Everything We Know about Universal Horror Unleashed

Apparently Halloween isn’t just a thing in Orlando and Hollywood. Who knew? For decades Universal has hosted Halloween Horror Nights, the premier theme park Halloween event, at its Florida and California locations, building a bevy of top notch, state-of-the-art haunted houses every year. There’s only one bad thing about Halloween Horror Nights: it has to end, with each year’s houses going away forever at the end of the season. If you’ve ever seen these things, you know why that’s a minor tragedy; the best Halloween Horror Nights houses are as beautiful and immersive as theme parks get. Fans have long mourned specific houses, some for literally decades now, and although Universal has revisited concepts and made sequels to previous houses, they’ve never straight-up recreated one, or found a way to keep them open outside of the Halloween season—until now, with the eminent opening of Universal Horror Unleashed in Las Vegas.

Universal Horror Unleashed is essentially a permanent Halloween Horror Nights event, located at the AREA15 complex in Las Vegas—the same venue that houses Meow Wolf’s amazing Omega Mart installation. When it opens later this month, it’ll be home to four haunted houses that will be open throughout the year—considerably less than the 10 or so typically seen at Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando, but still enough for a good night out. (And if you’ve ever been to Halloween Horror Nights, you know it gets so crowded that fitting in more than four houses into a single night can be a struggle.) Those are the basic details, but let’s dig into what Universal has revealed so far and get a deeper idea of what to expect from Horror Unleashed.

The four houses are a combination of IP and original concepts

Traditionally the haunted houses at Halloween Horror Nights have always been a mix of original ideas created by Universal Creative and licensed intellectual property (think movies, TV shows, musicians, and, at least twice now, even pro wrestling). That will be true of Horror Unleashed, as well, with three of its houses based on movies and one on one of Universal’s more frequently used original concepts. 
The licensed houses are inspired by the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, Blumhouse’s Exorcist revamp The Exorcist: Believer, and Universal’s own classic monsters—think Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, and the like. The Universal Monsters are a perennial at Halloween Horror Nights, with a new house pretty much every year. Exorcist: Believer was not an acclaimed film, but the 2023 Halloween Horror Nights house based on it was widely considered one of that year’s best. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, meanwhile, is one of the most evergreen franchises in horror, with nine movies and a wide variety of tie-in media; there have been at least five Halloween Horror Nights houses based on the property so far.

The one house based on an original Universal concept is Scarecrow: The Reaping. Originally debuting at Halloween Horror Nights 27 at Universal Orlando in 2017, this idea has since inspired a “scare zone” at Universal Studios Florida and a haunted house of the same name at Universal Hollywood. It’s a pretty self-explanatory name: a bunch of giant scarecrows take over an old farm, reaping any people who get near them. Apparently they’re after some form of vengeance; I don’t know what kind of revenge a bunch of straw stuffed into old clothes would want, but entire horror movie franchises have been based on way less, so no complaints. 

I’ve reached out to Universal to see if they can clarify if these houses will be recreations of Halloween Horror Nights houses or newly designed spaces that simply share the same inspiration, but have not heard back as of publication.