This year I went to Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights 2010 no less than five times. How, you ask? By taking advantage of their “9 Killer Night Deal Pass” back in September. The pass was for nine different nights – including the first two weekends, some Fridays, Thursdays and Sundays – except Halloween of course). For me it was the best deal ever. One would think that going to the same park over and over like that would get boring but it didn’t, not even in the slightest.

My friend and I discovered that we got burned out pretty early, so we usually never stayed past midnight, sometimes we were gone by eleven. The lines get longer and longer as the night goes on so we would usually run and do as many things as we could while they were lighter, then eat dinner, watch the Bill and Ted show (yes, every time) then maybe one more maze and we were done. So we didn’t get to every attraction until we’d been there a few times and by then we’d picked out our favorites.

The Mazes

By far our favorite was Friday the 13th maze because it’s just a good old fashioned scary maze and classic scares are the best in my opinion. Just give me a big guy in a creepy mask with a machete or a chainsaw and I’m a very happy girl.

Second up was Nightmare on Elm Street. Another classic with tons of Freddy Krueger clones running around to make you scream like a little girl….which we did gleefully.

Third favorite was definitely the Terror Tram. I love this maze because they drive you out to the Universal backlot and drop you off in the middle of a bunch of great sets like the Bates Motel, the Psycho House and the plane crash from War of the Worlds. But it’s not just the background that makes this maze work – it’s the monsters in it. All of them always seem to be having a great time and up there they found ways to not only make us scream but usually laugh, too (like the one who held up a severed foot and said “Smell my feet.”).

My next favorite was the Saw maze and not because I’m a fan of the Saw movies. Actually I’ve never seen one as I’m not into the torture type horror stuff. But even without seeing the flicks, I will say they do put on one heck of a scary good maze.

After that was the Vampyre maze, which was probably the spookiest of all the mazes. It has the advantage of being set in the “House of Horrors” building which is there all year as part of the regular Universal Studios theme park. So it’s got some awesome sets and basically they just fill it up with even more ghouls come Halloween time.

Now I know this will come as a shock but my least favorite maze was House of 1,000 Corpses maze This is even a shock to me as I love Rob Zombie. I listen to his music and have even been to one of his concerts, but his movies are too gory for me and boy oh boy, so was his maze. Gore doesn’t scare me, it just grosses me out and makes me close my eyes and run. I really only got one good scare in that maze, the rest of the time I was just trying to keep my stomach contents where they belonged.

I realize I’m in the minority on the gore stuff and I’m sure that most people will vote the Rob Zombie maze as their favorite. I just hope that Universal doesn’t turn all their mazes into gore-fests, but keep a good mix with both types – gory scary and spooky scary.

The Scare Zones

Nightmarez – Never usually a scary one as it’s a little too well lit and people are usually packed tightly in it, due to it being by the entrance.

Klownz – Clowns don’t really scare me that much but I did like all the effects in this one, with the flames and the crazy circus theme.

La Lloronoa – Wailing women and little kids don’t scare me either so I didn’t really ever get spooked in this one.

Freakz – LOVED this one. Lots of freaky monsters willing to chase you for as long as it took to get the most screams out of you. They all have fog but this one added strobe lights and the effect was pretty dramatic as you end up so blind you can’t see the monsters coming at you or (as in my case) you see them everywhere because the lights are playing tricks on your eyes.

Pigz – Another good one, not quite as good as freaks but way more fun than the rest.

The Rides

Well I only rode the Simpson’s Ride, but they also had Jurassic Park “In The Dark” open, as well as Mummy The Ride. I had friends who went on the others so I’ll just say that they enjoyed them a lot. I don’t do roller coasters, but I will ride motion simulators and The Simpson’s Ride is tons of fun. On our last night we got on the top deck and both of us agreed that you feel everything way more from up there. All the flips and spins and turns felt very, very real.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure

I love this show so much and I’ve discovered that trying to explain it to someone who’s never seen it is pretty hard. They always look at me like I’m nuts the moment I mention Bill and Ted. But let me tell you, if you’ve never seen it you MUST treat yourself. Full of pop-culture spoofs, wacky characters (all played with spot-on perfection by an amazing cast), musical and dance numbers to make your eyes pop, plus near nudity and lots of cursing. Seriously, what is there not to like about that?

And now some of my favorite scares…

Me jokingly calling out “mother!” in front of the Bates Motel and Psycho House and a man dressed like “mother” (who had completely blended himself into the crowd) turning around in front of me and coming right up to my face and saying “yes?”. I screamed so loud I’m surprised I didn’t lost control of some bodily functions.

Screaming and giggling with my friend after a monster popped out in front of us at the Bates Motel. We were joking about how much we hated it (which of course meant we loved it), when a monster came up behind us, popped his head between our and growled out “hate what?”. It sent us howling and running off in two different directions.

Whatever that thing was in the House of a 1,000 Corpses maze that came crawling at me from the floor and sent me streaking as fast as I could go through at least the next two rooms of the maze.

The headless body that came at me from the floor and sent me tearing out of the Saw maze.

All of the Jasons in Friday the 13th maze, especially the one that followed me through two rooms, yelling the whole way (me, not him).

The Freddy in the Nightmare Before Elm Street maze that came out from behind the window where we saw him, only to discover he was on stilts and stood about 12 feet tall. My friend gave the best version of a “blood-curdling” scream I’ve ever heard in real life.

The Jason who hid outside the Friday the 13th maze and scared the crap out of us when we thought it was all over.

The monster who blew a raspberry in my ear in the Freakz scare zone on the way to House of 1,0000 Corpses. Not only scared me but sent shivers down my back and once again sent me running off in terror.

All of the monsters who blew on my neck, sniffed my hair and growled ferociously in my ears when I wasn’t looking. No matter how many times it happened I jumped every single freaking time.

Overall a fantastic effort from the folks at Universal Halloween Horror Nights 2010, so get there before it’s gone for another whole year. Passes are still on sale for this weekend.

Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday of the year. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas too and you can’t beat sitting down with a cup of hot cocoa to listen to some good carols. But there’s just something about Halloween. The costumes, the decorations, the scary movie marathons, the candy, even the creepy music (I have my own Halloween “soundtrack” that includes everything from music from the Haunted Mansion to Rob Zombie) – I love every single bit of it.

Part of what I love is going through a really scary maze and screaming my head off. I can’t help it, I just love the adrenaline rush. I get motion sickness really easily and discovered at an early age that roller coasters weren’t for me. I might get a rush from them but then I’d be sick for hours after, so not worth it.

A haunted maze is different. In there I can get scared, scream, run for my life and come out with my heart pounding so fast I’m ready to pass out. But there’s no bad side effects, no aftertaste that comes from roller coasters. I get all the fun and none of the bad stuff.

I didn’t discover my love of haunted mazes until about ten years ago, when I stumbled into one at my first trip to Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights. I always loved Halloween, but even I was too scared to go in those things. I went to the park with a friend as a lark, avoiding the actual mazes. That was until we ended up in one by accident. We got in line thinking it was for something else and there we were, walking into the maze with no way out that didn’t make us look like scaredy cats. So we went in and what followed was probably the most intense (and most fun) five minutes of my life. Since then you could say I’m an addict.

This year was my fourth time visiting Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood and even with a bout of food poisoning (from the day before, it had nothing to do with the park), it was the most fun yet.

The moment we walked into the park, we were assailed by monsters of all kinds. One of my favorite areas was the “Welcome To Hell” part right near the entrance. Representing the Seven Deadly Sins, it had demons (on stilts no less, so they were HUGE), sexy/scary strippers and a “preacher” welcoming you their arms.

After that we went on the Terror Tram ride, another one of my favorite things to do. I love that they change it up a little bit every year so that you’re never quite doing the same walk. The other thing I love it about it is the realism. A maze is great but there’s something about getting dumped in the middle of the woods to go walking in the dark (and believe me, some parts of that walk are pitch black), waiting for monsters to come after you, that is not like anything else.

As for the mazes, I think my favorite was the new Halloween maze. I had finally gotten around to seeing not only the original, but also the Rob Zombie remake. So to see it in “in person” was fantastic. It was also scarier than hell, part of the point of course.

My second was the My Bloody Valentine maze. That movie marked the first time I was brave enough to see a horror film in the theater. A bad incident as a small child left me very frightened of horror movies and the months of nightmares that came from them. So as much as I loved Halloween, I was never a fan of horror. This year that all changed. As a huge fan of Jensen Ackles, I decided that I had to see his new film on the big screen when it came out. So I went with a friend and was prepared to run out screaming if the need arose.

Instead I found joy. I discovered the same rush of adrenaline and fun that I got from a good maze, except in movie form. I ended up loving the movie so much that I saw it twice.

So while the Halloween maze was a touch scarier, the My Bloody Valentine maze got my vote for the most fun for me as I got to run around being chased by men wielding axes, while pretending they all looked like Jensen. Really not such bad way to spend an evening, in my opinion.

The shows at Universal are amazing too. This year we saw a Rocky Horror send-up that was even better than all the midnight showings I’ve been to in the past. This cast, rather than simply pantomiming what was happening on screen, actually sang for real. I loved it.

Every year I look forward to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure show for its hilarious send up of all things pop culture for the year. They also do some fantastic dancing in the show and I was so happy to see that this year they had more dancing than ever. I hope they keep that up. The people in the show are so good that going to see it is like going to a concert with a real band.

Overall Halloween Horror Nights 2009 made me forget how sick I felt all day and gave me some good scares, which is my favorite thing in the world. It’s only been a week and yet I’m already looking forward to next year.