Behind the scenes details of Dead Exposure: Death Valley House at Halloween Horror Nights 2024

Universal offered a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Dead Exposure: Death Valley, an original house at Halloween Horror Nights 2024 at Universal Studios Hollywood.

Behind the scenes of the screams of the dead: Death Valley

Dead Exposure: Death Valley is a brand new property, but it was inspired by HHN 28's Dead Exposure: Patient Zero at Universal Orlando Resort. In Patient Zero, the planet is ravaged by a disease that turns people into zombies. The Death Valley story also features zombies, but this time guests find themselves in a top-secret government facility in Death Valley, California.

John Murdy, creative director and executive producer of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood, said the following via the Discovery Universal Blog.

If you want to build a facility somewhere that you don't want anyone to know about, you should build it in Death Valley. It's one of the most inhospitable places on earth.

Sirens blare as guests enter the new home and see the facility's gates broken open. The mysterious and uneasy beginning invites guests to speculate and develop their own conspiracy theories about the facility.

Conspiracy theories are the first cultural theme of Dead Exposure: Death Valley. As the Discovery Universal blog notes, good horror “often speaks to the cultural anxieties of the moment.”

While the genre naturally creates new monsters and horrors to haunt our nightmares, these monsters are often a magnified, aggravated and personified version of what we already fear. Whatever is happening on the cultural or political stage shows up in the horror films of the time. Whether it is the fear of nuclear war in the 1950s, the fear of protest movements in the 1960s or the “stranger danger” paranoia of the 1990s, the genre is a distorted mirror of ourselves.

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Although conspiracy theories are widespread today, Murdy was also inspired by Soviet-era conspiracies.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 90s, there was a lot of talk about all these secret military facilities and laboratories popping up all over the world. In the world of Horror Nights, we can open this Pandora's box and [the guests’] worst fears come true.

The design of the house was also inspired by the Soviet era. Murdy was an exchange student in Copenhagen in the late 1980s and traveled throughout the Soviet Union. Living as an American in late Soviet Europe made Murdy paranoid. He describes one particular incident that has stuck with him over the years.

I remember taking photos in Red Square and a soldier took my camera and film away. That paranoia stayed with me. I knew that one day I would do something with that feeling.

As guests continue to walk toward the facility, they see a vehicle with the words “WARNING: RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL” written on it. It has crashed into the building – so it must be what broke through the gate. Through the hazy green smoke, guests also see the radioactive material leaking out.

Then they come face to face with their first zombie: one of the facility's guards is suffering from the early stages of radioactive poisoning. He has skin lesions and his eyes are turning red.

After escaping the security guard, guests end up in the security station and see the crashed vehicle once again. The driver of the vehicle is “splattered all over the windshield.”

A computer voice screams “WARNING” over and over again, sometimes slowing down and sometimes speeding up to create a disorienting feeling.

The guests eventually realize that super soldiers were created in the laboratory who could be shot and still continue fighting.

The Super Soldier Zombies are HHN's answer to AI fears. Murdy's team has developed a unique look for the creatures. The top of their skulls has disappeared, leaving their brains exposed with wires and cables for experimentation. Their red eyes protrude from their skulls.

In addition to the facility's security guard, guests will encounter zombie lab technicians in protective suits, a crazed zombie gorilla, people in body bags with oxygen tubes attached, and a thawing freezer unit with half-frozen test subjects.

Halloween Horror Nights 2024 will take place on selected evenings from September 5th to November 3rd. Get your tickets now.

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Shannen Ace