Fear and Loathing in Universal Studios Hollywood

I'm officially a wuss.

Now, for those of you who know me, this is not news. While it's true that I do love a good ghost story and Halloween is my favorite holiday, I'm not one for blood and gore or good, old-fashioned jump scares. You toss a kitten at a window, I'm probably going to break said window to escape from Fluffy. If I'm going to sit through a scary movie, it better involve either some serious humor or one heckuva mystery to solve, and if even one creepy doll is involved, all bets are off. I watched Psycho in broad daylight and still had nightmares. Disney's The Watcher in the Woods kept me sufficiently freaked out from the fourth grade through Freshman year. Possibly saddest of all, I've only successfully made it through two haunted houses in my life: one at Niagara Falls in Canada, where I kept my eyes closed and held onto my friends, Shaun and Doug, until the nice fellow in a Scream costume pointed us the way out ("Boo! This way, you guys. Have a nice day!" I love Canada). The other was put on by my little brother's middle school. ("OooooOOOOOooooh! I'm going to get you, Curt's Sister!")

By the way, my zombie movie is available for pre-order from Walmart.  

So, on our recent trip to Universal Studios Hollywood, I decided I was going to face my fears (literally), and make it through the House of Horrors. I watched several shaky, green, night-vision YouTube video walk-thoughs in preparation. In line, I checked out all the cheesy movie props on display, and noted how many ankle-biters were queued up with me. If a six year-old could do this, so could I. When the time came, I held up my head and bravely walked into the maze...

...45 seconds later, the Phantom of the Opera pointed out the first emergency exit along the path. I was in tears, and poor Thomas was in a not-insignificant amount of pain from my fingernails digging into his back and arm. I thanked the Phantom on the way out.

We hadn't even made it into the first room.

Wuss.

(Did I mention that my werewolf and demon infested movie is available at Amazon and Buy.com?)

With that, I can firmly attest that I will not be attending Halloween Horror Nights anytime soon. Not sober, anyway. However, some of you guys might be planning to attend (and I am extremely jealous of your constitutions), so I thought I'd give you a head's up on Hollywood's plans for this year.

According to Dread Central, you can look forward to five all-new horror mazes and one encore: the return of Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses: in 3D ZombieVision, rock-inspired Alice Cooper: Welcome To My Nightmare, Eli Roth's Hostel: Hunting Season, Diego Luna's folklorish La Llorana: Villa de Almas Perdidas (The Weeping Woman: Village of Lost Souls), and movie tie-ins The Thing: Assimilation, and The Wolfman: The Curse of Talbot Hall. A Backlot attraction, Terror Tram: Scream 4 Your Life, will pit riders against Ghostface from the Scream franchise.

Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood begin September 23rd, and continue on select nights through October 31st. For tickets and further information, click here. I'll just be cowering in the corner, playing with my new floating ghost yard ornament. Two more weeks till I can decorate!

(P.S. The skeletons in my closet wanted me to tell you that their movie is at DeepDiscount, too. Hams.)