"You can't go home again."
Nor can you simulate it by re-creating events 3,000 miles away.
HHN Hollywood is alright... it's not what I'm used to. The difference is this:
Universal Studios Orlando is a Theme Park constructed with "studios" as an afterthought.
Universal Studios Hollywood is Studios created with a Theme Park as an afterthought.
From the moment you arrive at the massive "Jurassic Parking," your car is swallowed and you're spit out into CityWalk. You walk for a couple of blocks, past a dazzling array of restaurants and shops- everything from Tony Roma's to Sketcher's to Jamba Juice to Howl at the Moon- and you arrive at Walter's Gate. This is how the Theme Park Employees get in the park.
If you work there regularly, you swipe your ID and walk through. We "temporary employees," who hand our badges in at the end of the month, simply flash our red paper card with our info written on it at a guard who ignores us. There is no bag check. No one really even notices that you're walking backstage.
Then, you can either walk a looong way to Scare Base, or hop in a van. I generally choose the van, because it is usually ass hot during the day, and it's a good 10-minute hike otherwise. The van (or your feet) take you to Scare Base, which is located on the bottom floor of another Giant Parking Garage.
In the first section of Scare Base, there's a small waiting area with a small TV set up, playing horror movies. There's about 30 white plastic folding chairs, with Scareactors in various stages of preparedness. There are two long cheapy warped mirrors (like the kind in scary public restrooms) up along a chain-link fence. On the other side, there's the non-airbrush prosthetics and painted makeup area. Carpet, light-up mirrors, and about 20 makeup artists gluing pieces of rubber and latex onto people's faces. One of these people looks disturbingly like Kymber.
You walk through make-up and then there's an aisle of unmarked dressing areas blocked off by curtains, which leads for lots of confusion and "oops- sorry." Since there are no signs on the curtains to indicate which gender goes where, it's always full of surprises.
After that, you walk past costuming, which has the entire selection of costumes for the entire event (with the exception of Bill and Ted's and Rocky Horror.)
Then you arrive at Check-In, where your Coordinator sits with a clipboard and initials that they've seen you arrive.
Everyone has a three-digit number. Once you've checked in, you tell your number to wardrobe, who, so far, have been friendly, helpful, and pre-emptively thoughtful. All our clothes come back actually cleaned, and not just Febreezed- they're awesome here! Wardrobe takes your driver's license from you, and has you initial that you've received your entire costume. Mine is this:
A see-through white negligee with marabou trim, slippers, and panties. Yikes. As the negligee has been ripped open down the front and bloodied, they offered me topstick to tape my boobs in. They also gave me a short soft bathrobe to wear after I told them that we have no break area, and that we break outside. My panties are so tiny, they creep towards my kidneys every time I move, so they wind up acting more or less like a thong. It's the least I've ever worn, and it's pretty embarrassing to have my ass cheeks flapping in the breeze, but, it's a living.
After you're in costume, you head over to make-up. Since I don't have a prosthetic piece, they hand me a plastic-lined form to bring to another section of the parking garage, specifically for airbrush and liquid blood. I hand to form to a lady (from Orlando) at a splatter-proof plastic-lined canopy, and she rubs red-colored hair-gel on my sternum, arms, legs, face, and neck. It's cold and sticky, so I sit on the edge of a plastic chair (now no longer white) for about an hour or so and chitchat while I dry. As it takes this gel hours to fully dry, I am pretty much prancing around naked in front of everybody, and as a result I haven't made too many female friends. (They are probably wishing their ass cheeks could dangle and flap in the wind, like mine. Jealous bitches.)
The prosthetics and masks look amazing- I'm a little disappointed with the red gel on me, because it just looks like someone finger painted on my skin. In the movie, my character has her heart removed with a pickaxe. On the HHN website, the drawing of my character shows a gaping hole in the chest cavity. I assumed there would be a latex piece or something, but, not so much. It doesn't look realistic at all- fortunately, my room is dark. The makeup artist who smears the gel on me is fresh from Orlando, where she claims to have applied numerous times for HHN at Orlando, but never got hired. I am not surprised.
This whole process, start to finish, takes about 40 minutes, including putting on my eyeliner, lashes, lipstick and whatnot. When it gets closer to start-time, there's a slow migration towards the mouth of the parking structure, where more vans take people to their various destinations. I get my fake blood and ass cheeks all over the van and everyone in it, but no one minds much. There are tiny lockers at Scare Base to leave stuff in, but they pretty much only fit my sneakers anyway, and I need my phone, makeup, a mirror, and often homework from my (unpaid) internship, so I bring my backpack and plastic bag full of my clothes with me. They're awkward to carry because my blood still hasn't dried.
The van drops us off at Entertainment Base, which is full of cheap, super-comfortable leather couches. It's got a flat-screen TV which I've never seen not on a sports channel, a fridge, a small table, and angry performers who totally resent us. The women's locker room is massive, with a canopied sitting area, bistro-style table, "quiet" changing rooms with curtains specifically for privacy and down time, and the ubiquitous head shots on lockers and above massive lighted mirrors. It's clear where Marilyn gets ready, and where the Mabels sit. There's also a section on the purple painted walls which says "Movin' on," with the head shots of past performers.
But this is not where we break. Oh no- this is where we can cram stuff into the fridge and sneak in to pee every now and then. Our breakroom is the stone wall adjacent to our "Maze," which is what the houses are called here. It's cold and too close to shrubbery which constantly leaves sticky burrs on us. My hair, robe, and marabou are covered with Botanical jism. (Which is a great name for a band.) It gets cold, cold, COLD here at night, and the robe doesn't cover my bloody legs. I will get sick for sure. The people who sweat inside the maze, then come out and freeze, and so on and so on all night will too. Bleh.
My Maze is the "My Bloody Valentine" one- it's in a massive tent, but you'd never know it was a tent once you're inside. They have amazing set-dressers and props designers here (a-duh), and it's every bit as good as what I've seen in Orlando- I'm very impressed with what a great job they've done making our tent look like a mineshaft. The Maze is themed very closely with the movie, so guests go through a mine accident scene, then to my hotel, where I distract them with my nekkidness as my partners scare them. With the exception of the pickaxe victims in my house, and my scene partner (a bloody bald guy in boxers and a bloody tee-shirt) all the guys are Harry Warden- the main bad guy from the film. They wear a heavy jumpsuit, ninja mask, gas mask, and miner's hat. It's unbearably hot for them and they fog up constantly. It's awful, but the guys seem alright with it.
There's some familiar types- the resident house creepy fat guy, and the girl who complains about everything, but other than that, there's no real sense of camaraderie here. EVERYONE'S AN ACTOR, so this is nothing special to them- it's just another gig, not a sacred tradition. Our only female Harry Warden is a gorgeous 26-year-old Show Girl from Vegas- my amazing scene partner (boxer guy) is a makeup artist/actor. The "torso" shovel victim is a stand-up comic. About 6 of the Harry Wardens are personal trainer/actors. A few are writers. Everyone moved out to LA with a dream. ...I'm not special. Boo. And my ass is exposed.
Our managers are incredibly laid back and friendly- the duo in charge of My Bloody Valentine seem easy-going and relaxed. There are no Boo Bucks here, but there are Take 5's, and they're great about recognizing people for really good scares. They're constantly in the maze, and hang out in my room a lot. For obvious reasons. (I think they're looking out for the nekkid people, which is nice.) At points throughout the night, I'll have me, my "boyfriend," Harry Warden, a manager, and a ride-n-show person all in my room. Not exactly subtle, but safe for sure. I fear no Cholo.
Since Universal doesn't sell alcohol at Horror Nights, people seem much much tamer. This is a good thing for me, but a part of me misses the element of excitement- the "us vs. the drunk a-holes" mentality that seemed to fuse any Orlando House with a spirit of family. That's lacking here. It was a full moon Saturday peak night last night, at capacity (20,000), and the worst thing that happened in my maze was that my "boyfriend's" back-to-back got his boxers pulled down. And he was dumb enough to be going commando. This frat-house level of prank seemed more endearing than malicious.
After a long night of half-hour on/half-hour off, we walk alllll the way back to Scare Base, use baby wipes to un-bloody ourselves, trade our costumes in for our ID's, and sign out. There's usually a van with a warm heater on inside to take us back to ShittyWalk, where we schlep to Jurassic Parking amongst the stream of guests who are doing the same thing. Hopefully, you find your car with relative ease, and begin the long slow spiral of concrete out of the garage.
The final scare of the night belongs to the cracked-out guy who staggers out in front of traffic near Hollywood Blvd, then shambles off like a Creature of The Night while horns blare at him. Then, at 3 in the morning, I park in the city garage next to my building, and head inside to decompress. My cats, who have not adjusted to the new feeding schedule, voice their displeasure.
It's not the same. It's smaller and more organized in some aspects. But, like my character, the heart is missing. If home is where the heart is, then I am severely homesick still.
I keep seeing familiar faces and experiencing the sensation of recognition, only to find that that person only reminds me of someone I should be seeing. I miss my friends. I miss familiarity. I miss my stilts. I miss underwear that fits. I'll be home in December- but for now, it's back to the mines.
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