Universal Studios Hollywood adding new Halloween Horror Nights scare zones for 2009

Universal Studios Hollywood unveiled two new scare zones featuring sideshow freaks and lovelorn zombies for Halloween Horror Nights 2009.

The apocalyptic 2004 British romantic zombie comedy “Shaun of the Dead” and the 1932 carnival sideshow cult classic “Freaks” will serve as inspiration for two of this year’s scare zones.

Concept art for the Freakz scare zone, posted on the official HHN Twitter and Facebook sites, reveals grotesque details of four “scareactors”:

* Three Face — A three-headed fiend wielding a bloody ax

* Rat Man — A hunchback gnawing on the innards of a kitten

* Pinhead — An homage to the Zip & Pip microcephalics in the movie

* The Geek — A beak-nosed tribute to Koo-Koo the Bird Girl in “Freaks”

The gruesome Freakz characters — based on turn-of-the-century sideshow archetypes — will scare visitors along the movie and television theme park’s French Street.

“Shaun” fans can expect to spot the title character, his best friend Ed, Mary (the first zombie), the record zombie, Sniper, head shot zombie and the one-armed groom roaming the undead scarezone along London Street.

The 2009 fright fest will also feature a haunted maze themed to the “Saw” movie franchise and the film’s Jigsaw serial killer, with additional horror characters to be named to the lineup in the coming months.

When: HHN 2009 will take place at Universal Studios Hollywood on Friday through Sunday nights in October as well as Thursday, Oct. 29 (with the exception of Sunday, Oct. 4).

Find the latest amusement and theme park news at the Los Angeles Times Funland blog: www.latimes.com/funland. Follow Funland on Twitter and Facebook.

— Brady MacDonald, Los Angeles Times staff writer

Images: Universal Studios Hollywood

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at 4:27 pm by Brady MacDonald and is filed under California, Fall, Family & Kids, Los Angeles, Theme Parks, Universal Studios Hollywood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.