The Psycho Path Maze was a haunted house at Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights in the years 1993 and 1994. It was based on the Psycho franchise and was followed by Psycho: Through the Mind of Norman Bates in 1999 and Psycho Path: The Return of Norman Bates in 2006.
Little is known about the first house other than that it took place in a tent behind the Bates Motel facade and that it featured props used in the filming of Psycho IV: The Beginning.
Psycho: Through the Mind of Norman Bates started in the sparsely-decorated reception for the Fairvayle Sanitarium, consisting of a receptionist sitting by the computer at her desk next to filing cabinet and a noticeboard. From there, they would enter a darkened tunnel with lights shining in through holes in the spinning walls, giving the impression of rotating starlight. They proceeded to a padded corridor filled with fleshlike tentacles and containing a zombie-like inmate that would jump at the guests, screaming. From there, guests would walk in a complete darkness through a room with black plastic strips hanging down from the ceiling.
The next room, known as "Sharp Memories" in the Concept Art, was filled with many oversized, spinning knives hanging down from the ceiling. The knives reflected strobe lights in different directions. Behind one of these, a man in a full black body suit with a knife, possibly Norman himself, would appear to scare the guests, giving the impression of a black, knife-wielding silhouette blocking the light. Next was a room with long racks covered in copies of Norma Bates' dress, with rocking chairs and more dresses floating in the air. Zombiefied versions of Norma Bates emerged from among the dresses to threaten the guests with knives. Beyond that was a room featuring a large number of illuminated eyeballs staring at the guests with same type of bodysuit-wearing scareactor as in "Sharp Memories".
The guests would then enter a corridor with a shower curtain obscuring the knife-wielding Norman on one side and a waterfall on the other. The Norma zombies returned in this room, jumping out with knives from behind the waterfall. The final room was foggy and filled with large, bloodsoaked shower curtains with Marion Crane's corpse on the floor to act as a distraction. This room contained a mix of all the kinds of scareactors previously seen in the house jumping out from behind hidden walls.
This house and its sequels provided examples of:
- Evil Is Visceral: The tentacle-like things and strange, fleshy strips stretching from the ceiling to the floor in the padded corridor in Through the Mind of Norman Bates.
- Jump Scare:
- The Psycho Path Maze: Concept art reveals that there was a scareactor hidden in a closet
◊ and another behind a picture◊, most likely for this purpose. - Through the Mind of Norman Bates:
- The insane inmate in the padded corridor.
- The black-dressed, knife-wielding men in "Sharp Memories", the eyeball room, and the finale.
- The living corpses of Norma Bates lunging at guests with knives in the wardrobe, waterfall room, and finale.
- The Psycho Path Maze: Concept art reveals that there was a scareactor hidden in a closet
- Ominous Fog: The last room of Through the Mind of Norman Bates took place in an oversized bathroom with steam giving off this effect.
- Psycho Knife Nut: What else would you expect from a house based on Psycho? Through the Mind of Norman Bates had the silhouette-like men and the Norma Bates zombies.
- The Walls Have Eyes: One room in Through the Mind of Norman Bates was filled with glowing eyes as one of Norman's many delusions.
