Fearsome favorites

Maybe it's the bright, big band music.

Or the creepy masks that place fixed smiles on everyone's face.

Then again, it could be the huge pile of human intestines that cues visitors there's something a little off at Meetz' Meats.

Welcome to Universal Studio's 19th rendition of Halloween Horror Nights, where cinema's most sinister villains come to life.

The story of Meetz' Meats is the basis of the Leave it to Cleaver, arguably the best haunted house in this year's event at the Orlando theme park. Like most houses, Leave it to Cleaver has an elaborate back story to accompany its stomach-turning carnage. It starts in Carey, Ohio, during the 1950s, where Mr. Meetz runs the most popular deli in town. His secret ingredient is the ready supply of transients and lawbreakers that he butchers to serve the populace.

While Leave it to Cleaver is not a "scary" house, it is cleverly executed and the attention to detail draws both laughs and groans of disgust. This is the first house Universal has designed to go "backwards," from the blood-stained slaughter rooms to the shiny counters of the deli.

Silver Screams draws the most on this year's theme of "ripped from the silver screen." The elaborate facade of the Universal Palace Theater is the first sign that this house is special. Give your ticket to Julian Browning, the long-dead usher and follow the winding path through some of the most popular horror movies of all time. Take note of the movie posters outside each room; it's your cue to what movie is about to come. Otherwise this house can be confusing.

The three featured houses of this year's event are based on the movies SAW, The Wolfman and Chucky: Friends til the End.

SAW brings all the best bets from the franchise featuring Jigsaw and his torturous puppet, Billy. The scare-actors do a good job of simulating the pain of a bear trap clamped around the head and the agony of forcing a hand into a table saw. A nice touch - and a first for this event - is having people touring the house pulled out of the line and dragged away. The "victims" are actually plainclothes Universal employees who wait in line for 40 minutes just like everyone else. The idea is to destroy visitors' sense of security.

The Wolfman is based on a movie appearing in theaters in February 2010. The film's producers supplied screen shots from the movie to produce the haunted house and also the actual snarls and growls used in the movie. Still it's short and the storyline is somewhat confusing. One of the best features is at the end, when the Wolfman appears. A word of warning: The Wolfman is faster than you think and just might pop up when least expect him.

Chucky is a freaky house, if only because of how big Chucky's stitched up demonic head looks when he pops out of the wall. This happens a lot. The house plays well on the toy theme and features demented monkeys-in-a-barrel and some angry plastic toy soldiers. Still, it could be skipped unless you really like the Chucky movies.

The scare zones at this year's event are disappointing. Some, like Horrorwood Die-In and Apocalypse: City of Cannibals, are so brief as to be scarcely noticeable. Lights, Camera, Hacktion is probably the best because it's populated with the perennial chain-saw wielding fiends. The scare-actors do a good job of convincing visitors that they have somehow wandered onto the set of a horrifically bloody movie.

Overall, the year's event is one of the best to date.