10 Things You Didn't Know About Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights
6. The Icons Have Elaborate Backstories
Some chilling names have been the face of events over the years at Halloween Horror Nights. Chucky, Leatherface and The Crypt Keeper have all featured as the event's host. It isn't just famous faces who have headed up Halloween Horror Nights, some of the best known Icons from the event are Universal's home-grown talent.
Character's such as Jack the Clown and the Director were put together by the talented team behind the event. If you are a casual goer of HHNs you may be familiar with them but you might not know just how elaborate each character's backstory is.
This is a run down of a few:
Jack the Clown
Jack Schmitt was a murderous clown performer in Dr Oddfellow's Carnival of Thrills way back in 1920. As police got closer to discovering that the mysterious child murders followed the circus, Dr Oddfellow (who was too wanted by police) and his band of freakshow characters murdered Jack and hid his body in the House of Horrors.
In 1980, a BBC documentary crew stumbled across the House of Horrors. Inside they uncovered a Jack-In-The-Box, within it was the decomposing body of Jack Schmitt the clown and the corpses of 13 children. When Jack's body was taken to the coroner's office on Halloween, the lorry carrying him went missing in a Louisiana swamp and later the BBC documentary crew were all found dead. Legend has it Jack the Clown is out to seek revenge and become the ringmaster that he always dreamt of being.
The Caretaker
Dr Albert Caine was formally a surgeon before becoming the Caretaker of Shady Oaks Cemetery. Here, he and his family would conduct experiments on the dead as well as throw parties with their decaying corpses
One evening some teenagers came across the Caine family dancing in the graveyard with the dead and alerted the town as to what was going on. Before the Police could get their the families of those who were buried in the graveyard burnt down the Caine home with the who family inside. Afterwards the Police found a series of tunnels under the graveyard. Did The Caretaker and his family escape the blaze?
The Director
Paulo Ravinski was a European film director with a taste for snuff movies. As a child Ravinski would film himself shooting birds with a BB gun but he had a more deadly taste in movies as an adult.
After being forced to move to America after the reaction he received for his controversial film "The Widows Eye", the Universal Orlando HHN team came across some of his tamer work on the internet and invited him to the event. The Director had his own plan, he saw HHNs as a chance to make a real life horror film, with the park's guests as the stars.