You get scared, you scream. It's the basic rule that makes horror fun for countless fans. But 2018's "A Quiet Place" challenged those fans by crafting a world where screaming meant death for its characters.
Now Universal will invite theme park fans to try to stifle their screams in haunted houses themed to "A Quiet Place" during this year's Halloween Horror Nights in Hollywood and Orlando. Last week, I was invited to walk through the Hollywood installation of the "A Quiet Place" house with creative director John Murdy. He talked me and other invited reporters through what Universal has done to bring this unique - and challenging - world to life.
Halloween Horror Nights visitors at Universal Studios Hollywood will find the "A Quiet Place" house in the old Walking Dead attraction space on the Upper Lot. The indoor environment allows Universal complete control over the soundscape for the attraction - an essential requirement, given the theme.
"A lot of people who saw the movie talked about it being a silent film. It's never silent," Murdy said. "You think it's silent, but it's just a very clever way they designed the audio. A lot of the sounds in the film are what you hear in nature. So we knew we needed to change the way we do audio.
"Typically, in our haunted houses, there's multi-channel audio in every room, but it tends to be like big speakers up towards the top of the walls. We needed to do the opposite. What we needed to do was what you call near-field audio design, which means that instead of a bunch of big speakers up high, it's lots of little speakers down low and very close - as close to the guests as we could possibly get them. So we knew that that meant that there had to be a unique integration between scenic props and dressing and audio."
As anyone who has been to a haunt event can attest, most of the sounds in a house do not come from speakers. It comes from screaming visitors. Making noise is a death sentence in the world of "A Quiet Place," where sound attracts the alien monsters. Murdy said that the Universal team understood this dichotomy, and embraced it.
"The one thing we knew for sure is our guests aren't going to be quiet," Murdy said. "You know, we're going to keep reiterating that [the need to be quiet] all through the queue line - and our characters are reiterating that with ASL [American Sign Language], but we know our guests. They're going to make noise, so we're going to punish them for that."
Just like in the movies, screams will bring the monsters in Universal's Halloween Horror Nights house. And those monsters will include some of the most advance characters that Universal has created for Halloween Horror Nights.
"Last year, we did a house with Chucky, and that was kind of the test case to see if we could actually do fully animated figures," Murdy said. "We built, I think, 17 of them for Chucky, but here in 'A Quiet Place,' now we have to upscale that. So again, we worked with our internal mechanical engineering department here in the park that works on all the rides and attractions. And there's 10 creatures in this house - six of them are puppeted effects, and four of them are fully animated figures."
Universal did not permit photography of the animatronic figures during our tour, but even when still and in semi-dressed state, they impressed. These are the first physical creations of the monsters from the "A Quiet Place" universe, as they were created entirely in CGI for the films.
Another first for Universal in "A Quiet Place" will be the house's use of American Sign Language [ASL].
"We wanted to fold in American Sign Language into this house, and we do that in two ways," Murdy said. "So out in the queue, we do a whole pre-show video, but it's the only pre-show video I've ever shot in my career that has no audio. It's literally all done through ASL.
"We cast a deaf actress who works here at Universal Studios Hollywood. We worked with our DEI team and experts on the Universal [Studios] side to tell the story of 'A Quiet Place' entirely through ASL, with open captions so everybody else can read it.
"And then, as part of that pre-show video, the person who's talking to you - who's just survivor in the world of 'A Quiet Place,' is telling you there's certain things you need to know if you want to survive in this world. And she's teaching you basic ASL, and that's going to be reiterated by our performers. So when we rehearsed this house a couple nights ago as part of our scare actor training, we brought in experts to teach not only the character playing Reagan, but other characters in the house, simple ASL phrases that I wrote and then we translated into ASL. That's the first time we've ever done anything like that."
"A Quiet Place" at Halloween Horror Nights is based on the first two films in the "A Quiet Place" series. After walking through the house, we also toured the "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire" house, which will be located in one of the tents that lie behind The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
I won't spoil that house, except to say to be on the lookout for Easter eggs and callbacks from throughout the Ghostbusters franchise. And that the stars of the new house likely will be the "Mini-Pufts" that appear throughout - often attacking each other.
Halloween Horror Nights starts Thursday, September 5 in Hollywood and this Friday, August 30, in Orlando. On both coasts, the event runs select nights through November 3. For tickets to Halloween Horror Nights in Hollywood, including a 2pm Day/Night ticket, please visit our partner's Universal Studios Hollywood tickets page.
To keep up to date with more theme park news, please sign up for Theme Park Insider's weekly newsletter.
@fattyackin - That's what I'm worried about, because I just don't think you're going to be able to get a good feel for this made through a walkthrough video. I also think experiences in this house are going to be highly variable given that it sounds like effects and actors will be reacting directly to the audience. I expect to see reviews and videos that are all over the place, and given the details here, it sounds like if you walk through this house and aren't really thrilled by it that you should give it a second run through.
This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.
Very curious to see a walkthrough video of the Quiet Place house. It’s an ambitious concept for a haunted attraction that attracts as many guests as HHN does.