Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Hollywood — Part 2
The iconic: TERROR TRAM
Welcome back to continue sharing my eerie, heart-pounding, and scream-filled adventure at the 2023 Halloween Horror Nights!
The walk-ins and mazes were absolutely spectacular, and some were truly terrifying. In Part 2, we will discuss the iconic Terror Tram. And stay tuned for Part 3, which will cover Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count, Universal Monsters: Unmasked, Evil Dead Rise, The Purge: Dangerous Waters, and Monsters of Latin America.
If you haven’t checked out Part 1, it includes the fun adventures at The Exorcist, Holidayz in Hell, Stranger Things, and Last of Us mazes and walk-ins.
Terror Tram is a classic experience in Halloween Horror Nights. It’s there every year but with a different theme. Last year, the theme was a murderous clown who went loose at the Universal Studios.
This year’s theme was Exterminatorz. They introduced a mysterious character named Larry Larva, who has found a way to eliminate the humans like we do to bugs.
A short film and clips introducing the theme of that year play in our rides. It’s the same every time, where the monster interrupts the tour guide with his villainy message and panic takes over.
When they drop us off, we first walk through a motel set, where actors with costumes try to scare us. Usually, the characters in the motel stay the same, but they integrate the theme of that year within the set.
This year, with the theme of Exterminatorz, some of the windows in some motel rooms had shadows of giant roaches crawling around them.
Toward the exit of the motel set, Larry Larva was killing a human with his new formula to eliminate humans.
Pass the motel and the psycho house that’s there every year, regardless of the theme, we entered into the Spider Alley. The design was cool, and there were actors dressed as various bugs, providing jump-scares.
Down the road was the Hatchery, once again, filled with cool designs but too many bug themes for me.
To be honest, last year’s Terror Tram left a more lasting impression on me compared to this year’s. Despite my fear of bugs, I found myself utterly unfazed during the Exterminatorz experience.
It started as an interesting concept at first, but later on, the storyline lacked the chills and was too dull, but that’s just one person’s opinion.
And finally, the coolest part of Terror Tram has always been this spot for me before the exit. If you know Terror Tram, you also know it includes the sets and elements from Jordan Peele’s movies “Nope” and “Us.”
This year was the same as the last one, with actors dressed in costumes of characters from Us, holding scissors and popping out of nowhere right in front of you. There was no bug theme around this part of the experience as far as I remember.
The actors with scissors also provided some jump-scares here and there. Look at the image above carefully. What do you notice?
Do you see the man popping out behind the “Welcome to Jupiter’s Claim” sign?
Yeah, that guy hides behind the sign and abruptly emerges whenever someone passes through, providing one of the best scares of the night!
Make sure to subscribe to get notified for Part 3, where we’ll explore the experience in Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count, The Purge: Dangerous Waters, Evil Dead Rise, Universal Monsters: Unmasked, and Monsters of Latin America.
I hope you enjoyed Part 2 of my experience at Universal Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights in 2023.