Halloween Horror Night’s El Cucuy mask, costume, and bag o’ children.

Halloween Horror Nights creative director John Murdy divulges how deep his research into the “El Cucuy” urban legend went, and how some surprising detours inspired the look and concept behind a nightmarish maze. It includes classical painter Francisco Goya, Mexican wrestlers, and “a weird pumpkin fetish.”

At it’s core, El Cucuy is a basic boogeyman story – a creature that preys on misbehaving children – suitable for parents to warn their children about to keep them in line. But for John Murdy, creative director of Halloween Horror Nights in Hollywood, the Hispanic legend is “particularly messed up.”

“It’s a creature from the hills who comes down to eat children,” he said at a recent preview of the maze based on the tale. Details from there he noted were scant, leaving him and creative partner Chris Williams to deep dive into assorted accounts of the story to base their new attraction on.

“We’re big believers in in research, particularly when we take on someone’s cultural heritage,” Murday said, but that as they were pulling from assorted interpretations and research, the El Cucuy at Halloween Horror Nights,  “is certainly something Chris and I created.”

For example, they discovered in Mexican lore that there were some identifiable features they wants to bring to life. “He has big ears, which we’ve translated into vampire bat  ears,” he said. “The teeth are like barracuda teeth.”

Murdy said additional visual inspiration came by way of Spanish painter Francisco Goya, whose artwork includes the graphic Saturn Devouring His Son, which, as the title implies, shows a humanoid figure gobbling another.

The name “El Cucuy” comes from another myth, that of “the Coco,” described as “a ghost with a pumpkin head.” Which is where Horror Night’s translation becomes extra dark, which Murdy says led to creating  something new – El Cucuy’s ” weird pumpkin fetish.”

In their interpretation, El Cucuy covers the heads of their child victims with jack o lanterns “to conceal their screams,” and stuffs their bodies with pumpkin guts to prepare them for cooking. During our walkthrough of the maze, Murdy proudly pointed to the visual result: a dummy with bloody pumpkin guts spilling out from it’s belly.

Another non-El Cucuy related inspiration for the maze will be Mexican wrestling horror movies from the 60’s known as Luchador films. These Spanish language films featured masked wrestlers battling assorted monsters inspired by Dracula, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein. Murdy refers to these as coming from “the golden age of Mexican horror.”

Visitors to the El Cucuy maze will enter through a movie theatre showing some of these films, retracing the steps of a little boy who went to the movies with his uncle, but after the film was over found himself alone, needing to venture home unescorted.

To introduce visitors who may or may not have heard of El Cucuy, Halloween Horror Nights enlisted actor Danny Trejo to serve as a narrator, playing the part of El Cucuy, who will tell “his” story as people walk through the maze.

Some El Cucuy legends describe him as a doppleganger with the ability to appear as any normal stranger, or even a policeman. In the maze, visitors will encounter El Cucuy early on in the form of a movie theater usher.

As visitors continue to follow the fated steps of the young boy, they’ll eventually venture into El Cucuy’s lair, which will be filled with the deceptively delicious scent of pumpkin. The decor of El Cucuy’s cave is filled with his trophies of children he’s eaten — old toys, including lots of dolls. For this, Murdy said he took inspiration from the  Island of Dolls, another tale he ran across in his research.

Known as “La Isla de la Munecas” in Spanish, the Island of Dolls is where a recluse discovered drowned girl in its waters. For over 50 years, he believed he was haunted by the girl, and to appease her began hanging dolls on trees and from vines all over the island. Ironically, in 2001 he was found floating in the same canal he’d discovered the girl, a victim of drowning himself.

Best part of this story: it’s completely true (supernatural elements debatable. This article from Vice has some disturbing photos from the actual island, located south of Mexico City.

Which leaves us with a nice reminder John Murdy made for anyone who enters this maze thinking they’ve outgrown their childhood fears of the boogeyman, or El Cucuy: “Sometimes the stories are true.”

Be sure to check out Theme Park Adventure’s peek inside the maze, including video. Below are some additional photos we took during our visit.

Halloween Horror Nights opens September 20th. For additional CreepyLA coverage, keep an eye on our dedicated Horror Nights info page.