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HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS 23 (2024)

    It’s hard to believe, but I haven’t had the chance to visit Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights in person since 2019. In unprecedented fashion, the Pandemic caused Universal Orlando to cancel the annual event in 2020 for the first time since it first started in 1991 under the name, Fright Nights. It didn’t adopt the current branding to become “Halloween Horror Nights” branding until the second year in 1992.
 
    There are thought to be a few reasons for this, but the most commonly accepted reason is that the Hollywood park actually held the very first Halloween Horror Nights way back in 1986, four years before Universal Studios Florida would even open in 1990. The first Hollywood event didn’t have any haunted houses as we know them today, but simply sent guests out into the backlot on the famous studio tram tour for a special haunted / scary version of the tour. Unfortunately a tragedy during one of the tours involving an employee brought the event to a quick end in California, who did not try to relaunch it until the 1992 season as well, so both Hollywood and Orlando events were put on in 1992 under the Halloween Horror Nights brand.
 
    While the Hollywood park struggled again and again with hosting their own Halloween Horror Nights over the years (1986, 1992, 1997-2000, 2006-2019, 2021-2024) the Orlando park had a bonafide hit on their hands and was held annually from 1991 through to 2019, pausing only one year in 2020 for the pandemic.
 
    Screamscape has had a long history with the HHN brand, having actually attended the 1992 version in Hollywood, and again in 1997 until 1999, as well as attending my first Orlando HHN back in 1998 for HHN 8. Once I relocated from California to Orlando in 2000, the Orlando event became my new tradition, and I was able to visit almost every year from HHN 10 (HHN X) until 2019, only missing it a couple of times during those years.  So when the opportunity presented itself to return at last after a five year gap, I couldn’t wait to see how things had evolved!
 
    This year’s event was interesting, featuring 10 haunted houses, 5 scare zones, and 1 main live action show. As before, the haunts themselves are a mix of licensed IPs and custom creations from Universal Orlando’s Creative team. The one interesting items of note was that for the first time in a very long time the number of custom creations outnumbered the big-name IPs, with HHN33 only offering four IP haunts. Don’t get me wrong… this is actually a bit of a PLUS for the Orlando event, as the team has just so many creations under their belt that they’ve managed to create a lore of their very own, with a number of themes being handed down from haunts of the past, or connected together in twisted fashion to create a sort of shared universe for many of the Universal Orlando haunts. You can think of this shared universe as Orlando’s very own “Dark Universe” creation, which is fantastic, as so many of the worlds and characters have become so popular over the years with the guests in a very organic fashion.
 
    Before I dive into the guts of the actual experiences, I do have a pro tip for everyone. If you want to see everything, I strongly recommend that when you make your plans to visit and buy tickets in advance, pony up the extra cash to also get the Universal Express passes that will allow you to cut the regular lines. Trust me… the regular lines are typically packed to the gills with guests to the point where there is a high likelihood that you won’t see everything without the aid of an Express Pass. Even better, if you’ve got a large budget, then look into the R.I.P. Tour experience, which puts you in a small group with a well versed R.I.P. guide who will lead you through the darkness to the entrance of each haunt and major attraction, as well as being able to fill you in on the lore you’ll want to know before entering each haunt, as well as special seating at the live shows.
 
    For this year, the main show is “Nightmare Fuel - Nocturnal Circus”. With deep regrets, I just wasn’t able to make it into the show this year, as much as I would have liked to. That said, in talking with others who did see this year’s Nightmare Fuel show, it sounds like I missed out on a spectacular performance, so if you get a chance, you really should go see it. If for no other reason than an excuse to actually sit down and relax for a bit, because I pounded the pavement all night long and by the time I made it back to the hotel room, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck.  This leads to my next pro tip… be prepared for your visit to Halloween Horror Nights, as it is a much more physical experience than you might realize.
 
    Long before you set foot inside your first haunt, the Halloween Horror Nights experience starts as you encounter a few of the five different scare zones spread out throughout the park. Now if there was a weak spot in this year’s line-up, I have to say that the first scare zones would be it, but this is also due to the fact that when most people first enter the park the sun has yet to set, so all the creatures and creations are not out in full force just yet. 

    According to the event info, the icons of terror behind all the chaos of this year’s event in Orlando are said to be a set of twisted twins… SINIST3R and SURR3AL. SINIST3R rules over a world of physical torment and pain, while SURR3AL controls a world of terror and psychological torment. As you enter the park, you are said to be passing through the “Duality of Fear” scare zone, where you are supposed to be choosing a path towards the domains of either SINIST3R and SURR3AL Unfortunately, I think I missed the opening ceremony performance where these characters are introduced, and while it was still daylight out, our passing though this “scare zone” was uneventful and seemed to be unoccupied except by a strolling vampire character with a chainsaw.
 
    Unfortunately the lack of a presence by this year’s icons also affected our passing through the second scare zone, “Demon Queens”, which featured a few mini stage areas that seemed to still be unoccupied themselves, but there was a small cast of characters wandering the street. Again… the daylight passing through the area just did nothing to help it, and I never bothered to return through here once it got dark. According to Universal, this is supposed to be the realm of SURR3AL and the demon Queens who are those loyal to the tormentor god.
 
    Next on the route, as the twilight hour set in, was a trip through the “Swamp of the Undead”, which was actually pretty cool. While it was a unique creation, I couldn’t help but feel a very creepy Walking Dead style vibe while passing through the twilight swampy forest pathway, watching as monsters weaved in and out of sight through the rolling fog. In addition to some create props, there is a fantastic assortment of scareactors roaming in here making this a very enjoyable Scare Zone that is worth passing through a couple of times if you get the chance.
 
    Across the lagoon, in the San Francisco area of the park you’ll encounter “Enter the Blumhouse”, which is sort of a mix of a scare-zone concept with some iconic “BH” stages set-up in strategic locations that serve as awesome photo spots to grab a picture of your favorite Blumhouse horror characters from films like The Purge, Megan or The Black Phone. While not as creepy or scary as you might think, the zone provides some great views and potential for interactive moments with these very popular characters and has proven to be very popular with the guests.
 
    The last scare zone would be the “Torture Faire”, which I didn’t realize while passing through, but is actually supposed to be the realm of physical pain from SINIST3R. It didn’t matter one bit though as this was my favorite scare zone of them all, featuring large horrific displays of torture throughout, along with an army of roaming Scareactors. Some in pain… some looking to cause it… and all done with a twisted renaissance faire style theme, it just worked so well, despite the contrasting background of being located in the streets of the New York section of the park. I’d actually love to see the concept of Torture Faire scare-zone expanded in the future to become a full haunted house experience someday.
 
    Now with that out of the way, lets get down to the nitty-gritty… and talk about the 10 different haunted houses being offered this year! As in past years, two of the haunts are held in small tent like buildings (referred to internally as Sprung 1 & 2) located just behind the Simpsons ride, while two more much larger and taller structures (Sprung 3 and 4?) were installed for the first time for this year’s event, as some previous haunt locations were either retired or unavailable. While one more maze is somehow tucked away within the Fast & Furious attraction area, the remaining five haunts are built within several of the production Soundstages that lie on the other side of the Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rock-It roller coaster. Now get ready for some serious walking as we tackle all ten back-to-back.
 
The Museum: Deadly Exhibits - Our first haunt of the night was a great original concept featuring the concept of “The Rotting Stone”. It seems a museum has put this rare artifact on display and accidentally unleashed the effects of an ancient and evil curse that is slowly infecting the museum exhibits and anyone who found themselves trapped within. I really liked this one, as the scenic layout and effects did a great show showcasing the visual nature of the curse as it spread throughout the building as if being taken over by a glowing cursed moss-like infection. While a lot of the actual story is left to your imagination, the well done atmosphere here gives your mind enough ammunition to fill in the blanks as needed to make this is frightening environment to escape from.
Story - 3, AtmosFear - 4, FearFactor - 4
 
Slaughter Sinema 2 -  Time for another trip to town of Carey, Ohio (a favorite location for many HHN haunts over the years) where a horror movie marathon has come to life. Think of this as being an anthology style haunt, but instead of the scenes being based on movies you’ve seen, the line-up here is entirely fictional and very over-the-top, as a glorious spoof on the concept of an  American Horror B-Movie extravaganza. While there is a lot of creativity within, the unfortunate side-effect is that while some rooms work very well, others can fail to play off entirely. Add in the randomness of how walking through a haunt can play very differently to a person, based on how you encounter (or fail to encounter) any of the timed effects sequences or jump-scares, and you may find this one to be a very hit or miss experience.
Story - 3, AtmosFear - 3, FearFactor - 2
 
Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines - This was our first IP based haunt of the night, though in most ways this is still a fictional creation of the Universal Orlando haunt team. They’ve taken the famous Universal Monsters legends, and crafted their own unique storyline themed around the concept of a haunt featuring all female creations. In this case we witness Saskia Van Helsing team up with the Bride of Frankenstein as they go to war against an army of monstrous creations led by Dracula’s daughter, and boy is she pissed. While I liked the concept and look of it all, I found myself being a bit confused by the action taking place inside. The jump-scare aspect from many of the creatures also made it difficult at times to tell who was who, let alone to decide who was fighting for which side. It was also very loud inside, to the point that I found most of the speaking roles to be too hard to understand, which only intensified by confusion. If only we had the chance to go through at perhaps a slower pace, the story might have been able to unfold more properly. One more quick note… this Haunt was in one of the brand-new tent-like ‘Sprung’ structures, which are bigger than the old ones, as well as being much taller, which allows for some sizable scenery to be placed inside when needed, which was great.
Story - 2, AtmosFear - 4, FearFactor - 2
 
Goblin’s Feast - This is the second haunt to be placed in one of the new Sprung tents this year, and as I mentioned in the last review, these allow for a great sized props and scenery to be put to use in here that might not fit inside the older tents. The story is pretty simple, a massive feast is being prepared by the various medieval monster species, but there is one big problem… mankind is the main course on this menu! If they catch you, they’ll carve you, cook you, and eat you up… but fortunately for you, whatever strange holiday these creatures are celebrating has brought out the booze as well. So don’t be surprised if you escape easily because of slow and uncoordinated attacks… they’re just as happy to much on the food has already been prepared from the previous victims, which can make for some gruesome scenery to pass by.
Story - 3, AtmosFear - 4, FearFactor - 3
 
Major Sweets Candy Factory - Located cleverly within the park’s Fast & Furious attraction queue space comes this fantastic creation, as you travel through an incredible candy factory where things have simply gone oh-so-very-very-wrong! You see, the factory is loaded with kids from field-trips, but Major Sweets candy is so very bad for them, turning them all into violent maniacs bent on destruction. The creepy candy factory scenes are really well done in here, creating a delightfully dreadful world full of colorful toxicity. As for the kids, is there a happy ending? Do we save them on our way out? Come on now, this is HHN after all, and I think Jordan said it best… as we are gone!
Story - 4, AtmosFear - 5, FearFactor - 3
 
From here on, the rest of the haunts are located in the massive sound-stage buildings hidden backstage at Universal Studios Florida. Unfortunately, as close together as all these haunts are the pathways to get backstage to where the massive cattle-queue barricades are set up, and then you’ve got a very long walk back to the park again, where you get to find the entrance to the next one and do it all over again. You’re going to get ‘your steps’ in tonight for sure by the time you finish this marathon.
 
Triplets of Terror - This is another custom creation from the Haunt team that features some stellar sets as you encounter the Barmy triplets over the years. Apparently these bad-eggs decided to take things over the top during a shared-birthday party and ended up killing their whole family. I mean I kinda get it… who wants to share a birthday party, right? There has to be some kind of deep-set trauma from that kind of thing… but in this case one party wasn’t enough for the Barmy triplets, as they seek to re-create the horror each year on their birthday once again with the entire world. Each of the three triplets is creepy in their own unique way, but trust me, you don’t want to hang around long enough for them to blow out the candles on that cake. RUN!
Story - 3, AtmosFear - 4, FearFactor - 4
 
Monstruos: The Monsters of Latin America - It’s time for a little education about the horror and legends of Latin America, which is fantastic! I’m always curious to learn about local legends and monsters, and in this case we even get a host of sorts as you encounter the character, La Muerte”, who serves as your guide as you move between the scenes. Unfortunately, everything that came out of La Muerte’s toothy jaw was in Spanish, and I wasn’t able to understand a word that was said, which is sad, because I think it might have inspired a little more fear the english speakers were able to understand a bit more about the various creations we were soon to encounter. For those who do understand what La Muerte said, I hope it was chilling and increased your anxiety, because the scenery inside this haunt is top notch. Unfortunately, I felt some of the scares were just a bit lost on me because I didn’t know what was going on, and what I was supposed to be afraid of. Then again, I must give props to some of the Scareactors in here, because despite it all, they did make me jump a couple of times, which had not happened at the previous haunts.
Story - 2, AtmosFear - 5, FearFactor - 3
 
Insidious: The Further - Insidious was one of my favorite haunts of the night, featuring not only encounters with the famous creations of the horror franchise, but some really chilling environments and illusions. While I’m not going to give them all away, I loved the fact that one of the first scenes you encounter is a very long dark corridor leading to The Red Door. This is a rare moment in how Universal typically creates their haunt environments that often are more close-up, compact and twisted. In this case you can see the door ahead of you, past the long conga-line of your fellow guests are they approach and enter, but things are not quite as they seem. While the Red Door seems fairly plain at first, as you make your approach to it, it almost seems to grow in size to the point that what seemed like a normal house door at first ends up being about 30 feet tall or so as you pass through the cracked-open portal into deepest dark recesses of The Further. That’s just how things begin… and the creepy environments and terror only ramp up from here, making this one of the most popular haunts of this year’s event.
Story - 4, AtmosFear - 5, FearFactor - 4
 
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire - Who you gonna call? Yes, the Ghostbusters are back and ironically the Ghostbusters maze from the last HHN I went to in 2019 was also a glorious fan favorite creation. Since it is Ghostbusters after all, you can expect to pass through top notch themed environments, scenes and effects featuring many of your favorite characters (both alive, demonics and ghostly) from the film series. Also as you might expect, while there are scares, they are toned down a bit, much as they are in the films, to be more fun jump-scares than things that are utterly terrifying. This is hardly a problem though, as everything here wits well within the theme of the Ghostbusters film universe and just works, even if you haven’t see the latest film yet.
Story - 5, AtmosFear - 5, FearFactor - 3

A Quiet Place - Out of all 10 of the haunts at HHN this year, I think A Quiet Place was my favorite. I’m also saying this as someone who had not seen any of the films at the time of my visit. In fact, I loved the frights and creatures in this haunt so much, I made it a point to watch all three films once I got home, though I started with the “Day One” prequel first. 
    Being built inside one of Universal’s gigantic sound-stages allowed for this haunt to feature an immense series of realistic scenes and environments for you to travel though as you attempt to make your way through as quietly as possible, for fear of being heard by the creatures within. There also lies the genius of this maze, and Universal created an army of killer monster animatronics and puppets that are so creepy, alien-looking and fantastic that I found myself jumping out of my skin over and over as I traveled through this fantastic haunt.
    As someone who is well versed with the act of going through various haunted houses, I typically find that I don’t scare very easily. But when it happens… oh boy, am I tickled pink, and A Quiet Place managed to make me just-about jump out of my socks at least half a dozen times or more along the way through the use and non-typical movements style of the creatures. Bravo!
Story - 4, AtmosFear - 5, FearFactor - 5
 
    At the end of the night, I was so glad I came to Halloween Horror Nights 33. After a five year gap, it was great to see how the event has evolved over the years. While I appreciate the big scares of the IP based haunts, there was so much creativity on display this year with the large number of custom themed haunts and scare zones HHN33 had to offer and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2025!