The People Under the Stairs

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Halloween Horror Nights Orlando attraction
The People Under the Stairs
Attraction type	Haunted House
Event	Halloween Horror Nights II Halloween Horror Nights III
Park	Universal Studios Florida
Area	Production Central
Year	1992 1993
Housed in	Soundstage 23
Based on	The People Under the Stairs (1991)
Followed by	People Under the Stairs: Under Construction (2006)

The People Under the Stairs (a.k.a The People Under the Stairs II or The Haunted Soundstage) was one of the two haunted houses that were featured during Halloween Horror Nights II. It returned the following year for Halloween Horror Nights III. It was located in Soundstage 23 and had a prequel in 2006 called The People Under the Stairs: Under Construction.

History and Location

In 1991, Wes Craven directed a horror movie titled "The People Under the Stairs". The movie was reasonably successful, so Universal Orlando decided to use the property in their follow-up event to the highly popular Fright Nights from 1991. In 1992, Universal put some of the actual props from the movie in Soundstage 23 and turned it into a haunted house for their Halloween event that year.

Soundstage 23 is one of the many soundstage facilities built in the backlot area of Universal Studios Florida. They are occasionally used to shoot films/ T.V. shows. Soundstage 23 in particular is one of the larger soundstages in the park.

The house in 1992 was very popular, so Universal decided to bring it back in 1993. The house was largely the same, as it was reportedly never taken down after the previous year (though some sources said it was.)

In 2006, the house would have a prequel titled People Under the Stairs: Under Construction.

Description (1992)

Haunted Sound Stage #23. Take a trip through the cryptic set that you will never forget... ever!

Description (1993)

Soundstage 23 is haunted. Beware! The walls are alive with terror!

Flee for your life at The People Under the Stairs Haunted Soundstage. Relive this hideous film as you search for a way out of this 16,000 square-foot labyrinth. You'll wish it were only a movie when you come to face with the cast from The People Under the Stairs!

Experience

Queue

Guests would enter the queue to this house in front of the Universal soundstages. Presumably, the queue would go along the left wall of Soundstage 23 before guests would enter the house.

Haunted House

Not much information about this house exists due to its age. It is however known that, as can be seen from the page image, it was a very gory house. There were staged beheadings of scareactors. One of the rooms in this house featured Daddy Robeson, one of the villains from the movie, taking meat from a corpse and throwing it to caged scareactors. Also another scenes featured human taxidermy. Another scene had Roach coming out of a vent in the ceiling screaming at guests walking by. Daddy in his gimp suit would then come out with his shotgun shooting at the ceiling where Roach came from. There was also a scene that made guests feel as if they were outside with a starry night sky above them.

According to one account, there was a room with a plexiglass wall with hundreds of roaches and "tassels" that would blow against you to make you feel like their were bugs crawling on you. They also had broken chunks of wall where people would scare guests. Unsurprisingly, there was also a room featuring the children under the stairs, grabbing at guests from behind a cage. There was also a room where Mommy would scream at her "daughter" Alice (info from the now defunct HHNVault).

According to this, there were two different pathways in the house that each offered the same experience, allowing for the capacity of the house to be doubled. This is likely as looking at the layout of the house you could see two distinct pathways. The same source also said that there were embalming scenes and a room where a scareactor cut open someone's hand with a saw. There was also fog created from liquid nitrogen. In 1992, the nitrogen was produced from a 3000 gallon tank. Descriptions for the house mentioned oozing coffins, torn torsos, eyeless victims, and mutants "bleeding" on guests. According to this, the house also had an attic scene and a kitchen scene (which was the finale). Guests would also have to run through "a gauntlet of mutilated limbs" and feel their way through walls that felt like they were oozing with blood.

According to Julie Zimmerman, the house begins in a funeral home in a room of coffins and decaying reefs and funeral clothes, dirt and shovels can be, guests enter the next room found themselves the Robesons' house, scratching noises can be heard from the wall paneling in the room. Moaning and groaning noises can be heard and the first scare is from one of the Robesons who opened up a section of the wall and scares guests into the next room which find themselves entering downstairs in between the walls of the house, the children of stairs can be seen shining flashlights at guests escaping out of the room find themselves in the kitchen of the house, the ghouls are begin to come out of the cupboards to chase guests through back into any part of the house, guests see a door that could lead to escape but hear growls and barking of the Robesons' dog, heading through to the next one, back downstairs into the basement and run into Daddy Robeson skinning a human as he's throwing meat at the creatures in the wall and eats some, the next room Alice can be seen cleaning blood off the floor in a bathroom as Mommy Robeson appears screaming, guests can quickly head to the next room, from ceiling Daddy Robeson dressed in leather chases guests into a large open space where all the ghouls from under stairs are breaking out around guests while being chased by mommy and daddy who then meet their fate by the ghouls as the guests run screaming out.

In 1993, the house was largely the same, except for the addition of The Roach Man (most likely in the kitchen scene) and the Rat Lady (see here).

Scareactors

• Daddy Robeson
• The Children Under the Stairs
• Roach
• Mommy
• Alice
• The Roach Man (1993)
• The Rat Lady (1993)

Reception

Both of these haunted houses would prove popular with guests, due to their intensity and gore. However, there were a few complaints from guests about the scareactor who would throw bloody body parts, as he got blood on their shirts. This caused the scareactor to stop throwing blood for the rest of the event and the 1993 house.

Pictures

Image from this video.

Website Pictures

The layout for the house. All images from the Halloween Horror Nights: Sweet 16 website page until otherwise noted.

The People Under the Stairs house layout with The Director's notes.

Daddy's picture with notes from The Director.

A picture of The Roach Man that appeared in this house.

Image from the Halloween Horror Nights: Twenty Years of Fear website.

Trivia

• This house was the first haunted house based off of a movie and the first house located in Soundstage 23.
• The house in 1993 was the debut appearance of The Roach Man.
• Sometimes in the room containing Daddy, the red and sticky fake blood would splatter everywhere when he threw the meat and stain people's clothes.
• According to Michael Aiello, they actually used real shotguns in the house.
• Strangely, one of the event guides called this house "The People Under the Stairs II".
• Storyboarder John Paul helped Julie Zimmerman storyboard this haunted house and Dungeon of Terror (1991-1992 Haunted House).