Halloween Horror Nights 2023: Inside 'The Last of Us'-Themed Haunted House at Universal Studios (Exclusive)

Following the TV adaptation of The Last of Us, the critically acclaimed 2013 video game from PlayStation and Naughty Dog, Joel and Ellie’s epic tale has been translated again for Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios. Inside the brand-new haunted maze, stationed at both California and Florida parks, guests are pitted against the Cordyceps-infected mutants in one of the most literal adaptations the yearly horror fest has ever put together. 

To get all the behind-the-scenes details, ET spoke with John Murdy, the mastermind of Universal Studios Hollywood’s haunts, which this year also includes frights inspired by season 4 of Stranger Things, the Chucky franchise, upcoming The Exorcist: Believer and more.

Similar to Super Nintendo World’s debut and its proximity to The Super Mario Bros. Movie earlier this year, the haunted maze -- that only takes inspiration from the original video game -- is likely to feel a bump of cultural awareness thanks to the TV phenomenon, which saw Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey step into the live-action roles.

As Murdy pointed out, a 100 percent video game adaptation is somewhat of a first in the iconic theme park, aside from a Silent Hill-angled maze in 2012 but even that was mostly inspired by its two movie adaptations -- nor did it have the prestige that The Last of Us has accumulated in the decade since its debut.

"It’s like the Citizen Kane of video games," Murdy noted while taking ET on a tour of the haunted house less than two weeks before opening night. "I think that's because there's real emotion in this game."

From details about the collaboration with The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckman, to Easter eggs that fans of the video game should keep an eye out for, to how even some of the game’s biggest staples were built to full size, here’s everything to know about the post-apocalyptic story’s journey from console to theme park. 

WELCOME TO PITTSBURGH

For Druckman’s part, he somewhat manifested the collaboration over a year ago when reacting to fan on X (formerly Twitter), a tweet he resurfaced to celebrate The Last of Us’ HHN premiere. "I’d love a TLoU Halloween Horror Nights attraction! Who do I need to talk to?!" he asked back in 2021. 

"That was the funniest thing. All of this started with that tweet," Murdy recalled, with HHN fans immediately steering Druckman to himself and his counterpart at Universal Studios Orlando, Michael Aiello. "And very quickly, Mike and I were like, 'Let's take this offline.'"

"It literally started on social media. That might be a first," he added, noting that maze subjects come "from all directions" these days, with an uptick in recent years of celebrities and studios making the first move. "It's more common for that than for us to go after something. It usually comes to us."

While TLOU has a plethora of memorable sequences, Druckman insisted that the maze’s initial jumping off point be the game's Pittsburgh segment, a standout chapter that includes Joel and Ellie’s battles inside the Grand Hotel. Concurrently, the HHN team had permission to incorporate parts from elsewhere in the game, lest the absence of signature elements -- like bloaters -- draw ire from the devoted fanbase.

Echoing TLOU’s third-person video game format, guests follow Joel and Ellie performers throughout the maze. The game’s original voices and motion-capture actors, Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, reprised their roles with newly-recorded dialog (which performers lip-sync), a major step to completing the objective that Murdy and his team set out to accomplish. 

"We wanted you to feel like you were living a video game," he said.

GREAT INFECTATIONS 

Working closely with Druckmann and Naughty Dog raised the bar for in-person video game adaptations, with the HHN team gaining direct access to sources of the source material itself, allowing the maze to look and sound exactly like the game. Like, exactly. 

"They gave us hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of videos and files," Murdy shared, meaning that in many areas, guests are experiencing 1:1 replications from the game’s design layout -- from wall-attached spore patterns to signage like "QUARANTINE WARNING."

Translating 2D to 3D also meant utilizing classic HHN effects applications like spray foam to add that extra dimension to the ubiquitous fungi. "Usually, when you're doing spray foam, everybody is in hazmat suits with respirators, shooting it all over the place," Murdy explained. "But here it was much more like frosting a cake."

Despite a prolific history of haunted attractions, the team isn’t content to resort to hand-me-down props. Even with similar post-apocalyptic attractions, like The Walking Dead, behind them, a Humvee-type vehicle with a mounted gun turret -- a frequent in-game terror for Joel and Ellie -- was built from scratch from advanced 3D printing.

A few other staples from the video game that Murdy ensured made it into the maze: fire barrels; Firefly graffiti tags; molotov cocktails, courtesy of LED cloths and blacklight strobes to simulate fire; and mounted flashlight effects -- a simple, yet top-tier motif of the game’s aesthetic.

Even the TLOU’s many water-based sequences receive a substantial tribute in one room, where guests step onto a bridge over a small pool of water, accentuated with various effects to at least provide the vibes a TLOU trademark. "We did it last year for our La Llorona house," Murdy shared, comparing it to building "a very shallow coy pond."

And whatever they couldn’t replicate from the game’s design, such as the wallpaper at Grand Hotel, they accomplished via "I know a guy"-type methods. "We have sources for wallpapers," Murdy said, laughing about the fact that there are "companies that just bought a lot of wallpaper over the years."

"PEOPLE ARE MAKING APOCALYPSE JOKES LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW."

That "so bad it’s good" joke, one of many Ellie busts out in The Last of Us, is a tradition carried over into its Halloween Horror Nights mazes. Of course, that’s if guests can hear it over the Cordyceps howls -- those too ripped straight from the original source files. 

While the attraction includes the four main stages of infected -- runners, stalkers, clickers and bloaters -- there’s plenty of TLOU’s human foes, Hunters, lurking around corners. All of them are brought to life by "scare-actors" trained by Murdy and Universal’s "Scare Academy." At one interval, he explained, a performer is strategically positioned to counteract a potential photo op, in the interest of keeping guests in the moment before they can take to Instagram.

Fans of the TV adaptation might also be surprised that Tess and Bill, played by Anna Torv and Nick Offerman, aren’t part of the experience. Instead, the maze leans into the macro characters and doesn’t skimp on nuanced references embedded in its set pieces. For instance, when recreating Joel and Ellie’s discovery of an abandoned survivor settlement in the Pittsburgh tunnels, a section where TLOU diehards might spot a child’s drawing of Ish -- an off-screen, yet beloved game character -- inside the attraction.

And while HHN isn't known for its happy endings, Druckman and Murdy compromised on a hopeful coda to this microcosm of the celebrated video game at the maze’s end -- as long as it could be paired with one last fright before guests return to the safety of USH’s Lower Lot. 

As for Johnson and Baker, who both played different characters in the HBO series, their joy was "off the charts" to play Joel and Ellie again for HHN.

Murdy remembered, "They kept coming up to me going, 'I'm so excited to be doing this.' This game means a lot to people."

Halloween Horror Nights runs select nights through Oct. 31 at Universal Studios Hollywood, and until Nov. 4 at Universal Orlando Resort. ET will be on the scene for the event’s final frights, airing a week of shows beginning Monday Oct. 30 from the west coast backlot. 

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