there were little touches like that that felt really important to bring this particular show to life."
Certainly, the Stranger Things maze deals in more atmospheric thrills than cheaper tricks like jump scares, which are more typical for the other Halloween Horror Night offerings of past and present.
After entering Hawkins' lab, for example, a man dressed as Doctor Brenner (aka Papa) begins to talk to you as if you're Eleven, coaxing you to unleash the monster within yourself and the Upside Down. It's a whole different kind of disturbing eeriness than you'll find elsewhere in the theme park.
This added layer of immersion and subtlety not only makes sense for the series, but also as a new focus for bringing the popular horror entertainment of recent years to life.
"We used to only be about slasher movies," Murdy admitted, having helmed Halloween Horror Nights since 2004. The horror of nowadays, though, is more defined as a blending the uncanny with too-close-to-home realities, like Get Out, The Babadook, and Hereditary.
"As horror has evolved, we evolved with it," Murdy said. And certainly, the Stranger Things maze is a step in the right direction for that vision.
Topics Netflix Stranger Things
Jess is an LA-based culture critic who covers intimacy in the digital age, from sex and relationship to weed and all media (tv, games, film, the web). Previously associate editor at Kill Screen, you can also find her words on Vice, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Vox, and others. She is a Brazilian-Swiss American immigrant with a love for all things weird and magical.
