Keep it alive! Five ideas to keep the Horror Nights spirit alive year round!

I hate to sound like a negative Nancy, but Haunt Season is just two weeks away from ending. It seems like it’s just gotten started and all of a sudden it’s going to come to an abrupt end with costumes and candy. Sure there’s still plenty of time to get your scares in, but the clock is ticking away quickly. While all the haunts are pretty good this year, the one that sticks out for us the most is Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando.

HHN 21 is the top dog again this year, and the houses are really shining. So, to keep the spirit alive all year round, here are five ideas that can help Universal keep Halloween Horror Nights in our hearts and in the minds of consumers year round.

• 5-H.R. Bloodengutz Presents:It’s worked for decades with several other horror hosts, and H.R. Bloodengutz is the best and most diabolical we’ve seen…ever. IF you don’t know the story of H.R. Bloodengutz, he is a mascot for one of the houses at HHN this year. His show is cancelled, and he takes his producer hostage and the rooms of the house are the shows in which he introduces. Universal owns NBC and SyFy so a weekly show featuring intros and commercial clips from the fanged wonder would warm my heart just as much as the house does. And of course the movies would go from classic horror tales to the campy crap. It’s cheap, it’s fun and you could put “Inspired by Universal Halloween Horror Nights coming in September” at the end of every show. Hell, at this point I’d settle for a “Midnight Mayhem” Lunchbox! Think of the synergy!
• 4-Bill and Ted on Saturday Night Live: The gang that writes and performs the Bill and Ted shows are flat out amazing. It’s a legendary show, and Halloween Horror Nights would be kind of blah without it. However, admittedly, the concept is getting a little tired, and a little bit dry. So to spark it up, how about a Saturday Night Live skit once a month? Think of it, a monthly rip on pop culture, where our heroes come rushing in to the rescue to make things right…or screw it up. It would build the audience for the yearly show even more, and maybe it would loosen the show writers up (for the HHN Show and SNL) a bit. Maybe we could even get some better racy parodies back in there. Who else missed a Harry Potter “THOR” wand reference? (Your wand is THOR? Yeth..it hurths…)
• 3-Icon Inspired Movie: Oh the complete and total fun this one would be. A movie giving the background of our favorite hellish icons. How much fun would it be to see Jack the Clown go from serial killing clown to being hacked up and locked up in a box only to be resurrected as the blood thirsty demon he is now? The story is there! Or how about we do a story that actually makes the storyteller scary! And after this year, a Lady Luck movie should be all but a done deal! It’s yet another way to have the spirit live on.
• 2-Halloween Horror Nights-Do or Die for Kinect: Speaking of living on. How about getting into the video game business? You can do all of the same things in a movie, only have guests live the experiences of horror nights at home. There is a Disneyland game for the Kinect coming out where you collect coins and ride attractions. Why not have the same thing for HHN? You must journey through the most famous houses of HHN history and defeat the Icon that the house represents. You’re unraveling the mystery of horror, and why all the terrible things keep happening at Universal Studios. In the end you face FEAR…the puppet master of all the terror. It would put him to better use than just sitting there doing a pantomime. Online game play would pit you against other players either as the Chainsaw Drill Team, Treaks and Foons or Freaks. Design your own parade floats which are made of downloadable content that you buy from Universal and trade them with other players. Each year a new story is available to download for a small fee and you can figure out not only the theme and icons for that year, but also win tickets to the event!
• 1-A year round Universal Monster attraction-This is one that not only fans of HHN have been asking for, but also for horror fans in general. Universal Studios was brought back from financial ruin because of the classic monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy and the Wolfman. The studio thrived because of Creature from the Black Lagoon, Bride of Frankenstein and The Thing. Yet the only tribute of the monsters come in the form of the Horror Make Up Show and the Monster Cafe (which is rarely ever open anymore). So why not make an attraction that pays tribute in a big way? A huge ride. We start off with a wax museum full of classic horror icons. Nothing too scary here, we are a family park after all. Our goofy little guide comes in to guide us. He’s a likable little version of Igor, and he tells us that since all the monsters are all gone his life is nothing but fun and relaxation. We go down the line from Phantom, to Hunchback, Wolfman, and we stop at an oddly lifelike Frankenstein. There’s also a glowing rock at the middle of the room, it pulses as if it was a beating heart. The figure that’s missing is that of Dracula. Suddenly Frankenstein’s Monster comes to life and grabs the rock and smashes through the wall. We hear the disembodied voice of Dracula as he tells us he is going to use the “bloodstone” (har har) to bring all the wax figures to life, and let the monsters rule the world! Igor was afraid this would happen, and tells us the only way to stop Dracula is to force him back in his coffin so that Igor can seal it forever. We have to find garlic to do that. Yes, very silly stuff, but it is a family park and we need something a little light hearted or the parents will go nuts and declare a war against scary things. Besides we will get the monsters doing the things that they have always done, implying that they do bad things…but just like in the movies, we don’t see them do the bad things…we just know they did them.  Then every year the ride can be celebrated even more during Halloween Horror Nights.

Happy Halloween!