Bio-Hazard / Resident Evil with Jason

Kernkraft 400 - Zombie Nation

For the past couple of years I've heard about the Halloween Nights at Universal Studios. I'm not one for these sort of places but since some people told me about the Friday The 13th Experience, I had to... ummm, experience it. I was traumatized at 11 having seen Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter (#4 and obviously not the final one) but since turning 18 I had become an ardent horror film fan for some strange reason.

Anyway, Universal Studios has a Halloween promotion where a bunch of rides / attractions go Halloween and most importantly, Jason comes to visit. Bio-Hazard / Resident Evil also comes to life where the place is run by the undead. My sister and I were inspired (along with countless others) by George A. Romero's Night of The Living Dead to which we made home-movies in the same vein. So I thought, what the hell, lets have some fun and escape for a while. The original Dawn of the Dead is one of my favourite films of all time, Dario Argento was heavily involved which makes it even more awesome.

I went there by myself and despite the horrid weather, Universal Studios Japan is a lot of fun for the family. If I had my own, I would certainly take them there as did my parents to Disneyland and Universal Studios in California. The lines were atrocious and it was definitely worth spending the extra cash on the quick-passes because I wasn't going to wait 3-hours for a 5-minute Spider-man ride (which was awesome).

After 6pm, The Terminator 2: 3D experience was turned into a "The Ring" experience. The actress playing the host was amazing, I can't really understand Japanese but she had the 100 something strong crowd enthralled with comedy and well-timed gestures. I have never seen the original Terminator attraction but when the whole theatre blacked-out to have Sadako, from the Ring, scare us, it was really cool.

I also went to the Back to The Future ride and that had turned into a Ju-On / The Grudge experience which, to be honest, was lackluster. Oh well, better than nothing I suppose. Thankfully, due to the rain and the zombies being "released" at 6pm, the lines for some of the other attractions were shorter than usual. So I pulled in a couple (man, those lines are crazy and hats off to all the major theme parks for super crowd control strategies, it's a wonder in and of itself). I got to see the Woody Woodpecker show (I laughed my ass off watching those cartoons back in the day), Shrek 4-D, The Spider-man 4-D ride (40 minute wait), and walked through most of the places except for the Harry Potter world and Waterworld (HA! It was closed for the day to be fair).

But honestly, I was there for Friday The 13th and it was cool walking through the haunted house being scared by Jason. Very cool, a little tamer than I expected but I got my money's worth. I did a Friday The 13th Marathon a couple of years ago watching all 13 (?!?!) films within two weeks. Needless to say I was a little burnt out by the rubbish and body-count, but it was fun. The first four were my favourites, #1: Kevin Bacon, #2 The sack cloth over Jason's face was crazy, #3 3-D AND the introduction of the hockey mask, #4 For old time sake. From then on it just got a little silly...

Good times to be had, and it just so happens that by coincidence, a lot of my other friends had spent time there for the weekend. Good times.