Behind The Scenes: USS Halloween Horror Nights 10 Haunted Houses

Come along on a backstage tour of the Killustrator: The Final Chapter and Hospitality of Horror, haunted houses at Universal Studios Singapore’s Halloween Horror Nights 10.

Behind the Scenes Tour at HHN10 Haunted Houses

Thanks to Resorts World Sentosa, I had an opportunity to join the lights-on walkthroughs of two houses, before experiencing them in full show. There is no HHN10 ‘Behind the Screams’ tour offering for park guests, so I produced this article to help you gain better appreciation of the storytelling, design and theatrical magic that goes on inside the 2022 haunted houses.

Behind The Scenes at Killustrator: The Final Chapter

USS Halloween Horror Nights 10 Exclusive Behind The Scene Tour Entertainment Team Group Photo at Killustrator The Final Chapter

Some of RWS’s Entertainment Team that worked on the Killustrator House: Show Director Cameron, Producer Patricia, House Designer Haziq, and Art Director (HHN) Fuji

At this year’s flagship house, Killustrator: The Final Chapter, the park’s creatives shared that the loyal fanbase of Horror Nights in Singapore was a key inspiration in conceptualising the lead icon.

Cameron: “What if we actually make this icon a fan of the event? He’s completely obsessed and wants to make our icons and stories a reality. And so, the Killustrator was born.”

The team wanted to elevate from a typical paranormal icon, which had been a recurring concept.

Patricia: “Our past icons were usually ghouls, demons, or monsters, but the Killustrator himself is essentially human. We thought that would be just as terrifying because he could be the person on the street, the person on the bus, or even that lonely neighbour down the road.”

USS Halloween Horror Nights 10 Exclusive Behind The Scene Tour Killustrator The Final Chapter Curse of the Naga Thai Forest reproduction

Return to the Curse of the Naga (2019)

Patricia: “In Killustrator: The Final Chapter, you’ll essentially see his own imaginative way of retelling some of our stories in HHN history”. The new house is designed with fans in mind, with elements from past events brought back to evoke the fans’ favourite HHN memories.

Apart from reimagining past HHN events, the Killustrator is also added to every scene. Cameron: “We want to make the Killustrator’s presence felt in every room. So it really feels like he has control over all of these stories.”

One returning story is TSGS: The MRT (2015), which is now entangled with a zombie outbreak by the Killustrator’s design. In this scene, much of it still feels 3D, with the drawings being “inside” the MRT train (which has totally crashed into the scene, and you’ll have to walk under a part of the wreckage). Cameron further explained that as guests go deeper in this haunted house, the real world starts to “disintegrate” as it merges into the Killustrator’s new reality.

This is best shown in another room further down – the Killustrator’s take on The Chalet Hauntings (2019), which features a warped scenic design that gradually turns the room upside down. Fuji explained that in transforming the Chalet into a comic version, a lot of work has gone into the detailing on every prop in this room. They were painstakingly hand-painted by an artist over several nights.

If you pay attention to the windows in this room, you will notice that the Killustrator is outside in the real world, looking into this distorted and illustrated world. It’s as if he has already trapped victims within his demented stories.

In the finale room, which Fuji described as “the final boss fight”, past HHN icons are destroyed, speared by the Killustrator’s pencils and fountain pen. Cameron: “We wanted to show that he is in control, and we really wanted to emphasise that it’s ‘out with the old, and in with the new'”.

The chaotic finale is a fiery one, with no structure, as the Killustrator has already broken through the pages of his comics. “We’re welcoming a new decade of Halloween Horror Nights,” said Cameron.

A different creative approach is taken in creating each of the three haunted houses at Halloween Horror Nights 10. Killustrator: The Final Chapter features surreal, nightmare-ish worlds, while Operation: Dead Force has Sci-Fi, Action film-like environments. Inside this next haunted house, which is an old mansion repurposed into a hotel, horror takes on another form.

Behind The Scenes at Hospitality of Horror

Technical Producer Fares and Show Director Coral brought the group through Hospitality of Horror, which features numerous scare effects in an elegant hotel setting.

The story here: This beautiful mansion was built by one of the richest tycoons in the region for his favourite wife. Unbeknownst to him, his beloved wife is also a dark magic practitioner, and a lot of rituals happened inside this mansion. Eventually, the house sat abandoned for many years, until a developer bought and refurbished it into a charming hotel – with a new and aspirational name, Hotel Golden Monument.

Unlike past houses built here (which already looks scary before you even step in), the Hotel facade is designed to look welcoming, with beautiful lighting at night.

Once inside, you’ll find yourself at a lobby, complete with luxurious touches. The path continues into an elevator, which the team has used mirrored corridors to simulate travelling to a higher level of the hotel.

This seemingly simple hallway has several effects – as the Sorceress walks through the walls, some panels vanish, revealing the true, corrupted state of the hotel hidden behind the gilded fittings. Even the melancholic piano music adds on to the atmosphere.

There are subtle details in the hotel that allude to its tragic past (and your doomed future). Take a closer look when you visit (but don’t dwell and cause a slowdown) before the path takes a drastic turn and you somehow end up in a secret passage between guestrooms.

USS Halloween Horror Nights 10 Exclusive Behind The Scene Tour Hospitality of Horror Sneezing Mirror

Why is this random mirror doing here? You’ll have to visit the hotel to find out.

In line with its supernatural theme, Hospitality of Horror combines several ‘illusions’ and practical effects. Here, the classic Pepper’s ghost effect makes an appearance.

Fares highlighted that the house’s numerous effects were custom-designed and built in-house, and is the result of a close collaboration between the park’s technical and creatives teams bringing the desired effects to life. Given the space and layout of this particular house, the horrifying experience intensifies gradually, as it literally pushes you down a narrowing path.

Coral: “You can walk through the empty house and still be scared, then when we add more layers, it becomes a full thing. Even if one thing is taken away, it’s still pretty scary.” If these photos already look distressing to you, then wait till you walk through the house in full show.

The last portion of the house is your final chance to escape from the Sorceress, that is if you can make it out of the chamber where blood sacrifices happen, dark tombs, and a crumbling tunnel. Not to mention the bigger props and animatronics that will spook you along the way.