Florence Snyder
How did Halloween come to be first runner-up to Christmas among holidays that excel at separating families from their money?
We can thank people like John Murdy, creative director and executive producer of Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood.
In an interview with Marketplace Weekend’s Eliza Mills, Murdy recalls growing up in the ’70s, when Halloween was just a small treat on the run-up to winter. Murdy was just 10 years old, but already developing tricks that would help elevate a minor annual diversion into a major year-round economic engine.
Armed with little more than chicken wire and imagination, Murdy turned the family garage into a Star Wars-themed Halloween House and charged 25 cents admission. By the time he reached middle school, the show had expanded from the garage to every room in the house and into the backyard. The crowds numbered in the hundreds.
These days, Murdy has no trouble finding seasonal employees for Universal’s multi-sensory fright-fest. He’s hired doctors, lawyers, 70-year-old grandmothers, and mechanical engineers to dress up and scare people.
Horror may not get a lot of respect as a genre, Murdy notes, but its fans are ferociously loyal. Universal’s Horror House is not a cheap date, but patrons know they’ll get a very generous shot of adrenaline.
People who do what they love don’t need metrics mavens. They trust their own eyes and do their own polling.
“I don’t need to look at a survey or any kind of data,” Murdy said.” I just stand outside and look at the crowd.”
