In continuing with Universal’s efforts to recruit some of the biggest – and most influential – names in horror, the company has today announced that Saw will be making a return appearance at Halloween Horror Nights this year.
The Saw series is one that probably needs no preamble, but in our continued interest of being the most thorough Horror Nights resource available anywhere, we’re going to provide a quick primer, anyway. Starting life as an indie project, the first film was released in October 2004 and ended up grossing 100 times its budget; the studio, Lionsgate, smelled a franchise and proceeded to turn out six sequels over the next six years, finishing up with Saw 3D in October 2010. Although the property was supposed to have been concluded with that final installment, a new set of filmmakers has been hired to reinvent Saw, starting what is hoped to be a whole new spinoff series with this October’s Jigsaw (which was initially announced as Saw: Legacy).
The franchise’s first foray into Halloween Horror Nights coincided with Saw VI‘s release in 2009 and resulted in a maze that recreated a number of the movies’ famous (and gruesome) booby traps. (A second opportunity to use the property arose the following year, with Lionsgate wanting to further publicize the grand finale that was Saw 3D, but Universal opted to pass.) For this year, Universal is unleashing Saw: The Games of Jigsaw, and while it’s promising to include some of the brand-new scenarios from October’s Jigsaw (in a “thrilling, living preview” of the new movie), it’s also promising that the overall approach has “evolved”:
Saw: The Games of Jigsaw functions as one large trap. You’ll be funneled through claustrophobic, visceral experiences and be a part of the most terrifying “games” ever devised on screen – trials that you may be familiar with, and some that are completely unknown to you. Sounds fun.
More specifically, guests should expect to see traps from each of the Saw films, including the Razor Wire Maze, the Reverse Bear Trap, the Automated Scalping Machine, and the Pound of Flesh. And perhaps even more intriguingly, Easter eggs to the original 2009 maze are also promised. Here’s just hoping that the original haunt’s most (in)famous gag – in which an actor pretending to be a guest making his way through the experience gets dragged away by another scareactor – also makes a comeback.
Saw: The Games of Jigsaw will join Ash vs Evil Dead, The Shining, and American Horror Story at both Universal Orlando Resort’s and Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights, which runs for a record-breaking 34 select nights, from Friday, September 15 to Saturday, November 4.
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