Halloween Horror Nights is back for another terrifying spooky season at Universal Studios Hollywood rides still open during Halloween Horror Nights 2024, there is a lot for guests to enjoy. Fans of the A Quiet Place franchise will be thrilled to learn that one of the new mazes follows the events of the first two films, putting guests right in the middle of the action as they must hide and remain silent so they do not attract the dangerous creatures.

Guests must silence their screams if they want to survive the terrifying, post-apocalyptic world of A Quiet Place. Like the Abbott family, you must keep quiet as you travel from the farmhouse to the woods and then to the foundry. As soon as you make a sound, monstrous creatures who can hear the slightest noise will hunt you down and silence you for good.

Screen Rant, along with several other media outlets, had the chance to visit Universal Studios Hollywood and preview two of the exciting haunted houses for 2024. Halloween Horror Nights creative director John Murdy provided a tour of "A Quiet Place" while detailing what makes this one of the most challenging, and most unique, mazes they have ever attempted. Murdy also explained how closely they worked with Paramount in order to bring the films and the creatures to life in a way that does them justice.

Three Things Make The Quiet Place Maze Unique

ASL Was Used Extensively In The Design

Standing outside the A Quiet Place maze, John Murdy goes over what makes this maze so different from the 114 houses that Universal Studios has put into their Halloween Horror Nights events over the years. He explains there are three things - audio, American Sign Language, and the creatures.

When people saw A Quiet Place in the theater, a lot of people came out talking about it being a silent movie, but it is never really silent, it just feels that way because they are using clever audio design tricks. "What we landed on is what we call near-field audio design," Murdy says. "Typically in a Halloween Horror Nights house, there would be very, very large speakers up towards the top of the roofline, hidden from guests." With A Quiet Place, they did the opposite. "We needed to go to very, very small speakers, lots of them, and then try to get them as close to the guest as we possibly could."

The second thing is the use of American Sign Language. John Krasinski had a very specific vision for his movie. For the character of Reagan, he specifically cast a deaf actress and incorporated ASL into the movie, not only with the way Reagan communicates, but other of the family as well. "We knew that was a very important part of the film, so we wanted to try to incorporate it into our house, and we do that in two ways."

The first is when you're waiting in line, there are video displays where the backstory of this world is explained. That is done completely with ASL. "We cast a deaf actress who works here at Universal Studios Hollywood. There's literally no audio, other than some static blips and bleeps, because it's as if this survivor from the world of The Quiet Place is telling you what you're going to need to know to survive." What she keeps reiterating are some basic signs that you need to know if you want to survive in this world, which are then reiterated by the live performers inside the maze.

The final difference is the creatures. Anyone who has seen the films knows how massive they are; however, they are not practical in the movies but created through CGI. This means that John Murdy and his team had to find a way to bring them to the A Quiet Place maze:

"Last year we did a house with Chucky. Chucky was really the test case for doing things like this in the future. Chucky was the first time we ever used animatronic figures. We built 17 animatronic Chuckys last year, but they're very small. They're like 2 1⁄2 feet tall. These guys are very, very big. So what we're doing is a combination of puppetry and full-blown animatronic characters. There are ten creatures in this house that you're going to encounter. Six of them are puppets. Four of them are animatronics."

Bringing The Terrifying Creatures To Life

Puppets And Animatronics Were Key

As stated earlier, there are six creature puppets and four creature animatronics placed throughout the maze. These were all built on-site in Hollywood. In fact, Universal Studios Orlando is doing A Quiet Place as well, and Hollywood created their creatures. Shipping things like this is not often cost-effective, but with something so integral to the story, they knew they needed to produce them in Los Angeles, said Murdy.

"Our makeup artist built them all, and we shipped a whole bunch, along with La La Chooza from Monstruos, because they're doing Monstruos this year, our house from last year. It doesn't happen that much, because when you're shipping things, especially big things, cross-country like that, it's not very cost-effective. But in the case for this, because the creatures were so critical, and we've been starting to get into animation, and we have the benefit of the mechanical engineers that work here to design everything for us, we decided to collaborate in that way on this particular thing."

Murdy its that these creatures are by far the most complex animatronics they have created. Chucky was pretty complex, but that was their trial run to discover if they could physically do it, and how they might hold up over the several months that the event runs. The team started working on the designs for these creatures during Halloween Horror Nights last year, and the physical construction part started first of the year.

These creatures get more and more terrifying as the maze goes on. Not only because they pop out when you are least expecting it, but because of the detail and work that goes into them. They look just like the creatures from the films, complete with their sharp teeth and no eyes. The plates on their heads open into various positions, which is demonstrated throughout your time in the maze.

Perfectly Capturing The Feel Of The Films

Sand Paths Dampen The Sound Of Footsteps

Right from the beginning of the A Quiet Place maze, guests will notice the attention to detail. For example, there are sand paths just like in the films for you to walk on to soften the sound of footsteps. Murdy details that there are a lot of human performers in the cast of this maze, but they are not necessarily put there to scare guests. They are there to help further the plot and bring the authenticity of the film to life:

"We're doing a lot of what we call cause-and-effect triggers. We know our guests. We know they're not going to be quiet. There's no way they're going to actually do that, even though that's what they're constantly being told in the pre-show. So we're going to punish them every time they don't obey. There's lots of hidden banner sensors in this house so that when you get close to something, it causes a noise to go off."

One of the many details brought to life is that in the farmhouse, there are boards painted gray. In the film, these are the ones that don't squeak. There are also strings of lights hung up outside to alert guests when there is imminent danger.

When guests are in the barn, it feels as if you are stepping inside the film itself. Here is where the family has soundproofed everything to keep the newborn baby safe, as well as not allow it to attract creatures with any noise it makes. They built this special box that's insulated with a lid, and then they put an oxygen mask on the baby, and that's how they try to conceal the sounds the baby is making from the creatures. Murdy explained the inspiration for the maze with this scene:

"A creature gets into the barn and breaks a water pipe, and the whole root cellar starts filling up with water, causing the baby box to be floating like Moses in the reeds. Then this creature comes out of the water, and that's what we're doing. [There is a ] fully animated figure, and he's going to rise up out of the water. All the areas you see that are black are going to be filled with water. It's actually not that much water, but we dye it so you can't see the bottom. As he rises up, you get blasted with compressed air. This room is a really good example of the work our props and dressing team does. They have to create and make all this stuff."

As with the live actors in this maze, some scenes are not meant to scare, but are there to move the story along and add to the plot, as Murdy explained.

"We work with the studios to get as many photographs as we can get. Of everything. And then we have to reproduce it and try to get all the little details of the scene correct. There's a towel that's always hanging over that one particular furnace because they hide in it, and they use it to not close it all the way so they don't run out of oxygen.

There's a part of the storyline with Emmett is that he had a whole family but he's the only one left, so there's drawings of his family plastered all over his little hideout here down in the furnace. So this is a very presentational scene. It's not necessarily trying to scare you. It's just trying to communicate the end of the second movie."

About Halloween Horror Nights 2024

It's A Beloved Yearly Tradition

You never feel more alive than when you're scared to death at Universal Studios Hollywood Halloween Horror Nights, Southern California's scariest Halloween event. Bring your friends and you might survive. Enhance the horror with an R.I.P. Tour or ission that includes express access. Or, maximize your fear by staying near the screams with a Hotel & Ticket Package.

Halloween Horror Nights 2024 at Universal Studios Hollywood runs on select nights from September 5th to November 3rd.

Tickets can be purchased here, as it is ticketed separately from general ission to the park.