When I was a kid nothing scared me more than devil stuff. I kept a long mental list of movies and TV shows and books about the devil and witchcraft, and would pray to God every night asking for help to forget about them. I’d recite this list in my head every night in hopes of never thinking about them ever again. I was a dumb kid.
At the top of that list was The Exorcist. Of course. No movie did more for the devil than William Friedkin’s classic. It might seem goofy to an adult, but to kids, especially kids 30 and 40 years ago, that movie is as frightening as anything could possibly be.
Well, guess what’s coming to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orlando Resort this year? Yep, good and evil will be battling over young Regan’s soul right in front of your face at a Universal theme park this Halloween.
If you’ve never been to Halloween Horror Nights, Universal basically turns its concourses into interactive, open air haunted houses. You’ll be trying to get to that sweet Mummy roller coaster while some theater kids dressed up like zombies lurch all around you. It’s like one of those local haunted houses that pop up every Halloween, but with the attention to detail you expect from a world-class theme park.
The Exorcist will join a number of other horrific mazes at this year’s Halloween Horror Nights events, starting in September. As a press release from Universal states, the “maze will recreate some of the film’s most haunting scenes, ushering guests into its unparalleled terror as if their very souls were possessed by the devil.”
I don’t know about you, but my very soul is the absolute last thing I want that devil to possess. Horror fans and haunted house nuts might love this Exorcist experience, but I’ll be sitting safely back at home begging God to help me forget all about this movie, and The Omen, and Rosemary’s Baby, and The Believers, and that drawing of Baphomet I saw in the library when I was eight, and…