Dead, Deader, Deadest has a family secret: its missing funeral director tried to patent a drug called Ambrotox. Halloween Horror Nights creative director John Murdy has written the backstory for the original haunted house at Universal Studios Hollywood.
Ambrose Deville claimed Ambrotox could restore lifelike features to the dead without embalming. He tried to patent it shortly before he disappeared, leaving one more mystery inside the abandoned Deville Family Funeral Home.
What happened at the Deville Family Funeral Home?
Maximillian Deville, an infamous hotel impresario in the story, founded the business in the early 1920s. It became Los Angeles County’s first full-service funeral facility. As it grew, the grounds came to include a morgue, embalming rooms, a crematorium, a mausoleum and a cemetery.
The family’s troubles began long before the building was abandoned. Rumors of missing bodies, improper cremations and organ trafficking followed the business. Investigations, legal action and criminal prosecutions followed. The facility closed in the late 1970s, shortly after Ambrose, its last director, vanished.
Closing the doors didn’t settle the family’s affairs. Civil litigation and a contested will kept the Deville family’s descendants in court for decades as the buildings decayed.
Nor did the closure settle the stories about the place. Others reported strange sounds and lights inside. His failed patent attempt gives those sightings a particularly unsettling detail: he had been working on a way to make the dead look alive.
Where is Dead, Deader, Deadest?
Dead, Deader, Deadest is on the Lower Lot, behind the Jurassic World: The Ride queue. Guests enter the abandoned funeral home in the house’s story. Murdy’s backstory explains the name on the building and the rumors surrounding it, but it doesn’t establish which parts of the family history guests encounter inside.
The house is part of Halloween Horror Nights 2026 at Universal Studios Hollywood. The event runs on select nights across two months, with eight haunted houses, six scare zones, one live show and the Terror Tram.
Ambrose’s fate remains a mystery in Murdy’s story. Some claimed to have seen Ambrose entering the supposedly abandoned building late at night.
Source: Discover Universal Blog.
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