John Murdy Breaks Down 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' & 'Universal Monsters' Mazes

0:08 Get a deep dive on two of the mazes from Halloween horrn Nights that's coming up on today's show from the haunt Attraction Network. I'm Philip and it's October first, which means that our annual Hauntedthon is in full swing, where we're counting down to Halloween by celebrating haunted houses daily via videos, podcast articles, and more. This is actually one of the first podcasts that we're gonna be releasing for this year's Hantathon. More on that later. Since this podcast is only one part of the Hauntathon, the best way to follow everything is by subscribing to our newsletter at the link in our show notes. Remember, the best way you can support us is by sharing our Hauntathon with someone you think. We'll enjoy it.

0:50 Today, I'm playing the full Halloween Horror Night's presentation from Midsommer Scream for you. Yes, I've been holding on to this recording for quite a while because Minsimmer's Green was at the very end of July, but we wanted to make it fit into the Haunted On, and most of the presentation really outlines the details for Texas Chainsaw Masker and Universal Monsters mazes. So whether you've been to the event already or not, the presentation gives you insights into the design and the details that go into the mazes. So I don't think it's a problem if you've been to it or not. I think actually, for me having been to it and listening to it, it really makes me remember some details that I looked over as I.

1:30 Was going through the maze. So in this presentation, we're going to start right off at the beginning, where you hear John Murdy on stage. You hear the crowd chanting Berty's name as he comes on stage, and then he launches into it. Okay, here we go in three two one. I'm gonna chante all of your names, just yelling aloud. How you guys doing today. I'm John Bernie. I'm the credit director, executive producer of Halloween, Hornight's Universal Studios, Hollywood. Welcome back to Minsummer Scream. We got a lot of stuff to show you guys today.

2:19 But you guys know how this starts, right? Well, no, actually it starts like this. Okay, thank you. That's a tradition, you know what I mean, you know, seriously, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. It's the fans of Halloween Hornites that fuel our passion for the events, that make ourselves and our team want to talk to you know, talp ourselves every single year. We appreciate all that his support, so thank you so much. And do we have in a house? Do we have any team members of Halloween Hornites? Anybody scan it? Stand up Snada?

2:59 Thanks that? If not me, if all of these people, we want to lose you the head? All right, what should we do? No? By the breaking up my thumbs, something wicked this way up? So you guys ready for announcement right. Out of the game here, Yeah, Texas this coming.

3:44 Now, I know what you're thinking. Has Texas Chainsaw Massacre ever been featured Halloween Hornet's in the past, Yes, it has. What we're gonna take you through today and I'm gonna do a deep dive into Texas Chainsaw Massaer the legacy of leather. This is an all new experience. I'm gonna show you why. But first the show with the history lesson, So Texas chance On Massacre goes all the way back to the very beginning of our era of Halloween Hornites. It was one of the first intellectual properties that we featured at our events. In two thousand and seven, we did Texas Change I'm Asker back in Business. Anybody see this, anyone in the crowd around back then, A lot of you who saw that original house that it was the scariest house that we ever produced. Is that true? Okay?

4:36 So that's the bar, right, that's the bar. We knew we had to top ourselves. But we did it into two thousand and seven. It actually wasn't based on the original Texas Chance I'm Masacer. It was based on the two thousand and three remake. So in two thousand and eight we did the exact same thing because we did that back then, you know, back when I first started doing Halloween Hornites. I came from Universal Creative, from doing like Ryan It's like Revenge of a Mummy. And then we took this and celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year. We took my Halloween horn ice, you know, the first years, and we're doing it, and we were like, oh cool, everybody like that, Let's just do it again. So in two thousand and eight we did text Chansaw Masker back at Business, exact same house, and then four years went by and then In twenty twelve we did Texas Chainsaw Massacer.

5:27 The saw is the law. That's the first house we did based on the original nineteen seventy four classic film, quick personal story. You see the scene. What's the scene, Yeah, the dining room, the dinner table scene. That particular year, I brought my father in law and my mother in law from Ireland to Halloween Haardites for the first time. When we got to the scene, the path goes around to the left. My father in law he'd never been in a hotted house. He went around to the right and he sat down and at the chair and he just started chatting up Grandpa and the poor performers, like what the hell's going on? And then leather Face came running into the room with a chainsaw and my mother in law tried to smack it, and I'm like, no, no, you can't do this. But in twenty twelve, that's the first time we did the original chansaw on Massacre. And then twenty sixteen, four years later, you see the trends starting to develop here calling you conspiracy theorists in the house, we did Texas Chainsaw Massacre Blood Brothers, and this was different.

6:37 We took the idea was we took the first film in the second film, and we created our own sequel that lived between the first film and the second film. And to this day, this house holds the record for being the only haunted house ever in the history of America. That probably featured the President Jerald Ford in the opening scene. And then in twenty and seventeen it's title to Terror. We'll we mask up Leather Base, Freddy and Jason. And then four years later, in twenty twenty one, we went back to the original Texas Chansa on Massacar. Now, I mentioned at the beginning that this is all new, this is all different. Why did we decide to do Texas Chance on Massacer in twenty twenty four the anniversary? This is what In twenty twenty four, it is the fiftieth anniversary of this historic franchise. Now, maybe you guys love Texas Chance on mascar Okay. If I was gonna make a Mount Rushmore for horror, which somebody should do, maybe one of you one day we'll do this, I would put Leather Base for sure as one of the foreheads on the Mount Rushmore Horror. That's what this franchise means to the whole genre of horror. This is the fiftieth anniversary of that historic franchise. So the people that we've always dealt with over the years on Texas Chainsaw Massacre, they came to me and they pitched me this idea.

8:06 Why this is what they said. They said, why don't you take a multiverse approach to this classic franchise right? And I'm went, now, yes, let's do that. That's awesome, Let's do a multiverse approach. And then I patent because I had no idea how to do that. So what did I do? I do what I always do. I went back to the film, even though I've seen it a million times, I started researching the film, and this particular line was the seed for everything I'm going to share you right now. There, you know the scene, right, he so idyllic. The summer afternoon, there's a group of teenagers driving in a van. They're driving through Morto County, Texas, and they see this dude in the distance waving and jumping up and down, and they decide, what you should never do horror movie, don't ever do this in real life.

9:02 They decided, oh, what is that crazy guy? Let's let him in our car. Let's give him a ride, and he says these lines. My family has always been in meet. What's he talking about the slaughterhouse? He says, oh, there was. You know, I used to work at the slaughterhouse, and my brother did and my grandpa, and I thought to myself, you never see that in the original film they talk about the slaughterhouse, that you never see it. So what we decided to do was to create an alternate timeline. This is where it gets real heavy, Okay, so follow me. We decided to create an alternate timeline that runs parallel to the events of the nineteen seventy four film, but that takes place entirely at this location. You've never been to the slaughterhouse. Because if I know the Sawyer family from Texas James On Massacre, which I do, I know that if there's a slaughterhouse that they all used to work at has been sent they're abandoned, they're probably doing something with it, right, So that meant in research, I needed to learn everything I possibly could about slaughterhouses and meat productions. So that was the next phase of my research.

10:14 I don't recommend this, by the way, this messed me up. I spent hours and hours and hours researching slaughterhouses. In fact, this is the first treatment I've ever written that I had to put a disclaimer on the cover page, like a warning to any of our team members that we're going to read this. And if all of you who work at Halligan ornez so hear, you know I'm telling the truth right right on the front page, big huge letters. In fact, most of my research imagery I can't even show you. I didn't put it in the deck because it's really, really, really awful. So now it's time for a slightly longer history lesson than the one we had before. It starts with this date, December twenty fifth, eighteen sixty five.

10:57 Does anybody have any idea what that date happen to do with anything besides the fact that it's Christmas? Jenniferth the Union Stockyard at Chicago opened its doors for the first time. So back of before there was this place people like to slaughter their animals on the farm, right, everything was done locally. But in eighteen sixty five they opened this place, the Chicago Stockyards, and they had a bunch of trains that came to the same point, so they were able to bring all these cattles and pigs in and then after a little bit of time. Originally it was just a cattle mart, but then this gentleman with the crazy sidebirds came along. This is Philip Danforth Armor, and what he was the creator or innovator of was the assembly line. In fact, before Henry Ford ever builds an automobile, he got the idea from this dude, Philip Danforth Armor. Do you recognize the name? Anybody as old as me? And the house bought dug so I remember hotdogs?

12:02 Can you remember that commercial? We saw this commercial constantly when we're kids. This guy built the first mechanized meat processing plant after Chicago Stockyards, and he created what is known as the disassembly line. So the animals go in and then piece by piece by piece by piece by piece by piece, they get disassembled. Right now, will The Danford Armor was famous for this quote. He said that he used everything but the squeal and this is just some of the stuff that they made out of everything that went into the slaughterhouse, everything from chewing down to chess pieces. But like all great industrialists, he had a rival, this gentleman who Stavis Franklin Swift he built a slaughterhouse and a meat processing plant right next to armors plants.

12:46 But he had another idea. He was the inventor of the ice cooled railcar. So now they could use the railroad to transport meat all over the country, and that changed everything. This is from the night. This is the same place. Now is huge. World War two is going on. They need to feed all these soldiers. A fueled America's obsession with meat, because back in the days before this, it was really rare that you ate meat for dinner, right, that would be like a treat. But because they have the refrigerated train cars, they can transport meat all over the country. And you can even see the propaganda posters from World War two. They were like meat, it's the meal for a healthy defense. Now, this of course led to what it always leads to in these situations, environmental disaster.

13:33 So that first picture on the left, that's what they call the backyards of the Chicago Stockyards. This is where all the employees lived, and that's what they lived in industrial waste. You see that guy standing in the middle of the river, that's Chicago River. They pumped fifty thousand gallons of wastewater from the slaughterhouse into the river every single day, and it turned into what they call Bubbly Creek. All the noxious fumes in there, they all bubbled to the surface of the creek was constantly bubbling, and there was so much sludge on the surface of the tree that you could literally stand on it. Now, after this, you know environmentalists like Upton Sinclair who the famous book in the Jungle. He started criticizing everything that was going on and brought a lot of attention to it. And shortly after that, after World War Two, the freeways were built.

14:24 They changed from a refrigerated rail cars to refrigerated trucks that could transport they meet around. It no longer became necessary to have a slaughterhouse in a big city like Chicago, right, So eventually that led to decline and by the early seventies this place was gone. It was completely demolished, and people started building slaughterhouses way off the beaten path, away from big cities, in rural places like Moredo County, Texas. And this is where it beautifully dovetails into the events of Texas jats on massacre. Do you know the state August eighteenth, nineteen seventy three. That's the beginning of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That's the day it takes place on off.

15:07 So what we decided to do was to take everything I just showed you and apply that to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This is the key art for the attraction. Here's your social media. I don't like to take that, couldn't want to hear it and say you were first. I had to come up with a way to tell this backstory, right, So I wrote a script for Nevin Sawyer, also sometimes referred to as the Hitchhiker. I didn't voice it, but I'm gonna do it for you, so you get the idea. This is how we're gonna set up the experience. Do you guys like when we have a live character out in front of the facade, Well, it's not nothingness, but i'll show you what it is in the second But you hear his voice while you're waiting in line, and he says this, my family's always been meat. We sitting to work at the slaughterhouse, all us Sawyers, me, my brothers, Grandpa too. He was the best killer that ever there was.

16:11 But the police got shot down one account of them. Government contracts drying up after the wars, he was destitute. But you can always find meat if it in nowhere to look. Animals here from the road, by their trunks passing through seek one's farmers put down. But when they moved the mean road, meat got harder to find. My brothers and I tried, thinking someone from the graveyard, but the people wasn't dying fast enough. Like I said, my family's always been in meat, and if there's meat to be had, the sawyers will find it. I think I just ripped, like you know, chop talk. I think I switched from like the hitchhiker to chop top halfway through.

17:09 What thank you appreciate that? So this is the facade. The facade is the abandoned slaughterhouse. It's been sitting empty for a couple of decades, ever since the contracts dried up. After World War Two Korea, they closed, was surrounded by fences, but the sawyers took it back over again. Why because they can conceal all the things they're doing from the authorities. So while you're waiting in line, getting ready to enter the slaughterhouse, you're hearing that voiceover that I was just doing. And then this guy walks in. This is leather Face from a twenty and seventeen film called leather Face, a prequel. He's got a big cow head over his own. And that's what we're doing with his house. We are going to do every iteration of leather Face from all nine films in the franchise. We're bringing them all together. So he comes out and he's looking at you and he's sizeing you up, and then he starts kind of gesturing to you with one hand, and then he turns around and you see you on the back. He's got the words followed written in blood. And then he walks back through the steel door that he came through, and you have to follow him. Now. One of the creative challenges is was, Okay, so we're going to take all these different iterations of leather Face, We're going to have him in one house, But how is that going to make sense?

18:36 So again I went back to the original nineteen seventy four film. Do you guys knowe Gunnar Hassen who played leather Face. Well, I read a bunch of interviews with him, and when he was doing the original role, he described Leatherface in this way. He said he had no personality of his own, and that's why he asked to wear the different skin faces, the masks, And he wears different masks depending on what he's doing. So if you think of the original film, he wears the killing mask when he's out chasing people, when he's hunting, he wears the pretty lady mask with the makeup. When it's the formal occasion like the dining room singing, and he wears the old grandma mask, the old lady mask when he's stuck in the kitchen with the old man washing dishes. He just takes on a different mask for whatever job he's doing it. So it occurred to me, that's what we're going to do with this house. All these different iterations of leather face are going to represent all the different jobs that you would do on the slaughterhouse. So I study slaughterhouses, you know, endlessly, and looked at all the different steps of the disassembly line, all the different roles that you would need, and assign different roles to different leather faces and the members of the Sawyer family. But the first thing you're going to see when you step through the front door and his leather faces, collection of skin faces and then you're going to go into the holding pan, because that would always be the first room in a slaughterhouse. That's where you gather all the animals together.

19:55 In this case is where you gather all the humans together. And the first character of other fis you're gonna see is the classic nineteen seventy four killing masks chainsawing through a door, busting into the room and chasing you on into the animal shoots. And this is real slaughter house. It's like one of the few pictures I can actually show you for my research. You notice how there's all these like twists in turns that was done intentionally in slaughterhouses. They found out really early on if it was just a straight line, the animals would go and then it would stop, and then they wouldn't go any further. So that's why there's always twists, because you don't know what's coming around the corner. Right, Curdin De means the exact same philosophy with building added houses. We've been doing this for years. We always are like, let's have lots of twists and turns. It's like an animal pen because you don't know what's coming around the corner. But in this case, what's coming around the corner is what they called in the slaughterhouses the prodder and the stunner. And in this case, the prodter is on top. He's just back from Vietnam.

21:02 He still got his army jacket on. He's gonna have a cattle produ and he's gonna be prodding you to the stunner, which in this case is gonna be leather Faced from the two thousand and three remake. He's up on a platform. He's got a big sledgehammer, so chop top setting them up. Leather Face is knocking them down. That takes you to the next room we call the killing floor. And this is another weird thing I came across from my research. This is actually a postcard that people bought from the Chicago Stockyards. Believe it or not. His place was a chorist attraction. It was like the first theme park. Thousands and thousands of people went there to get guided tours every day of the slaughterhouse. It sounds insane, like who would do that today? But this one guy invented something called the Herford wheel, which is a way to get the animals up into the air and onto the disassembly line. So we decided to build our own. But we also have this giant mound of corpses when you come in, and seated on top of the corpses is Grandpa on his bone throat, and the original film they talk about how great he was, how he could kill all these you know, cattle and you know, and they would he could have killed more if the cooking pool guys could get the beaves out of the way.

22:13 So this is our cast from the killing room. He'd have Grandpa. He's up on his bone throat. He's whacking Bunny Foo Foo on the head with a mallet. But it's not Bunny, you see. Don't worry to him. That makes it okay. Down below is Dubbins or the hitchhiker, protting him on and then leather facing this seed is banning clean up and he's going to be in the pretty woman mask from the nineteen seventy four film. And then that takes you. I didn't even show you these pictures. They're so disgusting. But they had these huge boiling vats and slaughterhouses, and that was to boil the animals to make the hair and skin more pliable so they could be removed. So we thought, well, the sawyers aren't that high tech, right, so they wouldn't have huge boiling vats.

23:00 They just take you know, steel drums, you know, light a fire underneath, pop a corpse in it, call it a day. So in this scene we meet the domestics. So it's the old man on one side and leather Face from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the next generation, this weird version of the old woman mask that exists in that film. And the old man is yelling at leather Face, leather Face, stop yacking at them girls. There being sneeze turning, and they're on either side of you. You're in the middle. They both have paddles they want to whack you with and they drive you into the skinning room. Now, this is always a classic scene we like to do with Texas chance On Massacre. We call it the face peel.

23:44 Do you guys know what I'm talking about? So in this scene we take leather Face from the two thousand and six prequel to the remake, Texas Chansaw Massacre. At the beginning where he's wearing that weird leather mask, he's got a meat cleaver in one hand and he is chopping a guy who'd just referred to as the meat. He's chopping his legs into mince meat, and he's taking a skinning knife and he's cutting along his chin line and slowly peeling his face off. Then we take you into a transition mode we simply call the Hallway of Horrors, where you have to walk through skinned bodies. And when I say you have to walk through skinned bodies, I don't mean bodies with their skin removed. I mean the skin itself. You have to walk through their skin. Man, There's a surprise waiting for you at the end, and I'm not gonna tell you what it is, because this is something new we invented just for this house, and I think we will just leave it at that. Another role in the Slaughterhouse, and it was always described as the worst job, is what they call the squeechee man.

24:52 So one guy would have a hose, the other guy would have a broom, and they would just sweep the zoo everything on the floor. Okay, And I shouldn't mention when they had the Chicago stockyards when they were building him, when they had the original armored plant and the swift Plant, there were no bathrooms. Just expected to go wherever they could. So these guys had to sweep all that up and push it down the drains and then it would be dumped into the river. So we decided for our scene that terrible Job would be assigned to chop Top because he's always pissed about something, and chop Top is going to be screaming at his brother leather face the face, you idiot, you comed up the works again. Get down here and chee all the strings wrapping. This is a water sea. You've seen our water seeds, right, So he is pouring in through these big drains, filling up the floor with not really water. It's kind of like stew.

25:58 It's like body's in it and thing and it's bubbling and it's using and his smells delightful. Do you guys think Extras has smelled bad last time? I apologize in advance for the fact sensation you are all gonna experience. No, And I don't know you're cheering. Yes, he love bath smells. Chop Top is pushing an old cart that he's got a collection of, just slopped and some stuff that he's been picking up off the slaughterhouse floor and jumping into the water and trying to get it to go down the drains. We call it the Nubbins cart because it's a special effect Geno Nubbens his little corpse puppet that he carries around in Texas chains On mask or two.

26:49 You know, there's a surprise with him, and we'll have to wait to see it. Where you go? But while chop Top is screaming, leather Face comes into the scene to chase you out of the room and how of this waterhouse altogether. And that's gonna be leather Faced from Texas Chainsaw Massacre two. Now at this point, you're outside, you're on the loading dock. You've left this. You've finally gotten out of the slaughterhouse. And this is where the research comes back into play. Remember I was talking about refrigerated train cars that had ice that kept the meat cool. Yeah, we'll see the Sawyer family. They're not too handy, they're not too good with technology, they're not too mechanically inclined.

27:30 So there's a generator. It's this horrible rape together generator that they've used to keep the lights on, but just barely. But they never really got around to figuring out this refrigerated train car. Kay, Now you know you're gonna have to go in there, right. You don't want to go in there, trust me. But there's gonna be somebody to make sure you go in there. And that's gonna be leather Face from Texas chains on Massacre three gow. He moars up with this chainsaw, drives you inside the refrige. You're ready to train car. And this is Texas, right. All of these carcasses have just been sitting there for a long time in the hot Texas sun. They're not frozen anymore. They've all defrosted. They're kind of sickly looking, kind of wet looking. There's maggots all over them. There's flies buzzing around. You got to walk through that. And just to make sure you do, we have leather Face from the most recent version of Texas Jansaw Massa at the twenty twenty two film to drive you on your way. Now, when you get out of the refrigerated train car, you're outside, you're in the woods. You're heading to this weird looking graveyard.

28:46 But it's not the graveyard from the original film. It's the Sawyer Family Graveyard for all the members of the Sawyer family who lived, worked, and died in this slaughterhouse because safety isn't a big deal when these places were run back in the old days. So a whole lot of them lost limbs, lost arms, they're just flat out died. They drag them outside, they hammered a couple of boards together, wrote their name Bubbo's Zedekiah Malakia, stuck it in the ground and buried them. But then they you know, it's the Sawyer family. They're weird. So they one night they went down to the local butcher shop in town and they stole one of those pig statues that always used to be in front of butcher shops. They usually had a pig and he was dressed like a chef. And they hauled that back to the slaughterhouse and they set it up like a religious statue, because to the Sawyers, meat is their god. So it's this weird, freaky cemetery.

29:42 You're hearing a chainsaw on the distance, you're hearing a woman screaming. You're thinking you might recognize that from an earlier film. But before you get to process that, too much leather face from Texas Chainsaunt Massacre three D comes out and drives you on your way. And this is where the story. I said, we're doing a parallel story the timeline, but a parallel to the events of the original nineteen seventy four film. And here's where it connects all saiden. You find yourself approaching the Sawyer House from the original Texas chance On Massacre. There's a radio one inside the house somewhere are playing music, and then suddenly you hear a news report. Come on, great robbing in the State of Texas is tonight's top story. And someone chases the channel, and then out of the darkness, out of the woods around you, leather Face, the pretty woman look Again from the nineteen seventy four film, comes racing at you, drives you inside, and now you're heading towards that classic steel door from the original film, right back to the first murder that happens in the film. So all these things have been happening, were happening right before then, and now you're confronted with leather Face and the steel door, and I think we'll leave it there. You know, how many.

30:57 Guys like, how many guys. Love this a film, the original nineteen seventy four Texas Chas On On story. Yeah, it is. It's like I said, it's one of the most classic films, and not only the entire genre of horror, but it's it's you know, it's a classic film full stop, right. And you look at this scene, right, this is the classic sunset dance scene at the end of the movie where he's just you know, doing his thing with his chainsaw, and you he's such an icon of horror that we forget what it looked like when they're making it. That's what it looked like. These were a bunch of you know, former students, not in Hollywood, you know, out in Texas making this movie, low budget horror with their friends in like under degree heat, working crazy hours, and this group of people made something that lasted this long. I think that's pretty amazing. Yeah, and in particular the Bee's Kio general Matter, Kim Hankle, who wrote co wrote Texas Chance on Massacre, and that gentleman with the beer, Toby Hooper. Give it up for Toby Hooper. Toby Hooper co wrote and was the director of Chance. I'm asking Tobe Hooper in so many ways was my lentering into horror when I was a little kid, standing up when my parents thought I was asleep watching Salem's lot the first time it was aired on TV, you know, and being terrified. That was Toby Hooper. Toby made that first horror movie I ever went to in

32:27 a theater, pulture guist. Toby Hooper Hoop right, Toby made some of the most iconic horror movies ever in the genre of horror. And one thing about Toby is, you know, people always ask me like, when did you know Horror Nights in Hollywood? When we guys, you know, when we brought it back in two thousand and six, when I was here to stay, that's the moment right there. But one day, all sudden, Toby Hooper showed up and he was in our house. And that's him taking pictures of blood. I have all these pictures. I've been going through the house. He's like a filmmaker. He's down low taking shots, he's up high. I've had that moment so many times since then.

33:10 Whether it was William freaking you know, calling me up the first time we did the exercise, taking him through the house and spending an hour and a half talking to him about the exercise, or John Landis when we were doing you know, American World in London, or you know, Gilvirinklotora with Crimson Peak or you know, Jordan Peel, on and on and on. I've gotten to do that a lot. This is the first time I ever saw somebody who made the movie that we were featuring attend our event. I've always been grateful to Toby for that. So as an extra Easter Egg, to pay tribute to these great gentlemen who created this iconic horror franchise we have named our slaughter house. But who were handled meat cross and say, that's that's what telling me and Kim. Of course the Sawyers, you know, repeated in the Sawyer meats because that's what they do. Chris and I sat down and we went, all right, let's try to talk the you know what we did the first time with Texas chance On mascot.

34:09 Let's try to create the scariest, freakiest place you don't ever want to go in house, And that's what we've tried to do. So I hope you guys are ready for it. Are you ready for it? It? All right? Are there any Universal Monster put my house? Okay? You know, just the other day we announced a brand new house that continues the Universal Monsters legacy. At Halloween Hart and I started in twenty and eighteen with Universal Monsters. This is the sixth that we have done at Universal Studios, Hollywood, and this one is called the Union. Sometimes go us one about glad moments. So let's do bring about this house.

34:57 This is the first time we've ever done a completely email centric take on the Universal Answers, using characters that are rooted in our film history except one which we invent it, which I'll tell you about in just a second. Bringing these characters to light that maybe are lesser known than some of our you know, standard characters that everybody does. But we did this in collaboration with our calling to Universal Orlando. So Chris and I worked with their team togreate this original story. So this is a completely original story. Man, I'm gonna show you the monsters. So let's meet the monsters. Let's start with the heroines. Saskia van helsing this it's a completely original character. It doesn't exist in the novel, doesn't exist in the films. And I should give credit to the Great Crash the Careery. Do you guys know Crash Legendary Creams your creator. He works with us on the Universal Monsters franchise. He does all the key ard for the posters. He drew this gorgeous picture of Saskia von Helsing. Crash been in the movie industry, started with like stan Winston back in the Terminator days, worked on Terminator.

36:05 He helps, you know, design Edward Scissorhands, the Jurassic Park films, you know, Pirates of the Caribbean, on and on and on. But every year we get to work with Crash and this is his art work. So Saskia is the last descendant of this guy, Abraham von Helsing, the famed monster hunter from our nineteen thirty one film Dracula. All of his other descendants, who were all male, have all died. They've all been killed by Dracula's daughter. Why, because this dude killed her dad. Do you remember the end of Dracula. He drives his steak through the heart of Dracula and that's it. Spoiler. So Draccula's daughter is on a vendetta to wipe out the von Helsing family, and Saskia is the last one left. Now we carried her with the pride of Frankenstein. It's Fire Fires two thousand and twenty one house. But Brian and Frankenstein lived. Do you remember that house? People have been saying, well, you gotta bring her back, you gotta bring her back. We listen, we listen to you, guys. I was like, we got to bring the Bride back. She's such a great character, such a great house. We've kind of taken. And this is crashes our work again. And it's inspired by what Lucas Koleshaw on our team drew for the Monster hunterlook from Briandon Frankenstein Lives, And of course she's inspired by our nineteen thirty five film that Bridon Frankenstein. Wish she is in for exactly what five minutes, right, But it's so great that the Bride has continued to live despite her

37:37 entire film career being five months. And then there's the villains. I mentioned this one Dracula's Daughter that comes from a real Universal movie was nineteen thirty six The Countess Maria's Aleska. It was Dracula's daughter. It was the first sequel they made to Dracula. This is crashes our work for the make the transformation look of Drakula's daughter. But you know, we thought, okay, cool, but let's take that farther. So when she gets fully transformed. She looks like this, You guys cool if I share a sneak peek a little makeup.

38:21 So this is Patrick McGee. McGee affects, our longtime makeup artist. This is his skulp for the mid transformed Dracula's daughter. And then we decided to bring you know, a couple of east eggs, a couple of little surprises from the past, so I'll tell you about Sumer. We decided to bring one of Dracula's brides back, so this is the mask for Dracula's Pride. She factors into the story. And then we decided to pair this character with two other female universal monsters, starting with the she Wolf, inspired by our nineteen forty six film The She Wolf of London. Is anybody ever seen seriously She Wolf of London? Anybody? Yeah? What's weird about that movie? Is there a were wolf in that movie? No, there's no, There is no werewolf in She Wolf of London is kind of a gas line story. They're trying to convince this woman that she's turning into the werewolf and killing all these people, but she isn't. It never happens. We took an artistic license with that and we turned her into this. And this is art worked out by our very own Lucas Coleshat And this is Patrick Magee's skult for the she Wolf of London. But all right, the last of the female monsters Oxun Moon inspiration our nineteen thirty two filmed a mummy in that movie, em Hotel, who gets reincarnated as Arduth Bay becomes obsessed with this woman named Helen who's up on screen right now, and he wants to take her and sacrifice her so he could turn her back

39:54 into his long lost love Anxu Mo nax Sun Moon. So he took that idea and we ran with it and we created this. So this is the look of our female Mummy and our experience. You recognize the omulet overaw that she's wearing around her neck. That's a throwback to our twenty twenty two House Universal Monsters Legs Kali, that's what the mummy was wearing. And then this is Patrick McGee sculpt for Monsoon No MoU and I love. I'm in love with this cute little cobra that he sculpted because that's part of her headband. So that is our monsters. Now they are joined together in what we call the unholy Alliance. So Dracula's daughter is the most powerful one. You know in the film, Dracula has the power of mind control. So he she is at the top of this pyramid, and then down below is an no moon and that she woke London. Dracula's daughter is controlling these characters in order to do help her wipe out the von Helsing's. Now the story. I'm just going to share a couple of pieces of artwork that Luke has created to help tell our story. Our story starts at Amsterdam, why because that's where the von Helsing family is from. In the original novel, it starts at the funeral.

41:17 The last male descendant of Abraham von Helsing has just died the hands of Drakula's daughter, Saskia von Helsing, is at the funeral and she's mourning the death of her brother. There's still a few mourners that are hanging around, but it's really cold, it's snowing. But in the distance you can see in this image on the right hand side, I think that's when you're right, yes, is one of the vampire brides from our Bride of Frankenstein Live's house She's been sent by Drakula's daughter as an assassin to take out Saskia at the funeral. Just take care of them all at once. But someone else has showed up, an unexpected guest, and that's the Bride of Frankenstein. You can see her hiding off to the left side of the image. She has followed Dracula's bride to this location.

42:07 Why because that's what she was doing in our twenty twenty one house. She was hunting Dracula's brides. So it just happens to converge on this day, at this moment where the Bride of Frankenstein is there to kill Dracula's bride and Dracula's bride is trying to kill sask van Helsing. So it causes them to form an unlikely alliance between Monster Hunter and monster So together they travel to the Source. If you're going to go to the source, you have to go to Transylvania. That's where Castle Dracula is, particularly an area that's mentioned in the book and the movie called the Borgo Pass. We've added our own touches to this little vam then paler influence of all these baled corpses.

42:50 They're getting out of the black coach and they're getting ready to go to Dracula's castle to face this threat. They do something during this house that you should never do in a hornyr movie. What you should What should you never do in a horror movie if there's two or more people split up? Yeah, never a good idea, but they do. Saskia appeals off to deal with Dracula's daughter, the Dracula's Bride's the bride of Frankenstein peels off to deal with the Shoe Wolf and an Oxume the moon and I'm gonna leave it there. As far as the stormory, I don't want to spoil everything, just want to give you a little tease, But I do want to talk about this the location of where this house is because it's really cool. Stage twelfth on the Universal Farm pot Why is this cool? Well to tell you why this is cool? It's time for a history lesson that's slightly longer than the previous slightly longer history lesson. Okay, what I want to do today? Seriously, I just want to take you through the highlights of all the amazing films that have shot inside the soundstage. Because this is ground zero, not only for the American horror film, but for movie making in general. Because the stage was built in nineteen twenty eight. Okay, it's one of the biggest sound stages in the world at the time it was built, I think it was the biggest soundstage in the world, is still to this day in the top ten. But it was built specifically for this movie in nineteen twenty nine.

44:15 When it came out, it was called Broadway. That's a behind the scenes still I pulled from our archive showing how big that set was. Inside stage twelve, there's a weird looking contraction in the middle of that. What is that? That is the very first camera crane. The camera crane was actually invented for this movie. So right from the beginning, the sound stage was associated with film history and the nineteen thirties and nineteen thirty to be exact. It was also used for another musical called The King of Jazz. They built a giant piano with like five different guys playing it in the full orchestra on top. And this movie today is really only famous for one thing. It's famous for the fact that Bing Crosby made his movie debut in King of Jazz. Now you're going to on what does this have to do with horror? This is what it has to do with horror. We're gonna bring it back to horror right now, because in nineteen thirty one, Stage twelve was used to build the interior of Dracula's castle.

45:12 You know the scene right. Not only is this one of the most famous movie lines in all of horror movie history, it's one of the famous movie lines in all of movie history. Tune but at the ninth lots of music they make that was under inside Stage twelve, And I brought this little tree from our archive. We still have the original set drawing in our archive. This is from nineteen thirty one. This is from Dracula. This is the production designer's sketch for what that set would look like. And then in the same year, in nineteen thirty one, it was used again for Frankenstein. This was doctor Frankenstein's lab. That's when that was shot. One of the most famous scenes in movie history, not only horror movies, but all of movies. It's alive. That happened inside the sound stage. And then in nineteen thirty five it was used for the Frankenstein. Now I always whenever you know, I share a movie history with people, I always try to convey to them, like how big that set was, because I don't think you're really good appreciation for it.

46:12 So I brought up behind the scenes still the image on the right there, that's how big that set was. From nineteen thirty five, it was also used, of course and Brida Frankenstein for another classic seed when the bride is first unveiled, Frankenstein is all eager to have his friend, and he goes and puts a hand on her, and she hisses at him like a cat, and then he sends the immortal line as he puts his hand on the lever, we belong dead, pulls the switch, blows the castle the hell. That's all Stage twelve. So moving on into the nineteen fifties, it was used for a famous Jimmy Stewart movie called Harvey. Right, and I know, at this point in the tour you're going, what is that app to horror? It was used for the interior of the Harvey Mansion. Why does the Harvey Mansion have anything to do with horror? This is why that's the same set the exterior of the Harvey Mansion on Colonial Street right in the Universal backlot. Does that top of that house look familiar? Cyclic book? That was a stock set, stock unit set that was later, you know, used for Psycho as well. That when I first started to coming to Universal, that house was there. I can remember that as a kid because I'm so old. In nineteen sixty Stanley Kuper it filmed Spartacus inside the house stage. It was the Roman Senate scene for that film. And this has nothing to do with him, you think. But I just was going through all my you know, years ago in two thousand, I put the video monitors on the trams and I oversaw that whole project. So I did

47:44 all this research on our film industry and went through all of the archive, all of the photographs that behind the sea stills, and I came across this one years ago and I just thought, this is so Kuper. He numbered all the dead people number two sixty five. I could see you breathing. I'm sure that's why you did that. And in the seventies Universal was famous for its disaster movies berth Quin, the Airport film series, The hind and Burn. All of the biggest scenes of that movie those were films inside that south stage and then moving on into the nineteen eighties again another musical, The Best Law or Else in Texas Dolly Parton and Burn Reynolds. The Chicken Ranch set for that film was originally built inside Stage twelve. It was designed to open like a dollhouse so they could film exterior scenes and interior scenes. And I know what you're thinking, what does this have to do with horror? Well, that's sets still their kids. You've seen it sitting out on the back line of the universally called the Chicken Branch.

48:40 That's the same house Rob Zombie turned into the House of one Thousand Courses. And then also in the eighties, two films that have blasted the test of time. Starface Say Hello to My Little Friend filmed inside Stage twelve Back to the Future. That was the interior of docs house Back to the Future. It was also used for some insure shots of the clock tower one Doc Brown's up on top of the clock towers. They filmed all of that at the Courthouse Squerever. They also built just the part of the top clock tower. Of course, Minster shotson side Stage twelve, So both of those movies filmed inside there. Psycho three, directed by Anthony Perkins, that was the interior of the cycle House. The Base Mansion was filmed inside that sound stage. And right after this brief little personal story, I started a Universal of nineteen eighty nine as a tour guide right and on my days off.

49:31 Back then, you could call up the studio and say, hey, I'd like to shadow a production, and they hook you up with the production. In eighty nine, I spent the whole summer on the set of Back to the Future too, every single chance I got watching them film that movie. But one day I was out by the Cyco House and I saw Anthony Perkins up on those steps, and what he was filming was the introduction for the Alfred Hitchcock show that used to be in Universal Orlando. And I stood at the Base Motel and watched mister Perkins film that whole scene. I was on this set two. This is nineteen ninety three. At that time we were brought on. I had left Universal. After I left being a dry guide, I worked as a production assistant when we built that whole downstairs section of the theme park, the starwaysk later the old Special Effects Show, and then after that, the only time I ever left Universal, I was gone for five years and I was working for another company that used to do industrials, which are like business meetings, and they would daisy chain like a million slide projectors together because there wasn't even video projectors back then.

50:29 But one day we got a call to come to a meeting at ambling to meet was Steven Spielberg's producer was Kathleen Kennel Dye, and talk about filming a scene for Jurassic Park. So I worked at Jurassic Park for about two days. Don't look for me in the credits U In there. We consulted on the scene one It's the Mister DNA, and the whole business plan of Jurassic Park. But in that meeting they showed me a piece of key art of a rendering of what the Discovery Center was going to look like, and it was this Zac scene. And that scene was filmed in side Stage twelve. I was on this set too, Casper in nineteen ninety five, all of whom staff Manner was built inside Stage twelve.

51:11 Two thousand, when I was doing the studio tour, I wanted somebody to be the host, and I went to Ron Howard and asked him if he would be gracious enough to be the host of our first, you know, version of the studio tour. We had the video monitors on board the tram and I went on that set. They built the entire town of Whoville and side stage twelve. And then in the early two thousands that was more Spanner's underground lab for the whole And then in two thousand and nine I was inviting back to that sound stage again to meet Sint and Marty Craft. Do you guys know st Marty Graft thinks are puffing stuff? Yeah, Segma and the Sea Monster, the Bubbalooes, Doctor Shrinker, Thank put in a Wild Boy. Now I've lost you. I met Sinton Marty Rough on the set of this. It was the slee Stacks Temple in that film, and they were asking me like, oh, you know, we're just tearing down this set. Is there anything you want? Is there anything you want? You know? I was doing quarnyes by this time. So it took one thing. I took that ice cream vand do you recognize that that was in Clowns three D. The reason that clown was called Sweet Lakes is because it's painted right on that ice cream van.

52:25 It didn't have to change It later became pollywod Harry's Van and became Larry Larva's van. And this year it's getting a complete remodel. Oh, this hasn't been anouse. It's getting a complete remodel for something I can't talk about. All right, moving on, thanks you. In twenty eleven, the Voice came in and took over that sound stage and they filmed I think seventeen seasons and the Voice inside there. And now they've moved to a new sound stage, which means now you guys, for the first time ever get to go inside that sound stage. You know, I. Practically grow up. What's a lot I'm go mentionin. It started as a touring guide. All my days off I would always go inside sound stages and I would always think about the film history of all these great movies and filmed inside there. So just to close out in this section, that's it. Behind the scenes still from the making of the Brand of Frankenstein. You mentioned, you know tea time. They're all English, they're all English actors. They had tea on the set every day, or you know, you can imagine Boris Carlof having a toasty the Brand of Frankenstein, checking her makeup and a mirror. This is all stage twelve. This is ground zero for the American horror movie right, and it's tied with so much film history.

53:40 So I hope you guys appreciate it when you get to go see Universal Monsters Eternal Bloodlines inside the Little Famous House met for all. How about another ancient let's talk about the names you've been a Monsters. But wait a minute, this has been announcedam Slash. Now Slash is coming back again to do his sixth score for Universal Monsters. He's seventh for us at Halloween Horrnites. We you guys all the time I run into fans of Holly horn Nits and the advantage you always you tell me what you want. You're not shy about it. And the one thing that I've heard over and over and over is when you get to do like an album with the music from Universal Monsters. For the first time ever this year at Halloween Hornitzes, you'll be able to get a limited edition vinyl album featuring selections of all of the different houses that Slashes done up until this point. This is the interiors lead you know, the open and open up.

54:51 The album is the inside features all the crashes iconic artwork. I wrote the dedication Uh Stacy Quinolti on our team who works with Slash that does co writes the music, arranges it, produces it. He remastered all of these tracks, especially for vinyls of this year. You will finally get that album that you've been asking me for more years to do to get us. All right, let's go. Should We announced the scare zone? All right? Here Kads's bar nights.

55:41 All right? Credit and I don't know he might be in the audience. Pat are you here, Paquin? Yes anywhere? Pack Quin on our team does all of the scare zones and parked a quarter for the park. He has been pitching this idea for a scare zone to Chris and I for years and we've never said yes, and then this year we went, ok, let's do it. That's one of the craziest ideas I've never heard for his star zone. But I dig it and what it's inspired by it is what you see. I'm like, you guys know what that is. It's a specific genre of horror, and it's specific to Mexico. Really enjoy In the sixties and seventies, they would make movies with famous wrestlers, and they would get them against monsters like not our Frank is dying. They're usually a Frank is dying, not our Dracula, but there is always a Dracula's not our wolf Man, but there was always a wolf man. Not our Mummy, but there was always a mummy. So Pat's idea was to make monster wrestlers that are fighting monster wrestlers. Okay, so I'm gonna share with you the good monstrols Woo, the Blue Death, and what's really cool about it, this is working with our DEI team. We sourced all these costumes from from Latin America, from the very people that make Lucia or wrestling costumes, so everything's authentic. This is the Blue Death. This is

57:13 his tag team partner, the Green Devil. And then there's a bad mostros the King Monster, who's not Frankous time what he kind of looks like The Horrible that's not the Wolf Man, and he kind of looks like him. It's in the spirit of these movies. The Water Team Man, he's not the creature of the Black Lagoon, and he kind of looks like him. The Witch, the Skeleton Man, the Knight Saw made and are still walking character of the past. And here's the whole guest. This is going to be tied to our Latin American house at mostros too, the nightmares a lot more up. So they come out of this house, you go light of toda particular stairs on it. Thank you by the way, because I only got to you guys too. It was you who got us doing this in the first place. Years ago, back in two thousand and nine, I think a thing on more than one came up to me and were like, why why don't you do la yo ownA? And I had no idea what that was because it wasn't something I grew up with in my culture. But I started

58:44 researching it and I started getting into it, and I realized, Wow, this is amazing. It's so Los Angeles, it's so representative of our community in Los Angeles, and so we've really been focusing all those in the last few years. In particular. We're really the creditors for you guys. Were suggested, O, thank you, go skip pet. This is the skull for the Skeleton Man, and this is what his finished mask looked like. This is a. Partnership with Immortal Masks. They might be here today the bank you are soon go to masks for the event, and they created some amazing masks for the one. We're also creating original artwork lucago or posters in the style of that artwork from the fifties sixties. This is just a few examples, and you know we're weird today. I signed that beautiful piece of artwork that are Moorrow local steleshot from Moscrows for people that came to the Universal Products and Experience move I also gave them all these files and they were kind enough to do merchandise that is available now. I think literally right now on Amazon.

59:54 For the first time ever, you're going to be able to get merchandise inspired by these houses. This scares our mons Rose House and other original content we've done over the years, So Coga Amazon, check it out, and I think members of that team are gonna give you guys some postcards when you're going out if you want to check it out. So I hope you enjoyed that. All right, we'll get to the end here. What's next? No, just so, oh god, you're not supposed to see that. Sorry for all of you. Thank you so much, Thank you for supporting of that and Ingram Media Line will see the book.

1:00:37 Today's episode was produced and edited by me Philip Hernandez, with post production by David Swape and original music composed by Chris Thomas. We're counting down to Halloween with daily podcasts, videos, and events in our sixty one day Hauntathon. Follow along at the link in our show notes. Our Hantathon is made possible through generous support from Gantum, Lighty and Controls. Gantum illuminates attractions worldwide with the world's smallest intelligen spotlights. See what you're missing with a free demo. Sign up at dantum dot com slash demo. That's Gantum dot com slash demo. Our Hantathon team includes Daryl Plunky, Emily Luis Rua, Megan Spells, Gavin Burns and omni Adventures, and our content partners for this year include Attractions Magazine, Creepy Kingdom, Freaks of Jgen, hont Topic Radio, Kevin Heinbach News TV, omni Adventures, Scare Track, Sharp Productions, That Halloween Podcast, The Horror of Being, Emily The Scare Factor, and This Weekend with Nick Pelliochini.

1:01:37 The best way you can support us this Halloween season is by sharing our haunted on with someone you think we'll enjoy it, and to follow along to our Hantathon, sign up for our weekly newsletter at hant Attraction Network dot com. We'll catch you back here tomorrow and every day until Halloween. Until next time, stay scary. This is a Haunted Attraction Network predo