For those of you around the Florida area, you may already be familiar with Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights, a yearly bacchanal of horror in which the greatest of special effects wizardry comes together with hordes of live actors to create a great and scary event.

The initial word so far is that the old classics have been removed.  Freddy and Jason and Leatherface, who are actually still big and going today except for Leatherface, have been pulled in favor of things like a new set of games with Jigsaw.  Michael Myers, however, will also be involved probably thanks to the new if heavily flawed life he’s gotten through Rob Zombie’s godawful remakes.

I’m not a hundred percent sure I’m happy about this–a lack of respect for the classics is no sign of class, and it’s clear that there’s no respect for the classics here any more.  Chances are it’ll still turn out solidly–there’s more than enough fun to be had with the whole “Jigsaw’s game” venture to fill an amusement park of the darker variety.  But without the respect of the classics, well…the culture becomes tainted.