This year’s installment of Halloween Horror Nights 3 is a real treat with thrice the excitement.
With 3 haunted houses, new illusions and 3 scare zones that took a year of extensive planning, Halloween Horror Nights 3 to run at Universal Studios Singapore from now till November ( 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26, 31 Oct, 1 – 3 Nov). This year’s event can truly be enjoyed in its terrifying wonder thanks to extended scare hours from 7pm to 1am.
Halloween Horror Nights 3 is the largest Halloween event in Singapore, come face-to-hair-raising-face with over 400 monsters, ghosts and decoys prowling the streets, and slinking in the shadows of haunted houses. The haunted houses are extremely well built and decorated, and offer varied experiences, depending on whether you choose to enter House No. 13 (a house possessed by poltergeists), ADRIFT (a wrecked ship) and Songs of Death (the backstage of a Chinese opera academy).
How realistic is this, you ask? Well, brace yourself for the pong of chemicals, that’s an imitation of rotting flesh, in one of these choice locations. The weathered ADRIFT is home to disheveled deceased passengers who have haunted the vessel since the 1910s. You might remember seeing the familiar bloody chef from Halloween Horror Nights 1 with his table spread of human hands, legs and innards (this is where the stench comes from). Beware of water splashes in ADRIFT.
Entertainment Director, Mr Seah Wee Thye says, “We want the guests to feel like they are in the middle of a movie, like they are walking through a horror film.”
The most wicked part is needing to cross the Attack of the Vampires zone, one of the 3 zones to walk through, in order to explore the rest of the event premises. You can take your chances, run past the living dead and head towards the Forbidden Forest zone. FORBIDDEN it is, but wandering ghouls here are less intimidating than blood-thirsty vampires. Just keep your eyes peeled for pocongs(a Malay/Indonesian hopping corpse that’s wrapped and bounded with white cloth), pontianaks(a vengeful female Malay ghost) and other decoys hidden in the nature around you.
From there on, you can head to the other 2 haunted houses: the Chinese opera academy, where you get to witness a vicious, vengeful songstress massacre her troupe, and the possessed house, where you might not see or feel the evil spirits, but they’ve taken over the house and kept the occupants as victims.
Halloween Horror Nights 3 has received an upgrade with the use of illusions. There are levitations and other special effects executed that add to the creepiness of the supernatural-tinged atmosphere. The art of camouflaging is also cleverly used in your surroundings, giving you the best scare when you least expect it.
You can also look forward to new elements like “Monster Rock” Rock Musical: Halloween edition (Show times: 8pm, 10pm, midnight) at the Pantages Theatre and an outdoor performance in the Convention of Curses zone. These bring life to the dead night and gives the weak-hearted a time out before you head back into the spooks.
Mr Seah tells UrbanWire he hopes the shows will “offer a variety of activities for people to do” besides visiting haunted houses and scare zones.
Also for the first time, food will be available at the Discovery Food Court to cater to hungry ghosts (I mean, hungry customers) and the best part is the food’s also Halloween-themed. No detail is too small when even the wasabi is molded into a skull.
With more than 19 liters of fake blood used every night in this Halloween event, you’d better have a pretty strong threshold for the gory. But don’t be afraid to approach the brilliant scare actors for a snapshot because they’ll be glad to be part of your keepsake.
Fans of the theme park will be glad to know that 8 attraction rides will also be open and they are: Lights! Camera! Action!, TRANSFORMERS, Accelerator, Revenge of the Mummy, Canopy Flyer, Enchanted Airways, Shrek 4-D Adventure, Madagascar: A Crate Adventure.
Scare goers can buy the Frequent Fear Season Pass ($118) to have a hellof a time with an unlimited number of visits on 6 non-peak event nights out of 10. For those who wish to be frightened just once, a single entry pass is available at $68. Passes can be bought on the event day itself, as well as on the Resorts World Sentosa’s website here.
Pssst! Watch out for the 3 Sisters of Evil who’ve come out to play specially for these 10 nights during Halloween Horror Nights 3.
**WARNING**
Flashing of lights are aplenty, so if these trigger off epileptic fits for you or your companions, UrbanWire advises you to take the necessary precautions.
Photos courtesy of KLIX photography/Christopher Sim.
Halloween Horror Nights 3 is open for visit on 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26, 31 Oct, 1 – 3 Nov
Time: 7pm – 1am
Venue: Universal Studios Singapore
Find out more at the official page: http://www.halloweenhorrornights.com.sg/#home
This article is written by Charmaine Lim.