When you live in the L.A. area, you expect a certain caliber of entertainment. With Universal Studios the bar is set so high, they’ve taken scary to a new hell.

Visitors to Halloween Horror Nights are brought into the movies. Prepare to be living the life of the actor, except this time it’s not a film. With blood flying and bodies crashing all around you, the outside world quickly vanishes and you’re actually running from Jason in the Friday the 13th maze.

On a guided tour with John Murdy, creative director of Halloween Horror Nights, one can really see what is going down. Each section of the maze has surprises up its sleeve: from big shocks that make you jump out of your shoes to subtle touches that keep the hairs on the back of your neck standing up all night long.

I could go into detail about each thing that’s going to happen in the maze and you would still be scared – that’s how intense this year’s setup is. I only walked through the Friday the 13th maze and I was beginning to get intimidated. They have one for A Nightmare on Elm Street, Saw, House of 1000 Corpses (in 3D ZombieVision) and the remake of a classic, Vampyre: Castle of the Undead.

The last one on the list isn’t some Twilight attempt at vampires. It takes you back to the Dark Ages when Vlad the Impaler was alive and you get to wander around an ancient manor and feel what it was like to live during the earliest known accounts of the vampire origin.

Outside of the mazes, there are six Scare Zones where anything can happen. The park also has a new addition, the Terror Tram: Chucky’s Revenge, where dolls and zombies come at you from every angle while you try to ride the tram and wander the backlot.

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Universal Studios Hollywood is located at 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City. For more information, visit halloweenhorrornights.com.