Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights long ago took on a life of its own, and its unique culture and indelible connection to its fans are on display once again for its 34th event. Its growth, from one haunted house across a single weekend in 1991, to the sprawling collaboration with numerous massive media partners that we know today, is well-documented, and yet the size and scope of the show can still catch you off guard. With 10 houses, multiple open-air scare zones, a themed “tribute” store, unique food and drink booths, a laser-and-water lagoon show, and a live circus burlesque show, Halloween Horror Nights takes up almost every inch of Universal Studios Florida—and given how massively popular the event is, it could easily take over the neighboring Islands of Adventure theme park and still not satiate the public’s demand for terror. It’s become an institution, and is one of the few things that word can be applied to that doesn’t come with any baggage or hidden dark side. No, Halloween Horror Night’s dark side is out in the open, its public face, and the entire reason for its being. It’s about having a great time while having a “bad” time, and nobody does it better than Universal.
This year’s event sees a familiar balance between licensed houses based on popular movies and TV shows and original concepts created by Universal Creative—and once again the latter tend to be the more inspired, impressive, and memorable parts of the night. There’s no shame in mostly wanting to see the major horror icons, whether they’re time-tested like Jason Voorhees or new to the spotlight like Art the Clown; there are no bad houses here, really, and all of them are worth experiencing. Just don’t skip out on something like Galkn: Monsters of the North or (especially) El Artista: A Spanish Haunting because you’ve never heard of them before; Universal really commits to its new ideas, and at their best they’re routinely the event’s highlight.
That said, let’s dig into this year’s houses. Here’s our ranking of all 10 houses from Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando this year, which runs on select nights from now through November 2. (And yes, there’s an event at Universal Hollywood too, and it features some houses with the same name and theme; I’ve never been to the West Coast version, though, and can’t comment on this year’s lineup.)
10. Jason Universe
The best thing about this all-encompassing Friday the 13th tribute—whose name is stylized “Jason Un1v3rse” in the official Halloween Horror Nights graphics, but spelled normally otherwise—also points to the house’s problems. Near the end you’ll move through three consecutive hallways with different Jasons from throughout history reaching out at you from both sides. It’s a cool, quick summary of this character’s significant history, with every distinct version of Jason from movies and video games making an appearance, but it also doesn’t work from a scares perspective if you’re immune to the predictable lunging of scare actors. The command of tone and design that can make these places genuinely creepy is sacrificed for this straightforward walk through time, and although there’s admittedly some power to the accumulated years behind those hallways, it just feels obvious and uninspired. The rest of the house recreates scenes from movies without fully capturing their seamy, sordid thrill. Friday the 13th is basically an extreme example of empty calories, within a genre that’s rarely anything but empty calories, and without the grimy, exploitative, and unashamed smut that the originals were known for, there’s just nothing at all to it—and that’s the aspect of horror that a Halloween Horror Nights house is most ill-equipped to recreate.
Art the Clown and, to a lesser extent, the Terrifier house appear to be the breakout stars of this year’s event. Art obviously already had star power; the mischievous clown has propelled the Terrifier series from a microbudget indie to one of the 21st century’s biggest slasher franchises. And Art’s slyly destructive ways have the charm of a classic cartoon character unshackled from absolutely all notions of civility. Sadly the Terrifier house itself just ain’t it. It’s a series of increasingly graphic setpieces without any semblance of flow or pacing, uninterested in telling any kind of story or developing any theme beyond “how gross is this?!?” Its big selling point is a choose-your-own-adventure ending where you can go through either a “normal” exit or a “bloodbath”—which one employee equated to a “human car wash,” and apparently gets you so wet that Universal feels the need to sell ponchos outside the entrance. I was all aboard the bloodbath train, except that area was closed during my group’s walkthrough; given how short the “dry” exit was—a single room—it’s hard to imagine guests getting as soaked in the bloodbath as Universal touts. Perhaps that over-the-top commitment to viscera and gore would’ve made a believer out of me, but as it is the Terrifier house is empty gore without the thrills, fun, or artistry that makes Halloween Horror Nights so cool.
8. Grave of Flesh
Grave of Flesh almost reaches a feverish level of go-for-broke inanity that would have bumped it up a few spots on this list, but never fully commits to it. The idea seems like a sound one—you’re attending your own funeral, starting off by walking into a giant grave beneath a huge tombstone that looms overhead—but quickly runs headfirst into its most obvious problem: walking through thin, earthen tunnels does not make for a particularly scary or memorable haunted house. That’s where the absurd twists come into fore, most notable when your grave trail suddenly opens up to a small chamber with some kind of insect demon lord gesticulating madly from a balcony. If that was the start of an increasingly ridiculous sequence of melodramatic frights, we’d be in business; instead it’s a brief blip of greatness in a house that never quite settles on a consistent theme or aesthetic. Hopefully my real funeral is better than this.
7. Dolls: Let’s Play Dead
A big point in Let’s Play Dead’s favor: many of the scare actors, who are portraying dolls that have been tortured, twisted, and mutilated by their psychotic young owner, look amazing in their costumes. At its best the character designs transcend the tired cliches of creepy baby dolls and become something inspired, and often both creepy and humorous in equal measure. The actors themselves also know how to bring these dolls to life, preferring broad, unnatural, herky-jerk actions that speak to the lack of articulated joints in most toys. The whole design, which “shrinks” the guest down to the size of a toy within a space full of oversized objects, seems like a playfully grotesque send-up of Disney World’s Toy Story Land, which also gets a thumb’s up from me. Unfortunately much of that set design is just as generic as the concept indicates, and the central character of Lyla—the little girl who created these monstrosities—is a bust. She appears on video screens throughout the house, but instead of looking like an actual little girl, she’s decked out like a horror movie monster, with a jagged mask covering the bottom half of her face and soiled clothes that make her look like a zombie. Dolls: Let’s Play Dead struggles against the most obvious expectations from its theme, but ultimately succumbs to them in dispiriting fashion.
Hey, no offense to Amazon’s TV show: it’s way better than I ever expected it to be, and I’m looking forward to the second season later this year. But it’s a little bit of a bummer that, over 30 years after first becoming a phenomenon with computer game fans, and almost 20 since Bethesda turned it into a mainstream console smash, Fallout still needed a breakout TV show to get its own Halloween Horror Nights house. Of course the house is based on the show, if the giant banner with Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, and Aaron Moten didn’t tip you off. Although some of the show-specific references can be a little distracting—one of the Purnell stand-ins repeats the line “but I need my organs” on a loop so tight that you’ll hear it a solid half-dozen times during a normally-paced walkthrough, and the only two appearances by Goggins’ Ghoul character are so poorly lit you can’t even make out its face—the overall aesthetic of Fallout is so compelling and so richly developed that I can’t help but enjoy this house. I will always maintain that this world’s 1950s aesthetic would make far more narrative sense if the bombs fell in the actual ‘50s and not some still-in-the-future 21st century decade that had improbably readopted the look and sound of the ‘50s, but that’s picking nits: the black-and-white TV aura of the vaults, contrasted with the sheer desperation and destruction of the wasteland, remains deeply evocative. And if the house-ending tease of New Vegas bears fruit, that should blow this very fine house out of the radioactive water.
5. The Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks
Pro wrestling, the One True Art, is one of the greatest accomplishments of human culture. WWE, unfortunately, is a fundamentally corrupt, morally bankrupt company that for most of the last 43 years was run by a criminal and sociopath determined to destroy pro wrestling. WWE is bad art and a worse institution, Vince McMahon is basically evil, and the world would genuinely be a better place if neither were in it. So I entered The Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks, the first Halloween Horror Nights house based on pro wrestling since an Undertaker-themed house in 2000, with no small amount of trepidation. And I ultimately appreciate it in spite of its WWE connection and not because of it.
The thing that gives this house power is the individual it’s based on and the real-life tragedy behind its creation. Bray Wyatt was a popular WWE character played by Windham Rotunda, a third-generation wrestler descended from two different wrestling families; his dad, Mike Rotunda, was an ‘80s and ‘90s star under his own name who’s best known to WWE fans as the villainous tax collector Irwin R. Schyster, and through his mother’s side Wyatt was the grandson of ‘60s and ‘70s star Blackjack Mulligan and nephew of ‘80s and ‘90s star (and Four Horseman member) Barry Windham. Windham Rotunda became a top WWE star in the 2010s as Bray Wyatt, a mysterious backwoods cult leader who debuted in late 2012 and gradually turned into an overtly horror-themed character over the rest of that decade. Wyatt was known for evocative (if obtuse) promos and a split personality that consisted of the seemingly friendly host of a Mr. Rogers-style children’s show called the Firefly Fun House (complete with pig, buzzard, and rabbit puppets) and a burned, deformed monster known as The Fiend. Wyatt struggled to make his character work from an in-ring perspective but excelled during the first year of Covid, when pre-taped “cinematic” matches and audience-less shows let him explore a presentation style that simply isn’t possible in a ring in front of a live audience. His last two years in WWE were fragmented; he was surprisingly released from the company in 2021 before returning over a year later, and seemed poised for a big 2023 before suffering significant health issues. He died in August 2023, and not long after his real-life brother Taylor “Bo Dallas” Rotunda became the leader of a group of wrestlers called the Wyatt Sicks in honor of his fallen brother. The five members all play characters created by Bray Wyatt, including characters based on the puppets from the Firefly Fun House, with the spirit of Wyatt himself serving as the “sixth” member alluded to by the pun in the group’s name. The Wyatt Sicks made a memorable debut at the end of an episode of Raw in the summer of 2024 in a scene that was shot to resemble a horror movie; a single piano note played incessantly as the camera rolled through the fog-filled backstage area, with the bodies of fallen wrestlers and television crew strewn about and each member of the Sicks appearing from the darkness as if they were scare actors in a Halloween Horror Nights house. It basically was the kind of maze that makes up Halloween Horror Nights, making it ideal to adapt as one of this year’s houses.
So, yes: the entire Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks house is a tribute to a real person who died tragically at 36 with four young children. Even if you aren’t a fan of wrestling, WWE, or the Bray Wyatt character, it’s an impossibly sad haunted house if you know the story—and especially so if you are a fan, and realize that you’re walking backwards through Wyatt’s career (and thus life), and recognize the ‘80s TV footage of Barry Windham and Mike Rotunda that plays during one portion of the house, and remember watching Raw when the original Wyatt Family promos that run near the house’s end originally aired. Or if you’re a wrestling fan who knows that one of Wyatt’s original Wyatt Family members, Brodie “Luke Harper” Lee, also died during the pandemic with young children of his own, and who is also subtly referenced within the house.
The Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks isn’t scary. There are some weird and unnecessary random monsters that pop up within, as if Universal was worried there weren’t enough scare actors and just kind of tossed a few extra into the mix. And almost all of the context will be absolutely lost on you if you aren’t familiar with the backstory. But as a tribute to a talented man who passed way too soon, one who made a deep impression upon millions of fans during his short life, and whose work was already greatly informed by and indebted to horror, it’s a brilliant, genuinely emotional piece of work, and an absolute one of a kind within the larger history of Halloween Horror Nights. It seems destined to be one of the least popular houses this year—it consistently had the shortest line of any house the night I was there, and my colleagues in the media who aren’t wrestling fans were disinterested in the whole thing—but it’ll be unforgettable for those in the know.
4. Galkn: Monsters of the North
If you’ve ever been to Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando, you know how much of a godsend (sorry, devilsend?) houses set in frigid climates can be. The Scandinavian-themed Galkn: Monsters of the North should be a popular house just for its chilly temperature; fortunately it’s also a wonderfully designed house that takes an artful approach towards its grisly subject matter. An evil shaman in a Norse settlement is invoking all manner of beasts and spirits and forging them into a single creature that will obey its command. Expect a slow ramble through woods overtaken by the unknowable, unspeakable evils of Northern European folklore, culminating in a face to face with a massive creature forged out of their combined wickedness. Although definitely violent, there’s also a poetry to Galkn that puts it firmly in the tradition of Halloween Horror Nights’ more artistic houses; expect to be scared, but also enchanted by its visual splendor.
3. Hatchet and Chains: Demon Bounty Hunters
At the end of the day Slaughter Cinema might be the best concept Universal Creative ever came up with. I don’t think one will ever be recognized as a house of the year—the anthology format, where each room is a recreation of a different fictional grindhouse, exploitation, or horror film, precludes the kind of thematic and aesthetic unity found in the truly great houses—but as a testing ground for new ideas and launching pad for future houses and scare zones, Slaughter Cinema is invaluable. Hatchet and Chains: Demon Bounty Hunters started as an idea in Slaughter Cinema 2, and has graduated into a fully-formed, deeply fun house of its own this year. The house feels like a film set from an old Western, or like one of those shoot-out shows from Ghost Town in the Sky or Knott’s Berry Farm, only with all manner of haints, shades and demons everywhere. Hatchet—a half-demon cowboy determined to protect mankind from his own kin—and Chains—a magical chain-wielding outlaw—are a two-man posse tackling the demon infection in this old west town and trying to prevent it from spreading throughout the frontier via traincar. The house is full of great costume and character design, inventive action, at least a couple of gnarly demon horses, and a cool trick that makes it look like you’re boarding a train. It captures the fun and energy of pre-revisionist B westerns and splatters a touch of horror over it all, making it one of my favorite houses of the year.
2. Five Nights at Freddy’s
I’m legitimately surprised by this. I have no connection to Five Nights at Freddy’s, neither the games nor movies, and expected the house to indulge in the kind of cloying, superficial nostalgia that has kept the ‘80s (and, to a lesser extent, ‘90s) ever at the forefront of cultural consciousness. Sure, I was a kid in the ‘80s, and loved Chuck E. Cheese (the real Chuck E. Cheese, when it was huge and had a full band and a stocked arcade and a second musical act in the side room) at the time, but it’s not something that stuck with me. So a horror pastiche that’s part tribute, part deconstruction never really interested me that much. What seems uninspired on a screen becomes magical in person, though, especially when Jim Henson Productions are involved in bringing these fictional robots to life. They created the various figures and puppets seen throughout this house, and they look amazing; the main entrance, when you see the full band in action, is more impressive than Chuck E. Cheese or Showbiz ever were. Between those wonderful effects, good music, and legitimately funny gags, Five Nights at Freddy’s is the best licensed house of the year.
1. El Artista: A Spanish Haunting
El Artista is this year’s big Dylan Kollath house, and guess what: Kollath’s still got it. Kollath is the scenic designer known for HHN’s most beautiful and poetic houses, perhaps most notably 2022’s Dead Man’s Pier: Winter’s Wake. El Artista: A Spanish Haunting was one of a few houses Kollath worked on this year, and it’s almost as amazing as that 2022 triumph. Set in the decaying manor of 19th century Spanish artist Sergio Navarro, whose paintings reveal the fear and fury storming within, El Artista combines jaw-dropping sets and gorgeous costumes in a tableaux that’s less interested in frightening guests than aweing them. It starts with the large facade of Navarro’s estate, which appears unexpectedly from the soundstage’s darkness and towers over guests as they walk through its doorway. Inside you’ll find demonic figures that seemingly jumped right out of expressionist paintings, and although they’re certainly quite scary, they often possess a surprisingly lyrical beauty. My single-favorite moment from any house this year can be found in El Artista, when a human-sized rocky gargoyle flies overhead from one balcony to another, only to emerge from behind a pillar next to the guest with its arms outstretched, as if a circus acrobat awaiting applause. El Artista isn’t quite as gorgeous or poignant as Dead Man’s Pier—which is still a high water mark for HHN—but it’s the closest Kollath or Universal have come since, and easily this year’s best house.
Editor-in-chief Garrett Martin writes about videogames, theme parks, pinball, travel, and more. You can also find him on Blue Sky.
