Haunted houses at theme parks to feature 'Mount Rushmore' of horror characters and movies

Earlier this month, as educators across Florida were prepped for the start of a new academic year, families passed the turnstiles at Disney's Magic Kingdom for one last pre-first day of school sojourn. It wasn't a final ode to the elapsing summer but, rather, a kick-off for the Halloween season .

The annual Mickey's Not So Scary Party calendar kicked off Friday, Aug. 9 and runs through Oct. 31 at the Central Florida theme park. By month's end, Universal Studios Orlando's more adult-themed Halloween Horror Nights also will begin its festival of fright.

So will smaller attractions, like the Scream-A-Geddon in Dade City, just northeast of Tampa. They will be followed by Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, which starts just after Labor Day.

As the business of Halloween booms, theme parks in Florida and across the United States are expanding their seasonal events, and pushing up start dates for launching haunted haunts. And this year they are competing with each other by leaning on some of the most popular, classic and monetized characters and films in studio catalogues and archives.

Universal's Florida park features houses including "A Quiet Place," "Insidious" and "Ghostbusters." Its sister operation, Universal Studios Hollywood, which operates under a different creative team, will also have houses inspired by the performing artist The Weekend, and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

Six Flags will have a haunt marking the 20th anniversary of the gruesome "Saw" in partnership with the Lionsgate movie studio, plus one based on "Trick 'r Treat" in collaboration with the film's creator.

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John Murdy, creative director of Horror Nights at Universal's California park, said choosing "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" as a house again this year isn't just to mark the anniversary of a landmark film in the genre. It's also a nod to its status of its chief villain, Leartherface.

"If I was going to make a Rushmore of horror ... I would put Leatherface, for sure, as one of the four heads on the Mount Rushmore of horror," Murdy said during a discussion about the house at the annual Midsummer Scream expo in Long Beach, California. "That's what this franchise means to the whole genre of horror."

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Allison Fox, executive producer of Six Flags Fright Fest Extra, said guests walking through houses may be very familiar with the films and characters but that doesn't mean you can't surprise or startle them

"You'll see parts of the story you haven't seen before," she said of houses based on "Stranger Things," "Trick r Treat," "Army of the Dead" and "The Conjuring Universe."

She said in one those "you're going to feel like you, too, are trying to escape" and in another the guests will feel like they are the prey.

"It's going to be dark. It's going to be spooky and you're going to be hunted," she said.

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Six Flags turned to Lionsgate in designing and blueprinting the house based on "Saw".

Liam Brown, the studios manager for global content marketing said promoting Lionsgate's intellectual properties with theme park houses is a natural combination.

"Lionsgate has made so many inroads in the horror space," he said, noting just "Saw" but also "Blair Witch Project" and other films. "There's a lot of fan recognizability for our studio as a leader in horror films."

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And the houses, he said, are a path toward highlighting all the "entry points" that make the horror genre popular with audiences.

"I am a horror fan, personally," he said. "Horror is such a community, for me and for our fans and for our consumers because there's so many different entry points into the world of horror. There's the supernatural. There's gore. There's the style of it. There's the music of it. There's so many different avenues into the world of Halloween and horror for people to get excited about this genre."

Michael Dougherty, the director and writer of "Trick 'r Treat", said working to bring his movie to life via a house brought "so much enthusiasm and creativity" to the process.

For example, he said, the house allows for "all sensory engagement" including scents.

"It should smell like your sticking your head in a candy bag at Halloween," he said.

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post , part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com . Help support our journalism. Subscribe today .

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Haunted houses at theme parks to feature 'Mount Rushmore' of horror characters and movies