By day, guests aboard Universal Studios Hollywood’s Studio Tour are taken via tram onto the studio’s famous backlot for a leisurely behind-the-scenes look at real working studio sets and various attractions like Fast & Furious—Supercharged and King Kong 360 3-D.
But during the theme park’s annual Halloween Horror Nights, once the sun sets, the backlot is taken over by monsters and the trams and tour guides only take patrons so far before kicking them off into the darkness to brave the elements. Each year there’s a theme and for this haunting season the attraction has been dubbed Terror Tram: The Exterminatorz.
ALSO SEE: Halloween Horror Nights: A closer look at Universal Studios’ scare zones
Insects and rodents, led by sharp-tongued salesman Larry Larva, have started an extermination company and they’re out to get rid of all of the humans for destroying the planet.
“I invented Larry specifically for this,” HHN creative director and executive producer John Murdy said during an interview while previewing the mazes for this year’s event, which takes place select evenings through Oct. 31.
“In my research, I watched bad infomercials from the ’80s that you’d see on late night cable and I was like, well this guy should be the head of the company,” he continued. “There’s a little environmental message here, too. I like to play with the existential crisis of the day, much like the horror genre does. I was tapping into the idea that humans have been here for x amount of years, but insects have been on the planet for millions and millions of years, but look what the humans have done. They’ve poisoned the air and water and the insects are like, game over, this is done.”
Rats, flies, caterpillars, ants, spiders and a lot of other creepy crawly characters are scattered throughout the backlot as guests walk through the set of the “Psycho” Bates Motel and up by the famous “Psycho” house, where Norman Bates is posing for photos…
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