“El Cucuy,” Latin America’s boogeyman, to be featured in an all new original maze at Universal Studios Hollywood narrated by Danny Trejo

It’s hard to imagine anything scaring legendary Hollywood badass Danny Trejo. In fact, Trejo himself has such a formidable presence that today parents warn their kids that if they aren’t good, Danny Trejo is going to get them.

But when he was child, Danny Trejo had his own nightmarish figure that kept him up at night: El Cucuy.

Pronounced coo-COO-ee, El Cucuy is often described as being Latin America’s version of the boogeyman, with varying legends and descriptions attached to the character depending on who you ask. In some cases, it is simply a shadowy figure with sharp teeth. In others, it’s a doppleganger that could appear as a policeman or other trustworthy figure, but with one oversized ear as a giveaway that it was actually the el Cucuy. In others it’s a humanoid creature with a pumpkin head. But in each version El Cucuy shared an appetite for misbehaving children.

“I remember my mother telling me about ‘El Cucuy’ as a little kid and it freaked me out,” said Trejo, who will now be narrating and serving a creative consultant on Halloween Horror Nights new maze based on the legend. So if El Cucuy himself doesn’t scare you to death, having Trejo’s voice follow you from room to room most certainly will.

According to a press release from Universal Studios Hollywood, “Maze-goers will follow Trejo’s ominous voice as it guides them into disturbingly gruesome sights ravaged and pillaged by the shape-shifting trickery of ‘El Cucuy’ including the scene of a child’s birthday party gone horribly awry.”

Distressing maze chaos continues in sinister scenes which lure maze-goers through a family room, a child’s bedroom and closet where the merciless attack of “El Cucuy” is witnessed in pools of blood with lifeless bodies exposed to reveal gaping wounds; toys, stuffed animals and clothing are scattered about in the struggle. Maze-goers soon find themselves entering “El Cucuy’s” evil cave; a cavernous macabre of horror where muffled cries for help signal impending torment ahead.

Halloween Horror Nights opens September 20th.

For more on the backstory of El Cucuy, listen to folklorist Joe Hayes tell the tale as he remembers it:

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