From its very inception, the JAWS queue has been plagued by a stigma of failure. The use of the queue in 1991 was only made possible through the complete mechanical catastrophe of the original opening day JAWS; the ride was beset by overly ambitious and complicated effects. For one, there was a shark attack in which the animatronic physically attached itself to the boat and rotated on a turntable. Needless to say, within weeks of the park’s grand opening the ride was shuttered, a successful lawsuit against the ride’s designers was filed, and Universal had begun designing a new and more reliable ride. When it opened in 1993, the revamped ride garnered tremendous acclaim and was a venerable park headliner until its untimely demise on January 2nd, 2012.

Between the time of the ride’s first closure and until its reopening in 1993, a vacant JAWS queue left the park’s event planners with a sizable, dark and empty shed – ideal for the trappings of a haunted house. So when Universal designed the relatively simple Fright Nights in 1991, the location was used for (what-would-become) Halloween Horror Nights’ first house: The Dungeon of Terror. The house, with a promise of “a full cast of madmen and monsters,” was a good, old-fashioned haunt complete with typical horror sights and sounds and also with the enhanced production values and “wow” factor that Universal had come to be known for. The Dungeon of Terror proved to be very popular, warranting its return the very next year in the newly re-branded Halloween Horror Nights II.

After the JAWS queue’s first encore, however, something inevitable happened: JAWS itself opened after years of redesigning and rebuilding. This meant that the space used for two successful Dungeon of Terror haunted houses had become endless rows of switchbacks that were often filled to the brim with eager JAWS guests, even during the hallowed month of October. The change left no space for a haunted house. Besides, Universal had found new locations in which to place houses, such as the Bates Motel, Nazerman's, the massive Earthquake queue, and even inside of their own Sound Stages. It made little sense for Universal to displace the crowds waiting for the popular new attraction while there were plenty of other available and more easily-accessible venues. As a haunted house location for Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights, JAWS had served its purpose.


That is, until the year 2000. Universal decided to flirt with the idea of inserting horror elements into its permanent attractions for a second time during Halloween Horror Nights X. In 1992, E.T. Adventure became “Alien Forest,” where terrifying aliens infested the ride’s generally more cuddly environments, an idea that even today seems positively goofy.

At Halloween Horror Nights X, JAWS was christened “Bloody Waters.” As if the enormous shark animatronics and explosions weren’t scary enough, three live actors were incorporated into the attraction. First, a fisherman who was positioned on a small boat near the lighthouse would reel in a severed-head with his fishing pole, all the while a recording of Amity 6's demise played for guests to hear. Shocked, the fisherman would plop the head back in the water and prepare for the next boat of guests. The next live actor was positioned inside of the boathouse. Around the time that the metal barrels were knocked loose, a second fisherman would emerge on the dock to the left of the boat wielding two scythes (for some unknown reason). Finally, a third fisherman banged around some more metal barrels to the right of the boat during the burnt shark sequence. Apparently, Horror Nights' audiences felt that the horror elements were inconsequential or perhaps even detracted from the original ride experience; the experiment has never been attempted again.


As the JAWS ride continued to delight guests into the new millennium, the JAWS queue remained dormant of terror. In 2002, Halloween Horror Nights moved to Islands of Adventure, making use of the queue nonsensical. But in 2006, Universal’s Art & Design team decided to have the haunted event return to its roots in a big way. Not by just bringing the event back to its original venue, Universal Studios; they wanted to go deeper. They wanted to resurrect Halloween Horror Nights’ original attraction in its original location. Alternatively, they needed a seventh haunted house location in a park that had filled all of its other house locations. “A&D” embarked on an ambitious quest, to fill the available extended queue of JAWS with a house that both emulated the fabled Dungeon of Terror and also remained relevant to the heightened standards that Horror Nights' guests had come to expect.

Unfortunately, the Art and Design Team's goal may have been a bit too ambitious. Most considered Dungeon of Terror: Retold to be a massive flop. There were many reasons that “Retold” was considered to be a failure. For one, the space that the Universal Art & Design team was provided to work with was considerably smaller than the space allotted to the original Fright Nights' planners; “A&D” had to accommodate a functioning JAWS ride queue because the ride remained open during the day and also during the event at night. Among other things, this problem led to a lesser amount of scenes and a reduced sense of scope and scale. Another issue with the venue was that it was not well-ventilated (it did not enjoy the air conditioning afforded to the Sound Stage houses). Scareactors cast in “Retold” had to deal with sweltering heat that severely hampered their performances. Yet another issue that plagued the house was the shoehorning of Elsa Strict (AKA The Storyteller) into the venerable Dungeon of Terror plot. Fans had already developed a distaste for Elsa after her less than earth-shattering debut at Halloween Horror Nights XV: Tales of Terror (2005). In "Retold", she was relegated to an appearance in the first room and had zero integration thereafter.

The most glaring problem with Dungeon of Terror: Retold was the very concept of it all. “A&D” was faced with the difficult task of remaking the generic Dungeon of Terror for modern audiences. They found that the only workable solution was to create a cheesy roadside haunt that was populated by a family of pig-mask-wearing inbreeds. While it may have sounded like a good way to bring back “Dungeon,” the execution turned out a little too well. The sets replicated many actual super-low-budget and cheesy roadside haunts which ended up coming across as being extremely cheap and unimaginative.

Before entering the Dungeon of Terror: Retold, guests encountered a preacher who warned of the blasphemy that awaited within the walls of the haunt. Just inside the first room, guests found themslves inside of a gift shop. Roaming the shop was The Storyteller herself. As the guests walked further through the house, they soon realized that they were walking through a haunt that had very little production value and was plagued by poor animatronics and the over-usage of black lighting. Worse still, many of the Scareactors seemed bored and uninterested. It was almost as if they knew that they were working in a pathetic sequel to the once mighty Dungeon of Terror.

No matter the reason for “Retold’s” poor reception, a curse had befallen the JAWS queue. The failure associated with the ride had been passed on to the haunted attractions placed within its queue. Fans began to associate the JAWS queue with the idea of it being just a throw-away house location. Many even placed the rumored 2007 queue house at the bottom of their “anticipation” lists.


In 2007, Horror Nights' legend Jack the Clown returned and brought with him three horror icons: Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, and Jason Voorhees. Jason was assigned to the JAWS queue in Friday the 13th: Camp Blood. Due to its grizzly history, the camp, officially named Camp Packanack and formerly known as Camp Crystal Lake, was aptly dubbed "Camp Blood" by local residents. The setting was perfectly suited to the JAWS queue’s claustrophobic, musky interior. In a unique twist, the banks of JAWS lagoon were utilized for one viewable “campfire” set that added a considerable amount of depth and complexity to the house. The JAWS lagoon also served as a picture-perfect Crystal Lake, while the queue structure itself felt vaguely familiar to any fan of the films. Fans of the film franchise knew who to expect to be roaming the camp’s acreage. The venue had both the location and the vibe necessary for an authentic-feeling Friday the 13th attraction. Benefiting from a very good soundtrack and some excellent casting - all of the actors cast as Jason were enormous and imposing - the house was fairly well-received and gained far more acclaim than the previous year’s disaster.

As guests approached the entrance to Friday the 13th: Camp Blood, they came across a large banner welcoming them to “Camp Packanack.” Just in front of the house and also inside the first room or two, camp counselors were hazing guests by having them “face their fears.” The counselors poked fun at the murders that had occurred at the camp years before and even taunted guests by mentioning Jason Voorhees' name. Little did they know, the hockey-mask-wearing slasher had in fact returned to his old stomping grounds. As guests continued on, they witnessed some of the camp counselors meeting their untimely demise at the hands of Jason. One counselor got hacked to death while lying on a bunk bed. Another counselor had his skull crushed by Jason's hands, an effect which included the guests being splattered with the victim's “blood.” From this point on, Jason focused his aggression on the guests that were walking through the cabin and barn. A very memorable scene was highlighted by a great misdirection scare. Guests entered a tall barn which was filled with metal barrels. As the guests looked up, they saw Jason toss a barrel directly at them from a second-story perch. Then, as the guests fled from the flying barrel trying to escape the barn, Jason popped out directly next to them from another hiding spot behind some more barrels. As guests neared the end of the house, they walked past a shrine that Jason had created for his mother, Pamela Voorhees. Finally, there was one last heart-pounding attack. Jason lunged at the exiting guests while swinging his large machete at close range. Jason then triggered an effect that sent water exploding out of a barrel, leaving many guests soaking wet as they left the camp.

As frightening as it was, “Camp Blood” did not completely escape criticism, however. The JAWS queue still had several fundamental weaknesses that kept the camp from achieving top marks. For one, light leakage wreaked havoc on the structure during the daylight hours of Horror Nights, especially since there was now an outdoor sequence. Another flaw with the house was that Friday the 13th’s primary villain was Jason Voorhees himself, which led to limited Scareactor costuming choices and what has become known as “The Caretaker Effect.” This term was coined following the 2006 house, Screamhouse: Resurrection, in which there were so many Caretakers positioned throughout the maze that guests reported seeing multiple Albert Caines at once, a major thematic no-no. A similar issue permeated the Friday the 13th house, with guests occasionally noticing multiple Jasons out of the corners of their eyes. This flaw was somewhat lessened due to the clever design of many tight twists and turns within the queue. Furthermore, in terms of practical scares, Jason had a harder time than his horror-icon brethren; in A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dreamwalkers, Freddy Krueger had the ability to talk and scream, while in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Flesh Wounds, Leatherface was armed with his infamous chainsaw. Jason was left with an inaudible weapon and without the ability to speak. His only real method of attack was to appear menacing and to intimidate guests based solely on his appearance – a method that created mixed results. Finally, some of the displeasure surrounding “Camp Blood” may have been derived from the enormous lines guests were forced to endure that year (2007, after all, saw record crowds which included multi-hour waits for the haunted attractions). This issue was only compounded for “Camp Blood,” given its close proximity to Bill & Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure, a show that would dump approximately 2,000 guests each and every hour into the nearby JAWS queue. Despite these grievances, "Camp Blood" held its own within the JAWS queue and was able to make effective use of the space. However, this upward trend of success for the JAWS queue would be short-lived.


Bloody Mary appeared in 2008 at Halloween Horror Nights: Reflections of Fear. The house placed in the JAWS queue was also named Reflections of Fear. The haunt was expected to be the culmination of the elaborate and rich back-story which was presented through many installments on the Halloween Horror Nights' website. The back-story established Bloody Mary’s origin as Dr. Mary Agana, who in 1958 was an unorthodox psychiatrist who specialized in immersive fear therapy. Only after a supernatural death did she become the spirit of Bloody Mary that the general public is far more familiar with.

Universal Art & Design again made an ambitious choice for what was often considered the most limited of the Horror Nights' venues. Instead of focusing on the popular Bloody Mary myth – that is, mirrors – “A&D” sent guests back and forth through time, showing both the past and present of Dr. Mary Agana. The house began in Mary’s office, circa 2008 – it is here that guests encountered the first and only mirror of the entire maze. It was a false mirror, of course – a cardboard image of an angry Bloody Mary flashed behind it every few moments.

Guests then traveled through what could be described as two black airbags pressing against each other, initiating feelings of claustrophobia and momentary blindness (the effect was for the most part turned off after opening weekend). The passageway served as a transition that represented traveling through time, back to 1958, when Mary was in her prime. Guests passed through several rooms highlighting Mary’s intense, deadly therapies. To avoid "The Caretaker Effect", the house introduced Mary’s Minions, who were local ward patients that assisted in her work (they were never mentioned in the website’s back-story and came as a surprise to most fans). Following a reappearance of "Old Smokey," an electric chair prop, guests entered another time travel tube in order to return back to 2008. The same therapeutic scenes were then repeated, only guests now entered during the present-day. Significant decay and many Bloody Marys marked the final segments of the house. The finale consisted of one side of a room holding the 1958 version of Agana while the other side represented 2008 and held Bloody Mary. The effect created was that of a mirror. Both incarnations of Mary would move in unison, which created an otherworldly and disquieting effect. (This tactic was also soon abandoned, which ruined the effect entirely.)

On paper, the house's concept was very promising and could have very well become an excellent house. However, the general sentiment was that the execution was highly-flawed and that Reflections of Fear was arguably a worse haunted house than Dungeon of Terror: Retold. Park guests and hardcore fans alike were baffled as to why a house centered around the Bloody Mary legend had such a dearth of mirrors. And while fans appreciated the heavy inclusion of the 1958 Mary Agana, they questioned how the events of the house actually fit into the plot that they had been provided with. The scares themselves were, for the most part, poorly-designed. Many boo hole positions were obvious, some Scareactors were positioned in plain-sight and some of the actors did not follow the behaviors that the designers had intended. Within days, Reflections of Fear was dubbed “Reflections of Failure.” The JAWS queue curse had resurfaced.


With nowhere to go but up, in 2009 Universal's Art & Design team decided to place a movie-themed haunt back in the JAWS queue. Saw, the movie franchise that had made money hand over fist at the box office, focused on claustrophobia-inducing, darkened and abandoned spaces - in other words, Jigsaw felt right at home in the JAWS queue. Outfitted to look like an abandoned steel mill, guests entered Jigsaw’s lair to find a puppet workshop with monitors that showed both a reflection of the guests and also scenes from further inside the haunt. The next room showcased Billy, Jigsaw's puppet, riding his small tricycle towards the guests. Those “unfortunate” enough to see the conclusion of Billy's ride received a blast of air in the face and heard the puppet cackling hauntingly at them. What followed was a "best-of" series of traps from Saw I-V (VI and VII hadn’t been produced/released yet). Popular series staples like the reverse bear trap, barbed wire maze, and hair twister all made appearances. Scareactors consisted of either victims within the traps or the pig-men that served Jigsaw (not the first time that pigs had taken up residence inside the JAWS queue). Other highlights included a visit to the grisly bathroom set from the first film, a picture-perfect model of Jigsaw’s recently deceased body, and a heart-stopping finale that featured six pig-men emerging from crevices inside the walls.

Much like Reflections of Fear, Saw sounded like a terrifying house on paper. And in reality, it was… if you had the precise timing needed to properly experience each individual show scene. Most houses up until this point in Horror Nights' history had just one to three show scenes – an advanced scare that involved some sort of a performance, at least one special effect, and a reset time before the scene could begin again. By contrast, Saw consisted of 80-90% show scenes. In layman's terms, you could pass through the majority of the house without seeing a single scare due to poor timing (while the traps and actors were resetting), or you could walk through and see every single show scene and see all of the traps. This phenomenon created polarizing reactions to the house – some fans often lamented that they had waited in line for over two hours just to see maybe one or two of the traps, while others reported they’d seen every single trap and thus were amazed.

Saw may have been well-suited for the JAWS queue and may have been expertly designed, but the concept did not account for the constant flow of guests moving through the maze. This fault lead to disappointing and lackluster trips through the house more often than not. Still, when Saw hit, it hit hard! Unfortunately, Saw fell victim to logistical problems and ultimately could not shake the stigma of the JAWS queue curse.


In 2010, Universal Art & Design again chose to shoot high despite past missteps with the JAWS queue. They decided to resurrect the mythic Cindy character, created originally as an unused icon in 2002. Abandoning the idea that Cindy was Albert Caine's (The Caretaker's) daughter, a revisionist plot placed Cindy in the “Good Harvest” orphanage. “Good Harvest” was a nasty place where unseen adults abused the poor children. The abuse incited a revolt in which Cindy led the charge. Universal named Cindy's haunted house The OrFanage: Ashes to Ashes. The house's name was intentionally misspelled (“A&D” had a curious habit of intentionally misspelling child-oriented haunted attractions). The "Fan" hidden in the title was a tip of the hat to Halloween Horror Nights' most hardcore "Fans."

Guests entered the orphanage amidst falling ashes and a playground containing a see-saw that moved on its own. Once inside, guests encountered Cindy who giggled and beckoned them further into the rotting interior. The orphans' revolt took place during a costume party on Halloween, therefore many of the children donned animal-masks that were last seen in the Skoolhouse Scare Zone (2008). About halfway through the house, guests experienced an extremely rare experimentation with a live fire effect inside of a haunted house. The fire was representative of Cindy’s apparent "pyrokinetic" ability. The house concluded with Cindy making her second appearance in which she hid among boiler room props while childhood drawings depicting each of the Horror Nights' icons lay on Cindy's table.

With the popularity of Albert Caine and Cindy's canon, many Horror Nights' fans were left feeling perplexed by this new storyline. Plot details aside, many simply did not think that The OrFanage lived up to the standards of the more elaborately-themed Horror Nights' houses. Guests complained that the sets were fairly simple, using a lot of bare walls and recycled material. As was the case with Jason Voorhees in 2007, many guests also felt that the actors in the house did not have enough adequate hiding locations. Others wished that there were more fire effects utilized throughout the "burning" building. Also contributing to many guests' negative reviews of the house, some of the e-prompts (or AATs) were found to be goofy and not scary.

Guest reactions weren't all negative, however. Many praised the eerie and macabre atmosphere created by the design team. The soundtrack for the house (which included narration from Cindy herself) also greatly contributed to the vibe of the house. With very mixed reviews, the house simply could not muster enough momentum to please the majority of fans. Regrettably, The OrFanage burned down long before it could ever really sizzle.


One must admire the perseverance of Universal's Art & Design team. Despite consistent complaints about the houses that were placed in the JAWS queue, the team never backed down from keeping their ambitions high, even while using the most limited of Horror Nights' venues. In 2011, they decided to transform the previous year’s popular Scare Zone Saws N' Steam into a full-fledged house: Saws N' Steam: Into the Machine. The house served as a prequel to the post-apocalyptic world presented in the 2010 Scare Zone. Here, the Horizon Extraction Company supplied the world’s water. They promised a utopia, free of pain and suffering if one should decide to take the test and enter the machine. However, just like many other faceless corporations, Horizon had sinister intentions. Most new recruits were murdered using tortuous machines, which sapped the precious water from their bodies.

The house's entrance, the most elaborate facade that the JAWS queue had ever been gifted with, was lined with steam-coughing smokestacks, massive steampunk gears and posters advocating Horizon’s idea of utopia. Within, guests passed by an elaborate model of the Horizon Utopia and then experienced a sinister show scene. They walked alongside a massive mural that lined the hallway which depicted several humans locking arms, but as an audible roar of “INTO THE MACHINE” was heard, the mural (a scrim) became transparent, which revealed several human corpses locking arms on meat hooks. This was certainly a grisly omen.

Moving through the house, guests came across various steampunk-oriented devices which harvested water from poor unsuspecting bodies. Walls of spinning blades thrust toward guests; a meat grinder swallowed a screaming man; a Horizon worker scraped away the legs of a woman; pistons smashed cubes of flesh; other Horizon workers guarded aquariums of gore; a scuba-suited man waded beyond a massive waterfall. Finally, a lone chainsaw-wielding maniac awaited unsuspecting guests just beyond the house’s exit.

Truly, the visuals in Saws N' Steam: Into the Machine were spectacular and unparalleled for the JAWS queue. The amount and complexity of the special effects and elaborate sets made guests forget that they were in the same location that had years ago housed failures such as Dungeon of Terror: Retold and Reflections of Fear. In addition to its jaw-dropping framework, it benefited from two highly-skilled casts of actors that were intimidating in size and masters of their scare-tactics. Fans and the general public alike raved about the sets, effects and intensity of the house. Universal Art & Design had finally succeeded. They had created a house that surpassed the expectations of which many assumed from the JAWS queue houses. Saws N' Steam: Into the Machine was a resounding success; the curse, it seemed, was no more.


With the Jaws queue curse finally broken, there wasn’t a single venue in the Horror Nights' repertoire that was incapable of great results. Based on the success of Saws N' Steam: Into the Machine, Horror Nights' fans excitedly pondered what lay in store for the JAWS queue’s future. Surely Universal Art & Design was already hard at work designing their next ambitious project to slot into the JAWS queue.

Alas, irony begged to intervene. The powers that be (those far beyond the reach of A&D) decided that JAWS' time had come. Longtime fans scrambled to get to the park and enjoy one final voyage on JAWS before its permanent closure on January 2nd, 2012. While many mourned the tragedy that was the untimely-closure of the ride, others quietly noted that the curse of the JAWS queue, which was thought to have been dissolved with the most recent Horror Nights' success, was still very much alive and well.



Horror Night Frights opens in 2012. Join our fans already following us on Twitter (@HNFrights) and "Like Us" on Facebook to be the first to know about HNF! Also, we'd love to hear your thoughts on the article and memories of the JAWS ride and/or queue tweeted to us or posted on our Facebook page!