How Halloween Horror Nights hits differently in Hollywood, Orlando

When guests walk into the Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines house at Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights this year, they’ll be stepping into film history.  
The West Coast version of this house is located on the very sound stage where Universal began making a name for itself in horror, Sound Stage 12.
“What it’s really famous for is, 1931, this was the interior of Dracula’s castle for ‘Dracula.’ 1931, it was also the interior Frankenstein’s lab in ‘Frankenstein,’ also for ‘Bride of Frankenstein.’ But down through the years, everything from ‘Back to the Future’ to ‘Scarface’ to ‘Jurassic Park’ have all filmed inside the stage,” John Murdy, creative director and executive producer of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood, said while taking USA TODAY behind the scenes of this year’s event.
The distinction is emblematic of how Halloween Horror Nights varies between Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orlando. Here are six differences in the California and Florida events to help travelers decide between them.
Universal Studios Hollywood started as a film studio that expanded into a theme park, whereas Universal Studios Florida was built primarily as a theme park with production capabilities, including then-Nickelodeon Studios.  
Production still occurs at both destinations, but far more happens in Hollywood. Because of that, while both events feature movie-quality sets and costumes, many of the folks working on Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights come from TV and film.
“We have a prop master and a couple of people who are on staff all the time that work on Horror Nights pretty much all year, but then they staff up with industry professionals,” Murdy said. “That’s the same of our production designers. Like our art director and production designer have a (stable) of movie designers, and they work on all these huge movies, but then when they have a break in between movies, we grab them.” 
Like the Florida resort itself, Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights is larger than its Hollywood counterpart.  
This year, Orlando’s HHN has 10 haunted houses and five scare zones while Hollywood’s event has eight houses, four scare zones, and its popular Terror Tram set along iconic film sets.  
Hollywood tends to feature more intellectual property houses than Orlando.  
“My kind of vision of this event was to do branded work, and that’s what we exclusively focused on for many years,” Murdy said, adding that he thinks of the houses as living horror movies. Only later did Hollywood add original content. 
This year, the parks share four IP house themes: Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines, Insidious: The Further, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and A Quiet Place. Hollywood has two additional IP houses – The Weeknd: Nightmare Trilogy and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Legacy of Leatherface. Hollywood is also hosting an interactive talk show called “Late Night with Chucky.” 
Orlando, meanwhile, showcases more original content. 
“Our original content houses are so fun to develop and are some of our fan favorites,” Lora Sauls, assistant director of Creative Development and Show Direction for Art and Design, Entertainment at Universal Orlando Resort, told USA TODAY. 
Six of Orlando’s houses are original this year, including Slaughter Sinema 2, which incorporates eight mini themes in one. “What our fans are going to come out and say they absolutely love, you never know if that might be a full original house in the future,” Sauls said. 
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Murdy writes all the stories for Hollywood, but small teams flesh out the original houses in Orlando. 
“We team up with a character designer, a scenic designer and a show director – team of three. We give them each what houses they’re going to work on from original content stories,” Sauls said. “They’ll start deep diving on what the story is, where the locations are, what the characters are going to be like.”  
Even when the parks share a house theme, they may not feel the same. 
“What we always do with a property that we’re going to share on both coasts is we get together and we collaborate to come up with the basic kind of like story or plot points or scene breakdown of what we want to do in our experience, knowing full well that it’s going to be a little different coast to coast, and that’s mostly driven by just the physical spaces we occupy,” Murdy said.  
Beyond physical constraints, there are artistic differences. For example, Orlando’s version Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines is scored by Emmy-nominated composer Sara Barone. The two houses also feature different decor. 
Hollywood’s HHN guests are largely regional, though some fans come from around the world. Universal Orlando, meanwhile sees lots of travelers, in addition to its local fan base. 
Both destinations offer multi-night tickets for guests who want to keep coming back for more.  
Horror fans who are big on intellectual property and want to walk through legendary soundstages and film sets will want head to Hollywood. But guests looking for more scares should opt for Orlando with its extra houses and unique, original content. Some fans visit both. 
Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights runs on select nights through Nov. 3 in Hollywood and Orlando. 
The reporter on this story received access to Halloween Horror Nights from Universal Studios. USA TODAY maintains editorial control of content.