Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios is one of the biggest and baddest haunted attractions in the world. For select evenings, two months out of the year, the movie studio-cum-theme park is transformed into a wicked world of gore, guts, ghouls, and ghosts. This year is bigger than ever, with six mazes ranging from Eli Roth's Hostel to an Alice Cooper-themed walk-through. Despite being a seasonal attraction, the planning for the event goes on year-round. At a special preview event, I got the chance to meet with the brains of the operation, John Murdy. He is the Halloween Horror Nights producer, and this is his baby. His eyes light up like a kid at Christmas when the subject of Halloween or Horror Nights comes up. This is what he had to say...

This year, you guys have more mazes than ever. Do you try to increase the numbers every year?

Yeah. When we brought Halloween Horror Nights back to Universal Studios in 2006, we had a vision of expanding it and making it as big as it is today. We did that in steps, and this year, we are adding another maze. That's a huge step for us because, if you know our mazes, they are insanely detailed. We go to crazy lengths to create these movie-quality haunted attractions. This year we are doing The Thing, which is something we have never tried to do before. This is creature effects! To do that live, with actors, in an experience where it has to be a new scene every ten seconds, that's a heck of a challenge. Every year we push ourselves. We never look back - only forward.

I know that Horror Nights is a year-round endeavor, but how long does it take to physically construct these elaborate mazes?

This year, we started in June, which is the earliest we have ever started. The process begins during the event - we start planning the attractions and talking to filmmakers. It all starts with me  and my art director, production designer, and all-around right-hand-man Chris Williams. Sitting in my office with Post-It notes and putting ideas on the walls. It evolves from there, but it is a year-round project. Construction starts in June, but the process begins in October.

This year's event hasn't started yet, but are the wheels already turning for next year?

Yeah, I'm already getting phone calls about next year. That's the really cool part about getting to produce and create this event. As we work with different studios and different filmmakers - in the beginning, we had to go out to these people; now I get so many phone calls that we can't possibly do them all. That's a huge compliment to Halloween Horror Nights and everyone who works on this event, and the quality we try to produce. The reason people want to work with us is because we deliver the goods. The relationships we have built with the filmmakers are awesome.

How do you decide who makes the cut?

We basically have three criteria for any potential Horror Nights attraction. One is just awareness. We want to feature projects that people know about and want to see. It might be box office; it might be just fan awareness. Another thing we look for is environments. We put so much energy into the environments of our haunted attractions that we want to make sure that movie or franchise has enough variety that it can take you to multiple places on the course of the walk-through. Last - and I realize I am probably breaking this rule with The Thing - we try to come up with things that actors can portray. The Thing is certainly beyond that. These are creature effects - this is not our typical thing. With that, we are working with the Academy Award-winning makeup artists, Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. from ADI who did the film. We moved our specialty makeup artists into their studio. We worked directly with the filmmakers and the producers who were big fans of Horror Nights. We utilized the original molds from the film, so what you see is what the movie is. We had to make it work every 10 seconds, whereas in a movie, you make it work once for the camera. You can have 20 hours to make it look good for the camera. In our world, it has to work every 10 seconds, thousands of times, every night. That is the challenge.

The event is starting earlier than ever before this year. Is that simply due to the popularity?

More nights! It's so popular, we keep selling out. As it gets more and more popular we add nights, it starts earlier, and I think that is just indicative of Halloween in general. When I was a kid, I don't think I could have imagined the industry Halloween turned into. It's second only to Christmas in terms of retail sales. America has certainly embraced Halloween in a way I could not have imagined when I was a kid. 

Have you done anything to any of the year-round rides or attractions?

The tram is the thing we focus on because the tram is so central to Universal Studios Hollywood. It has been around for almost 50 years. It's the backlot where the horror movie was born, so that is where I put my energy and passion. I started at Universal Studios as a tour guide. I grew up on this lot. I never walk past the Psycho house without stopping and staring, because that is the real deal. That is the house from Psycho. To be able to share that with the public, and let them get off the tram and walk through our famed backlot, there is just nothing else like that, and nowhere else you can experience that. Every year we try to make it bigger and better. This year, our cast for Terror Tram is bigger than we've ever had - well over 100 performers, and about a football field's size. It's a big project, but there is just something so special about the backlot. I've never lost my fascination with it.

Have there been any mishaps over the years that stick out in your mind?

Not really. I've certainly seen people freak out. I mean freak out. Not handle it. This isn't for everybody. We embrace the idea that we are going to scare the living daylights out of you. That is what we instill in every performer who works at our events. We don't "pose for pictures." We want the performers to scare the hell out of people. And people love to be scared. They've loved to be scared since the silent film era. That's what Halloween really is: escapism. 

What would your dream attraction be?

My passion is classic Universal horror. My mom showed me Frankenstein when I was four years old and it changed my life. I've been obsessed with those films ever since. At the same time, I know our fans. I have to curtail that passion a little bit to understand our fans. Frankenstein isn't necessarily scary like it was back in the 1930s. One day, I would like to get to it, to see if I could make it happen, but I would want to do it for the right reasons - not just because I am a horror geek!