Universal Studios Hollywood Announces General Admission, Front of Line and Premium VIP Experience Tickets Now On Sale for its Highly-Anticipated ‘Halloween Horror Nights’ Event, Taking Place on 21 Select Nights, from September 20 to November 2, 2013

Universal City, California—Tickets are now on sale for “Halloween Horror Nights,” Southern California’s premier Halloween event, taking place at Universal Studios Hollywood on 21 select nights from September 20 through November 2, 2013.

Tickets to this year’s event are available for purchase at www.HalloweenHorrorNights.com/hollywood, including a Front of Line ticket option that enables guests to enjoy priority access at each maze and theme park attraction, as well as a premium VIP Experience ticket offering guests an enhanced guided tour of “Halloween Horror Nights.” Advance purchase is recommended as event nights will sell out.

This year, the contemporary urban city streets, towering skyscraper, brick-faced facades and industrial exteriors that make up Universal Studios’ world-famous production facilities will serve as a backdrop location for “Halloween Horror Nights” as Universal Studios Hollywood creates elaborate maze settings from iconic movie sets and soundstages never before used in this popular, award-winning event.

“We’re thrilled to be working with today’s leading horror movie, television and music properties to bring another bone-chilling ‘Halloween Horror Nights’ to life at Universal Studios Hollywood,” said John Murdy, Creative Director, Universal Studios Hollywood. “Our collaboration with renowned filmmakers, producers and artists contributes immensely to the event’s authenticity. The limited amount of Front of Line and VIP Experiences tickets available to our guests provides great options to enhance this special experience.”

“Halloween Horror Nights” 2013 brings together the sickest minds in horror to immerse guests in the living, breathing, three-dimensional world of the most notorious and terrifying creatures. Featuring a slate of unparalleled film production quality mazes, fright-filled scare zones, compelling new backdrop maze locations and a new “Terror Tram” experience, uniquely themed to today’s most definitive horror properties, “Halloween Horror Nights” will taunt, terrorize and torment guests with incomparable spellbinding and horrifying haunted attractions.

AMC’s Golden Globe-nominated and Emmy Award-winning TV series returns to “Halloween Horror Nights” and will feature an all-new disturbingly real maze, inspired by Season 3 of the cult favorite television blockbuster. “The Walking Dead: No Safe Haven” maze will place guests at the core of the show’s once impenetrable prison, the West Georgia Correctional Facility, now overrun by decaying walkers. The disturbingly real haunted attraction will send them cowering through the walker-infested wilderness that surrounds the prison and into the seemingly utopian town of Woodbury where gruesome secrets are concealed.

Other haunted attractions will include “Evil Dead: Book of the Dead,” based on Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s chilling remake of the cult classic; “Black Sabbath: 13 3D,” inspired by the darkest lyrics from the legendary rock band’s 43-year history of Heavy Metal music, and “Insidious: Into The Further” based on the disturbing “Insidious” film franchise that explores the darkest corners of the paranormal experience.

“El Cucuy: The Boogeyman,” a startling, terror-filled maze based on the Latin American legend of the mythical, shape-shifting monster, will feature chilling narration by prolific actor and producer, Danny Trejo, and “Universal Monster Remix: Resurrection,” will complete the lineup with new sounds from acclaimed artist/DJ Figure, and all-original monsters inspired by fan-generated character competitions along with a legion of Universal’s legendary monsters re-defined for the 21st century.

A new reign of terror in new scare zones based on Universal Pictures’ blockbuster movie “The Purge” and Universal Studios Home Entertainment’s upcoming Blu-ray release of “Curse of Chucky,” will also come to life to terrify “Halloween Horror Nights” guests.

The highly-entertaining and edgy “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure” returns in an all-new production, adding to the already dynamic “Halloween Horror Nights” event, while such theme park’s favorites remain open throughout the event: “Transformers: The Ride -3D,” “Jurassic Park® In the Dark,” “The Simpsons RideTM” and “Revenge of the Mummy – The Ride.”

Maze announcement videos are available on Halloween Horror Nights’ YouTube Channel. Updates on “Halloween Horror Nights” are available online at Halloween Horror Nights, on Facebook at: “Halloween Horror Nights – Hollywood,” on Instagram at @HorrorNights and Twitter at @HorrorNights as Creative Director John Murdy reveals a running chronicle of exclusive information. Join the conversation using #UniversalHHN.

“Halloween Horror Nights” kicks off on Friday, September 20, 2013 and continues on 21 select nights through Saturday, November 2, 2013. Event dates are: September 20, 21, 27 and 28, October 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 31 and November 1 and 2.

“Don’t be embarrassed about opening your mouth and letting rip with all you’ve got,
because the person right next to you will probably be screaming too. And remember—a scream
at the right time may save your life.” – William Castle, cult horror film director

MINNEAPOLIS – Seven may be a lucky number to most, but for those foolhardy enough to explore The Soap Factory’s infamous Haunted Basement in its seventh, luck is a resource in dreadfully short supply.

Directed for a second year by Noah Bremer, The Haunted Basement is a fully immersive terror adventure designed to traumatize new visitors and returning Haunted Basement fans alike. With a fiercely demented creative team, consisting of set designers, makeup & costume designers and even olfactory scientists, Bremer has crafted an experience that will disorient and terrify visitors at every shadowy twist and turn.

Always a provocative assault on the senses, this year’s Haunted Basement will take sensory overload to outrageous new extremes, ranging from deviously twisted soundscapes and unexpected tactile experiences, and also including the presence of an entirely new spectrum of nauseating odors provided by the smell engineers of the St. Croix Sensory.

Beyond the structural design of this year’s project, Makeup Designer Kristen Leigh and Costume Designer Alli Olwell collaborate with this year’s Haunted Basement performers to create customized character designs, promising to unleash some of the most gruesome unfortunates ever to dwell beneath The Soap Factory.

Fancy yourself a hard-hearted veteran of The Haunted Basement, never breaking a sweat, never uttering a scream? We throw down a gauntlet and challenge visitors to journey through the entirety of the Haunted Basement completely alone. Special “Test Subject” Haunted Basement tickets will be released in September, in very limited quantities. Keep an eye on The Soap Factory’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts for updates, giveaways and sneak peeks at this year’s Haunted Basement.

Did all that screaming make you parched? Fridays and Saturday’s during The Haunted Basement, join us for a drink in the Spooky Speakeasy. With craft cocktails, an eerie atmosphere and spooky music, this pop-up bar is the perfect place to decompress after your journey through The Haunted Basement. Ticket price includes entry to the Spooky Speakeasy. Or use the “secret knock” and check out the Spooky Speakeasy without Haunted Basement tickets.

_____________________________________________________________________
The Soap Factory celebrates its 25th year as a laboratory for artistic experimentation and innovation, dedicated to supporting artists and engaging audiences through the production and presentation of contemporary art in a unique and historic environment. Based in the historic National Purity Soap Factory in downtown Minneapolis, The Soap Factory is a 501(c )(3) non

Universal City, CA – The age-old fear of “the boogeyman” comes to life at Universal Studios Hollywood in an all-new grisly twist, “El Cucuy: The Boogeyman,” as the latest in the lineup of award-winning “Halloween Horror Nights” authentically disturbing mazes opening September 20. Adding to the torment of “El Cucuy’s” grim and dark legend is an exclusive and chilling narration by Danny Trejo, one of Hollywood’s leading villain character actors.

In Mexico, “the boogeyman” is known as “El Cucuy,” a mythical ghost-monster touting pointed teeth and razor-sharp claws. Some believe it is an evil spirit which lurks in desolate caves and ventures into the pueblos late at night, lying in wait under beds, in closets and on rooftops in search of disobedient children. The legend began as a cautionary tale told by parents warning their children to behave or “El Cucuy” would prey on them. This generations-old myth has haunted children over the years as part of popular Hispanic folklore recited throughout Mexico, Latin America and the United States.

“I remember my mother telling me about ‘El Cucuy’ as a little kid and it freaked me out,” said Creative Consultant and Maze Narrator, actor/producer Danny Trejo. “I grew up with it and I told it to my kids, too. I can’t wait to check it out at ‘Halloween Horror Nights’.”

Trejo’s distinctive gravelly, gruff and gripping voice deftly narrates the legend through the eyes of the monster and malevolently morphs into “El Cucuy.” Maze-goers will follow Trejo’s ominous voice as it guides them into disturbingly gruesome sights ravaged and pillaged by the shape-shifting trickery of “El Cucuy” including the scene of a child’s birthday party gone horribly awry. Distressing maze chaos continues in sinister scenes which lure maze-goers through a family room, a child’s bedroom and closet where the merciless attack of “El Cucuy” is witnessed in pools of blood with lifeless bodies exposed to reveal gaping wounds; toys, stuffed animals and clothing are scattered about in the struggle. Maze-goers soon find themselves entering “El Cucuy’s” evil cave; a cavernous macabre of horror where muffled cries for help signal impending torment ahead.

“The ‘La Llorona’ maze we created last year was extremely well received by our guests and praised for its authenticity, so we’re excited to bring another infamous legend from Latino culture to ‘Halloween Horror Nights’,” said event Creative Director John Murdy. “At its core, this legend is even more horrifying than ‘La Llorona’ because ‘El Cucuy’ is known to take on the form of trusted adults like a police officer or your grandmother as a way to approach victims so it’s the perfect subject matter for a maze. When I was writing the maze story line, I pictured Danny Trejo as the voice of the monster, so we’re thrilled to be working with Mr. Trejo to bring the terrifying legend of ‘El Cucuy’ to life at ‘Halloween Horror Nights’.”

Trejo’s filmography includes an impressive lineup with starring roles in titles such as “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn,” “Heat,” “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” “Machete,” and more recently, “Machete Kills,” the second in the Machete series scheduled for release on October 11, 2013. Trejo can also be seen in Universal Studios Home Entertainment’s upcoming Blu-ray release, “Dead in Tombstone,” starring opposite Anthony Michael Hall and Academy Award® nominee Mickey Rourke. The new action-packed movie is available on October 22, 2013.