Universal’s Horror Nights transforms ‘American Werewolf’ into a haunted maze

A new Halloween Horror Nights maze at Universal Studios Hollywood will re-create the Oscar-winning man-to-beast transformation from the 1981 film “An American Werewolf in London.”

“An American Werewolf in London” tells the story of two American backpackers who are attacked by werewolves on the Yorkshire moors in England. Mauled to death in the attack, Jack Goodman haunts his wounded friend David Kessler, who transforms into a werewolf during the movie.

Released before computer-generated special effects became the norm, the horror-comedy movie is best remembered for a three-minute werewolf transformation scene for which makeup artist Rick Baker won an Academy Award.

During a recent media preview, Horror Nights creative director and executive producer John Murdy offered a walk-through tour of the American Werewolf in London haunted maze.

Universal’s sister park in Orlando presented An American Werewolf in London maze at last year’s Horror Nights event in Florida.

Spoiler alert: What follows is a detailed preview of the American Werewolf in London maze at the Hollywood theme park, which alters several scenes from the Orlando version. Consider yourself warned.

Visitors enter the maze through the front door of the white brick Slaughtered Lamb pub as Jack summarizes the backstory of the film via an audio track.

Amid dart boards, chess boards and a portrait of the queen of England, the unfriendly villagers in the pub offer the backpackers (and us) some sage advice: Stay on the road, avoid the moors and beware of the full moon.

A pentacle scratched on the pub wall between flickering candles serves as both a shrine and a warning of things to come.

The soundtrack inside the pub features the 1934 ballad “Blue Moon,” the first of three versions of the song that will play inside the maze.

Just like in the movie, we soon find ourselves in the fog-shrouded moors where Jack is fatally attacked by a werewolf, the first of seven mythological man-beasts we will encounter in the maze. A villager from the pub scares the creature away with a shotgun blast.

After the attack, David wakes up in a London hospital room where he is visited by an apparition of a freshly-killed Jack with a fateful message: “You’re going to turn, David.”

Stepping into one of David’s nightmares, we walk into his family’s living room where an unspeakable horror is unfolding. The doorbell rings and a squadron of demon soldiers bursts into the room, muzzle flashes blasting from their machine guns. The gunfire triggers a sequence of audio and lighting effects that leave bullet holes in the walls and smoke pouring out of a television.

After another hospital scene with a blood-spurting nurse crumpled on the floor, we approach the first of two werewolf transformation scenes.

From outside an apartment window, we watch David’s hands stretch into werewolf paws as Sam Cooke’s soulful 1959 version of “Blue Moon” plays in the background. Around the corner we step inside the apartment where David painfully howls in the final throes of his werewolf transformation.

Descending into the Tottenham Court Road Station of the London Underground, we dodge a surprise werewolf attack and an oncoming subway train with lights blazing and horn blaring.

Blinded by a film projector light, we step inside a Piccadilly Circus X-rated theater where David meets all his bloodied victims in various states of decay, including a skeletal version of Jack. Around the corner, a werewolf feeds on a theater usher.

The finale winds through an alley where we encounter a werewolf not once, not twice but three times as an upbeat 1961 doo-wop version of “Blue Moon” plays in the background.

Halloween Horror Nights 2014 runs on select nights at Universal Studios Hollywood from Sept. 19 through Nov. 2.

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