Halloween Horror Nights: Ripped from the Silver Screen

XIX: Ripped From The Silver Screen (2009)

Halloween Horror Nights XIX Commercial

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Universal announced on June 25, 2009 that this year's event will incorporate characters from the movie franchises, Child's Play (Chucky), Saw (Billy /Jigsaw), and Universal's The Wolfman will be used in this year's event.

Ripped from the Silver Screen's theme surrounds a mysterious old movie theater, the Universal Palace Theater. The Icon of the event is appropriately called The Usher, or Julian Browning , a mysterious, undead usher who haunts and cares for the theater. The Universal Palace itself seems to be an evil entity-- it "attacks" those who do not show it respect, as Julian warns as he enters vistors to the website.

Event website

Throughout August, the website showed grainy monochrome images of the theater, while a voice discussed a historical society's attempt to restore it. As time went by, portions of the theater were gradually "filled in"; when a viewer rolled the cursor over the screen, sepia-toned photographs would appear. Reports of the theater's violent history were also released on the site. Each report discusses a different horrific event tied into one of the movies featured, and shows "evidence" from each case:

• Trapped tells the tale of a man who rudely talked on the phone during the screening of a film. Other patrons forced him to leave, and he climbed to a higher portion of the theater to seek better reception. Officials found him days later, decomposing; his leg had become trapped in a twisted, rusty portion of a staircase, and he bled to death. A list of names covered with blood was found next to the body; these names, along with the "trap"-like death, relate to Saw.
• Insane reveals stories of twisted, warped Toys that had been found throughout the theater. Though the toys were placed in a Lost and Found, no one ever claimed them. Some theatergoers developed an intense fear of the toys; psychiatric reports revealed that one man was convinced that the playthings were deadly, and trying to kill him. A bloody pull-string from a talking doll-much like Chucky was also found, linking these cases to Chucky: Friends till the End.
• Missing shows images of three young pranksters who disappeared on Prom Night. The three young men had been banned from the theater for breaking rules, but entered the theater on that night through an emergency exit. Various clues were found in the sewers below the theater, including bloody flowers and wrenches, but the young mens' bodies were never found. This mystery is linked to The Spawning; the creatures of that House most likely devoured the boys and the boys used wrenches to unsuccessfully fight their way through.
• Electrocuted discusses a stormy night in the theater's history. Powerful bolts of lightning repeatedly struck the movie house. A power outage caused the movie being shown to stop, prompting an employee to open an electrical panel in the basement to fix the problem. When an even more powerful bolt struck the theater, the panel sent a shower of sparks onto a balcony, where a theatergoer secretly drinking whiskey was hiding. The electricity killed him and completely destroyed his interal organs-which he had planned on donating in the event of his death. This story is linked to Frankenstein: Creation of the Damned.
• Bloodless talks about a young bride who did not appear at the chapel on her wedding day. The woman was known as a fan of a particular horror movie, often going to the theater and reciting, line for line, the dialogue from the film. Police investigators discovered her body, dressed in its bridal gown, at the Universal Palace. The girl had been completely drained of her blood, and the roses she held had wilted-yet remained perfectly preserved. It is assumed that Dracula had somehow hypnotized the young woman and summoned her to be his new bride, as is described in Dracula: Legacy in Blood .
• Savaged is a plain, violent story. After a horribly gruesome murder at the the Universal Palace Theater, two young girls revealed that they saw a "beast" running through the screening room, attacking a laughing man who claimed he was unfazed by horror movies and started throwing popcorn at the screen. The beast was a werewolf, tied to The Wolfman.
• Severed 's darkly humorous grotesque tale presumably set in the 1950s reveals that a family of theatergoers ordered meals from the concession stand of the theater. During the movie, the daughter of the family began to scream-she bit into a human finger in her hot dog. The other members of the family had already finished their meals, and fled the theater. Strangely, the consumption of human flesh (as well a mysterious drug buried within the meals) transformed them into carnivores, unable to eat anything but raw meat. The family's plight is linked to Leave it to Cleaver and the meals are advertised as "Brought to you by Meetz's Meats."
• Strangled, revealed on August 27th, talks about Julian Browning himself, and how he came to be the guardian of the theater. While a re-release of his favorite horror film, The Phantom of the Opera, was playing, in 1940, Browning engaged in a scuffle with a rude theatergoer. During the fight, Browning's flashlight was tossed through the screen, tearing it. As the usher went to retrieve it, he was somehow entangled in a sandbag's rope, causing him to die a slow, painful death of strangulation. It is also revealed that this was the first horrible event of many in the theater's history, meaning that either the Universal Palace itself is evil, or Julian's "revenge" has been to destroy other rulebreaking patrons with classic movie monsters (almost in a same way the Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera would do by causing incidents in the opera house).

On August 27th, the site changed. It now featured a CGI introduction of Julian , bringing viewers into the theater, fully restored. Small dolls were positioned throughout the theater, and posters linked to each of the Haunted Houses were featured as hotspots. Viewers could interact with these posters by rotating them, revealing that the images were actually the creatures featured on the screen. Information regarding events and Scare Zones was also posted on the 27th.

Attractions

Haunted Houses

• Silver Screams (Parade Warehouse) - Your usher, Julian Browning , welcomes guests into the Universal Palace Theater, where the movie screen is torn away and some or horror's biggest names are brought into the real world.
• Saw (Jaws Queue) - Inspired by the popular Saw series. You are being tested for your voyeuristic ways. Instead of watching the torture of others, you will be the one causing the pain and torment in grisly traps and games created by Jigsaw and his apprentices.
• The Wolfman (Soundstage 22) - Based on the upcoming remake of the same name, guests travel through the England countryside and are hunted by The Wolfman himself.
• Chucky: Friends till the End (Sprung Tent 1) - Guests enter Chucky's world, where the demented doll has been turning harmless toys into pure evil.
• Dracula: Legacy in Blood (Soundstage 23) - Guests enter Count Dracula's castle on the night of "The Calling", and are given the choice of either becoming an undead servant of Dracula, or suffering a painful demise.
• Frankenstein: Creation of the Damned (Soundstage 23) – Frankenstein's monster has taken revenge against his creator, and his destructive rampage has visitors caught in the middle.
• The Spawning (Sprung Tent 2) – Guests are hired to find out who...or what has stopped the water supply in Wyandot County, Ohio by traveling into the town's sewer system and finding out if the creatures the townsfolk call "Sculders" really exist.
• Leave it to Cleaver (Disaster!: A Major Motion Picture Ride...Starring You! Queue) – In this blood-soaked dark comedy, Sam Meetz works as a butcher in Carey, Ohio with a steady supply of homeless and town lawbreakers as his livestock. Mr. Meetz and his staff will preserve their deadly secret at any cost.

Scare-zones

• Lights Camera Hacktion! (Hollywood Boulevard) – Hollywood Boulevard is being used as a location for the filming of the next big horror movie to be released in October 2010: The' CHAINSAW DRILL TEAM MASSACRE in 3-D. Lights, Camera, Hacktion! Our director, Mas Imair, noted horror film aficionado, is bringing the massacre to life in blood-red terrorcolor. But the actors seem to be taking their direction literally and are “hacking” through the cast and crew. It’s a close encounter of the worst kind as the backlot becomes a hacklot and the streets run red with blood. Are you ready for your close-up?

• Cirque Du Freak (Woody Woodpecker's Kidzone) – Inspired by Universal Pictures’ upcoming film Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, which tells the fantasy-adventure tale of a boy who unknowingly breaks a 200-year-old truce between two warring factions of vampires. Pulled into a fantastic life of misunderstood sideshow freaks and grotesque creatures of the night, one teen will vanish from the safety of a boring existence and fulfill his destiny in a place drawn from nightmares.
• Horrorwood Die-In (Mel's Drive-In) – The Hollywood Drive-in has been closed for years, and some say the abandoned grounds are haunted, where late at night the dim flickering images of carnage and chaos, monsters and madmen leave the screen and enter the real world looking for fresh victims to star in their latest horrors.
• Apocalypse: City of Cannibals (New York) – A whole civilization of war-like carnivorous humanoids emerges from the sewers and underground tunnels of New York, looking for fresh food. Half-humanoid, half-beast and ravenous, these tribal cannibals invade the streets of Manhattan. No one is safe!
• Containment (Plaza of the Stars) – When an experimental bio-nerve gas is accidentally released into the atmosphere, the streets are filled with a toxic green mist that turns anyone that comes in contact with it into an infected, melting glob of flesh and blood.
• War of the Living Dead (Shrek Ally) – On a remote island in the Pacific during the last days of World War II, the unthinkable was created – a new breed of super-soldier made from the reanimated corpses of the dead. American forces quickly seized the island compound, but not before the reanimate agent was released. The island was quarantined and has remained a secret until now. Fifty years later, the two opposing dead forces are still locked in immortal combat - with you caught in the middle.
• Shadows from the Past (Sting Alley) - Come see a new scare zone featuring shadows from the past.

Shows

• Bill & Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure (Fear Factor Stage) - This a recurring show from Halloween Horror Nights past. It spoofs this year's movies, music, TV and pop culture icons, with Bill and Ted at the center of the performance.
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show: A Tribute (Beetlejuice Stage) - Returning from the previous "Carnival of Carnage" and "Reflections of Fear" events, the show is a live tribute to the cult classic film of the same name, incorporating transvestite dancers and movie clips.

Rides

• Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride is an indoor roller coaster inspired by The Mummy and its sequels.
• The Simpsons Ride is a motion simulator ride which takes you through the world of Krustyland with The Simpsons characters.
• Men in Black: Alien Attack is an interactive dark ride adventure where you will join the ranks of the Men in Black to save New York City from a recent alien invasion.
• Jaws puts you aboard Captain Jake's Amity Boat Tours, where you'll journey around the island of Amity, hoping to avoid the menace known as JAWS.
• Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit was originally planned to run during the event, but will not until nets are installed underneath the coaster between the soundstage entrances.Template:HHNRftSS