Whenever it comes to a red carpet at a premiere you never know who you’re going to run into. Then again you figure that you would run into Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights creative director John Murdy since his maze “The Thing: Assimilation” is based off the brand new prequel.
ShockYa: You’ve been very familiar with “The Thing” remake for awhile now because you took the effects from the film and implemented it into “The Thing: Assimilation” at this year’s Halloween Horror Nights.
John Murdy: We actually worked with ADI which is the makeup company with award-winning makeup artists Tom (Woodruff) and Alec (Gillis). They let me take every big effect from the film and every piece of the attraction is based off the film.
ShockYa: So there wasn’t any sort of hesitation of ‘Oh I don’t know if we should show this?’
John Murdy: No, that’s the amazing thing and it’s totally amazing because most of the time a producer or a filmmaker would go ‘Wait a minute, you can’t show this.’ Eric Newman, who’s a producer on “The Thing,” he’s a Halloween Horror Nights fan so he comes out here every year. I asked him ‘Is there anything I can’t do?’ and he said ‘Do everything.’ So that’s the best possible situation so we did it all, we did every bit of it.
ShockYa: What is it about the prequel that you like the most?
John Murdy: The fact that it’s a prequel. (Laughs) I think in this era in Hollywood we’ve all seen a million remakes and “The Thing” is such a classic film that has a huge fanbase. I think that the producers approached it from that fan perspective, wanting to go back and tell the story of what happened in the Norwegian camp. And it was sort of natural to make the movie a prequel because it dovetails so perfectly into the John Carpenter movie.
Then John Murdy talked a little bit about how many more filmmakers want to put their mark on Halloween Horror Nights for next year.
ShockYa: Is it overwhelming?
John Murdy: It’s overwhelming every year to see how much bigger it gets. Every year it gets bigger, every year more people and every year we expand. As the creator of this thing it’s really gratifying to see it expand.
ShockYa: And you’ve previously talked about how you were at the Eyegore Awards last year and Eli Roth approached you, next thing you knew you were making Hostel: Hunting Season. Is there anything similar to that that’s happened so far this year?
John Murdy: This year, before we even got to the Eyegore Awards, we’ve been getting calls about 2012. I’ve probably already got five or six different filmmakers who’ve already called who are saying ‘Hey, let’s do next year!’ which is really fantastic because we never anticipated this when we brought it back in 2006. We love working with filmmakers so it takes their passion to help bring this to life.
ShockYa: And I’m sure it makes you filled with joy when people see attractions like La Llorona and they say ‘I’m not sure if I want to go to that because it looks really freaky!’
John Murdy: Yeah, it’s kind of the ultimate compliment for us when they walk in and then they chicken out and then we’re like ‘Yeah, okay, that’s pretty much what we set out to do.’
Be sure to check out “The Thing” which is out in theaters today.