Epic universe delivers a monster mash-up

Sitting in a whirling cart, the Creature from the Black Lagoon lunging at you from the gooey depths…

Okay, not exactly every couple’s idea of a dream anniversary date. But our anniv happened to coincide with a trip to Orlando, Florida, and we decided to spend the day at Epic Universe, the recently opened Universal Studios theme park with five “portals” that lead into carefully curated zones of monsters, dragons, magic, sorcery, and, um, Super Nintendo.

So when in Rome—or Orlando—do as the locals do. We lined up to see what the highly anticipated theme park in the Universal Studios portfolio had to offer.

Caveat: Just a day or so before, both my wife and I had acquired slight arm injuries while enjoying too many thrill ride activities onboard a nearby cruise ship, making it hard for us to, for instance, throw our arms up in the air and defiantly pump our fists while yelling “Whooooo-hooo!” while plummeting down behemothian roller coasters. In fact, we found it hard to dress and undress ourselves most of the time. So our visit to Epic Universe—which features wild rides devoted to How to Train Your Dragon, Harry Potter, Universal Studios Monsters and Super Nintendo—was a somewhat more gentle, “curated” experience, with the wildness of rides peaking somewhere at the Constellation Carousel, in which one sits atop gently bobbing Rams, Lions, Archers, Tauruses and other celestial creatures circling in lazy figure eights as the big wheel keeps on turnin’. That’s about as hard-core as we managed to get on our Epic Universe date.

You enter Epic Universe at Celestial Park, with its majestic fin de siècle statues and curated shrubbery. We gazed up at the dual roller coaster Stardust Racers ripping by, amid wails and screams, not knowing that, according to Associated Press, someone recently died from “blunt impact” while riding this coaster.

We skipped it and chose another portal, strolling through an arched tunnel leading to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Ministry of Magic. This is set in a replica of 19th-century Paris, with old Metropolitain signs and all. The level of detail, from the cobblestones to the Art Nouveau pastiche of Café L’Air de la Sirene, is amazing. It’s a steampunk-style, Jules Verne fantasy. A further portal takes you through to a completely new world—Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry—with its pre-show Ministry of Magic space, where you pass time before the actual ride.

Chickening out, we went through another carnival tent entrance to discover Cirque Arcanus, another stage show (this one inspired by Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) with fanciful creatures projected on an old-fashioned plateau with red curtains. After much fluffing and preamble, who should appear onstage but a holographic Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), helping a young lady release all the caged beasts in Cirque Arcanus? A mild way to start our day at Epic Universe, but visually quite dazzling. We topped it off with some Bier-Au-Beurre (Butter Beer) from a nearby vending cart.

There is approximately one person in our relationship who was fanatical about Universal Studio monster movies growing up, and he’s the one writing this column: I spent my childhood hooked on Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. classics like Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, House of Frankenstein, The Wolfman, House of Dracula, Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman, et al.

They all featured creepy gothic mansions with gloomy skies and lightning flashing in the background. In fact, the Universal Monster aesthetic has become so, well, universal that you can’t imagine Frankenstein’s monster not being brought to life in a lightning-streaked castle buzzing with electrical gizmos shot at tilted Dutch angles (even though that never happens in Mary Shelley’s original book).

So visiting Dark Universe, the Universal Monsters portal, was a must. For me, that is. I lined up alone for one of the rides, The Curse of the Werewolf, and ended up seated beside a cherubic American kid named Colton, age 12, who said he liked watching “old-fashioned” monster movies, though he confessed, “I haven’t seen them lately.” He was really keyed up to visit Super Nintendo World later on, though.

Anyway, we strapped in and plunged through a creepy tunnel entry to the coaster cars, strapped in, and quickly found ourselves shot through some twisty corkscrew moves before climbing upwards to a skateboarder’s peak—then just as quickly the car reversed itself, hurtling us backward at a furious speed. “Fuuu—!” I began to shout before checking myself in the presence of 12-year-old Colton. I finished my thought: “—uudge!” Colton smiled cherubically.

Next, Therese and I entered the gates of Frankenstein Manor to check out Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment, the other big ride. It begins with a fantastically creepy lobby and cobwebbed staircase leading you towards the waiting ride carts, but first you get to bask in the details: the great-granddaughter of Dr. Frankenstein has found a way to control all the famous Universal Monsters, keeping them locked up. But naturally, something goes wrong: an animatronic Igor flubs the levers, and suddenly your cart ride is plunged into a series of close encounters with unshackled Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolfman and the amphibious Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The cart takes you through high-budget, expansive interiors: Dracula unchained in a vivid world of sinewy, pulsating red walls, Frankenstein’s Monster beckoning from between twin pylons, crackling with electrical bolts. It’s an upgrade not only on classic monster movie visuals, but even modern Universal Studios reboots like 2017’s The Mummy (with Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe). There’s still life in these old monsters, it seems, if only they’d find the right script…

The Frankenstein Experiment captures the monster mashups that Universal Studios put out at the end of its “classic” run—a combo meal of all the monsters stuck in a single plotline. The visuals are quite awesome for monster lovers.

Outside of Frankenstein Manor, there are other minor attractions, like a creepy lunch hall called Das Stakehaus; several caskets you can pose side by side in if, say, you’re on an anniversary date; and what looks like a hair salon run by Dr. Pretorious (see: Bride of Frankenstein) where you can get a monster makeover.

We stopped by Super Nintendo World, which, with its nonstop din of classic 3K Nintendo sounds, was more headache- than nostalgia-inducing for us. It is like descending inside a Super Mario video game, surrounded by interactive brick wall attractions, a Donkey Kong portal, and a Mario Motors castle with turrets and marching mushrooms. That’s what you call hitting the sweet spot for kids and adults who remember growing up in the ‘80s.

The verdict on Epic Universe, considering we only managed to hit about three or four rides? If we could raise our fists high enough to pump them and go “Whoo-hooo!” we would.