Halloween Horror Nights Taught Me That I’m Very Brave, Actually

Do you wish you could attend Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights event, but fear you are too chicken? Well, let me be the first to tell you: you can, because you aren’t. You’re very brave, actually. And you’d love it!

OKAY, I ADMIT IT: HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS ISN’T FOR EVERYONE

All right, yes, there’s a major caveat here: if you DO NOT WANT to attend Halloween Horror Nights, you shouldn’t. You won’t magically like it. Not if you’re not a little intrigued. Not if you’re straight up not interested.

But if you WISH you could, you just suspect it would be too scary, let me be the first to tell you: you CAN go to Horror Nights. It’s all a matter of working up to it.

BECOMING BRAVE ENOUGH FOR HORROR NIGHTS WAS A LONG PROCESS

True story: I used to be deathly afraid of horror in all its forms. When I was eight, my dad told me the plot outline of The Shining and I couldn’t sleep all night. When I was twelve, I refused to enter Sci-Fi Dine-In in Disney’s Hollywood Studios because I was afraid some of the movie trailers might be scary, and hid under my hat during the Alien segment of The Great Movie Ride.

My college boyfriend dragged me to a showing of the (widely panned) horror movie Cell and I spent the entire showing on the verge of a nervous breakdown. We went to Six Flags Fright Fest together and I straight up left him halfway through the line for a haunted house. Just noped right outta there when the guy with the chainsaw rocked up to the queue. I told him I didn’t want to! In short: if you told college me I would one day even CONSIDER attending Halloween Horror Nights, I would assume you were insane.

Here’s the thing, though – I have always been intrigued by horror stories. I think it’s because while bad horror tends to play out as stupid, good horror is a visceral experience. My ADHD brain has a strong tendency to wander, but not during the tense scene of gripping horror. That requires full focus. Full focus is rare for me!

HOW I HARNESSED MY FEAR

Somehow, without ever meaning to, I began the arduous process of inuring myself to horror. I watched horror movies with friends I trusted, safety sleepovers baked in. I read my nemesis The Shining with all the lights on. To my own surprise I went through my first Haunted House at Busch Gardens Howl-o-Scream, and while I did not like it in the moment, I found myself looking up reviews after the fact.

Eventually I was watching horror films in theaters and on airplanes and at home alone (with the lights on) and it was fine. But I’m not sure I would’ve ever progressed to touring haunted houses if not for Ghostbusters.

I AIN’T AFRAID OF NO GHOSTS (ISH)

In 2019, Universal Studios announced that their Halloween Horror Nights lineup would included a house dedicated to Ghostbusters. Think of your all-time childhood Disney movie. Got it? Well, that’s how Pat feels about Ghostbusters.

Obviously I love theme parks in all their guises, which led to us attending that year’s party and touring the house. And I had a great time! The set design was lovely and the sense of immersion was everything a dark ride lover always wanted. Yes, there were jump scares, but the whole vibe of Ghostbusters is more goofy than anything else. It reset my brain in a way. After all, if I enjoyed one haunted house, was there a small chance I might enjoy more…?

To make an already unnecessarily long story slightly shorter, I went to the 2024 Horror Nights, toured FOUR houses, and LOVED it. The allegedly terrifying Insidious house, which I had initially planned to stay far away from, turned out to be my favorite house of the night. Far from the unpleasant rush of terror I always assumed I would suffer, getting caught in a jump scare made me… laugh???

This year I went back for more, and more I did. In fact, I doubled my house count and I am DYING (rim shot!) to tell you about it.

HORROR NIGHTS HAUNTED HOUSE REVIEW DISCLAIMER

A few important notes before we get started.

Firstly, ranking the Horror Nights houses is EXTREMELY subjective. Universal has high production values and every maze is, bare minimum, very well done. Therefore anyone’s most and least favorites must largely come down to personal preference, whether you prioritize jump scares or storytelling or gore or special effects or whatever you’re into. I like strong storytelling and varied, detailed set design, so I prioritize that.

Second – NONE of my critiques have anything to do with the scare actors. I did not come across a single performer phoning in their role. Whether I loved the house or found it underwhelming, every scare actor nailed it.

Finally: spoiler alert! I’m not describing the houses blow by blow, but I will discuss any and all parts freely.

Okay, with that out of the way, here are my Horror Nights haunted house opinions! I have a tendency to end posts on a downer; to subvert that, we’ll go in reverse order from least to most favorite. Starting with

8. GRAVE OF FLESH

My favorite bit of Grave of Flesh happened before we entered the building. Literally right before we stepped into the first scene Kyle asked me to remind him what the story was. “We’re entering our own graves to be consumed in the underworld,” I said. “So we’re going to hell?” he replied. “Yeah,” I said, “basically.” And then the security guard manning the entrance laughed. I do like making people laugh.

But that is my complaint about the house: my eleven word description really does sum it up. Once you’re past the first scene and into the great beyond, it’s just various demons popping out at you among the gore and rock work. The cemetery worker at the beginning was interesting, but the rest was one-note. It probably didn’t help that we witnessed a shift change while in line and saw all the actors in advance.

7. WWE: THE HORRORS OF WYATT SICKS

In the case of the Horrors of Wyatt Sicks, the story and detail were there – I just didn’t get it. I’m not much of a WWE fan. Kyle is and did explain the Sicks to me, but I’d need to do a lot more studying to truly appreciate the set pieces in this one. Wrestling enthusiasts would no doubt get a huge kick out of this immersive tale of a WWE episode gone violent. I bet there were tons of Easter eggs that went sailing merrily over my head.

6. FALLOUT

By contrast, I have both seen the show and watched Pat play multiple iterations of the video game Fallout. However, this time my familiarity was a bit detrimental. I did enjoy many of the callbacks – the lady with the fork in her eye was particularly memorable, as was the overseer console, the Ghoul, and the mech suit mirror room – but I was hoping for something… I don’t know. Bigger? Grander? This is a well known IP, after all. Maybe that’s the issue, really. The storyline felt rushed; if you hadn’t seen the show it would probably feel like a jumble.

I did enjoy the one scare actor who managed to brandish a hammer what felt like less than an inch from my nose while shouting at me to get back to work. Admirable precision.

5. JASON UNIVERSE

I have only seen one Friday the 13th movie and it is Jason X. I might as well have gone in having seen none of them for all the good that did me (although that movie is hilarious).

Even with my scant knowledge of the lore, I thought Jason Universe told a surprisingly coherent story. Well, a lot of it was comprised of a bunch of Jasons jumping out at you, but in between I got a solid idea of the plot. My favorite bit was when Jason’s mom startled me in the outdoor camp scene, seemingly appearing out of nowhere to tell me about his drowning. Exposition AND surprise! And of course the vaunted Hallway of Constant Jasons was both tense and hysterical as Jason after Jason popped out of the walls.

4. HATCHET & CHAINS: DEMON BOUNTY HUNTERS

I loved the concept of this house: a new train station is coming to a small Old West town, and a cranky grandmother summons demons to put a stop to it. But not so fast, because some local cowboys are here to fight them back!

… except they didn’t fight nearly as hard as I wanted them to. There were a couple scenes of the two cowboys actively in combat with the demons, which I loved. Unfortunately we mostly encountered demons gallivanting about on their own. It’s entirely possible that we just suffered a badly timed runthrough and normally the cowboys have more appearances. If they had, this house may have ranked higher.

As it is, the train screen effect was neat and this house had a great facade. The menacing grandmother stalked around her front porch, grinning and growling in turn as you entered. This made a nice change of pace from the usual jump scares. At one point she pretended to cut out her own tongue.

3. EL ARTISTA: A SPANISH HAUNTING

It is almost antithetical to my thesis of story and set design to rank this house so low, as El Artista is beautiful all the way through. The romantic, Gothic plot involves a Spanish artist as he retreats to a country manor to hone his work. Instead, the spirits of the house possess him and his creations.

Once again, however, I fear I may have lost some of the magic of this house to bad timing. One of the best scares – a statue in the solarium that came alive – happened a few people in front of me. There was a fabulously creepy Pepper’s ghost effect with no payoff that I witnessed at any rate.

That being said, El Artista came closest to eliciting real fear for me. Between the set design and the scare actors, the balance between intrigue and nervous tension was impressive.

2. TERRIFIER

Terrifier was my shocker of the night. I had intended to skip it entirely. It’s based upon a slasher film, which is not my preferred genre, and the reviews of the house promised a lot of gore and gross-outs, which I don’t care for either. Still, by the time Terrifier rolled around I was five houses in and having a great time. I figured I might as well use the Express pass I paid so dang much for, ya know?

Well. As it turns out, this house was really… funny? Art the Clown is a sadistic serial murderer, obviously; thing is, he’s having a magnificent time doing it. Every Art we came across put a lot of emphasis on the clowning. I mean, sure, yeah, there were jump scares, but a lot of the time you could sit back and watch Art ham it up.

At one point, since I had already spotted Art retreating into a food truck scene, we danced it out together while waiting for the line to progress. And in one of my favorite moments, he giggled his way through mutilating a corpse while a security guard directly across from him watched with an expression of utter boredom. Gotta love the security.

My one complaint: this house ended with two paths. You could choose the Wet Path or the Dry Path. I had read that the Wet Path contained more story elements, but as it turned out, you just get wet. I thought they’d at least make it mean something – context clues that you were getting sprayed with blood or bile etc. – but all we did was hustle through the water spray. Why?

1. GALKN: MONSTERS OF THE NORTH

I may be in the minority here, but I thought Galkn: Monsters of the North was the night’s winner from start to finish. An original story in an unassuming tented structure, Galkn combined a strong and readily understandable concept with visuals that stuck with me.

I don’t even remember if any scare actors got me particularly good. What I DO remember is turning a corner and seeing a scare actor in a reindeer skull mask looming over the scene on stilts. He wasn’t jump scaring anybody, and thus I was able to take time to appreciate him. He functioned solely as an intimidating presence, almost an element of the set design itself.

I also loved the Wicker Man-ish bonfire scene, plus the audio animatronic monster that ushered you into the belly of the beast. It really felt like wandering through a Nordic folk horror movie set. I wish I could’ve gone through a second time!

THE HORROR NIGHTS HOUSES I MISSED

I didn’t make it to two out of the ten houses. Considering I only did four last year, that’s pretty darn good! Still, I missed:

Five Nights at Freddy’s. Even with Express pass, the line was quite long. After waiting 30 minutes for Terrifier, we didn’t feel like tackling a second longer line. Sadly we never circled back around to this area of the park.

Dolls: Let’s Play Dead. Pat and Kyle did this house, but I skipped it on purpose. I had read in a review that the toy-torturing proto-Sid main character of this house escalates to animal torture at the end, and I simply do not want to see that even when fake. Now, Pat claims he did not, in fact, see any animals in the house, so maybe I could’ve done it. I watched a video walkthrough and I’m honestly not sure.

HORROR NIGHTS SCARE ZONES

There were four formal scare zones and three mini zones at Horror Nights, and I went through them all! They’re actually pretty easy to get through without too many scares as long as you keep your head up and your eyes peeled. The actors primarily go after the distracted. This year Universal also offered a “No Boo” necklace, meant to communicate that you’d rather be left alone in scare zones (it doesn’t work in the houses).

The Origins of Horror occupied the entrance to the park, featuring stone effigies of horror icons in addition to gargoyle scare actors and a crow on stilts. There were some neat visuals but there wasn’t much to it.

Toxic ’20s was more amusing than unsettling, as flappers, gangsters, a beat cops roamed the streets suffering various levels of slude-born mutation. This one had several little skits and set pieces scattered about.

Masquerade: Dance with Death eeks out the title of my favorite scare zone, full of elaborately decked out vampires at a masque waltzing their way through the area. “You just have to dance your way out!” I told one actor who approached us expressing his fear of the monsters around him.

The most striking, however, was The Cat Lady of Crooked Lane. The titular cat lady lured in trick or treaters and turned them into cats; you could see the transition progress as you went deeper into the scare zone. The end of the zone featured something of a bonus haunted house, with cats jumping out at you as you traversed the cat lady’s shack.

In addition, chainsaw revving clowns occupied the Simpsons area, and shuffling zombies slowly and gently menaced passerby at Mel’s D(r)i(v)e-In. Oh, and if you felt like dancing, the Club Horror zone was scare actor free.

EXTRAS

Due to construction around the dismantling of Rip Ride Rockit, the Horror Nights gift shop was confined to a singular room next to Revenge of the Mummy. I hope the elaborate, multi-room gift shop experience comes back next year!

Horror Nights has a couple of shows but we didn’t watch any. Too busy housing, you know.

While we did wander through Diagon Alley, we didn’t see much in the way of Death Eaters (that’s what they’re called, right?), nor did I catch Voldemort. Gringott’s was open but suffered some down time. This is unfortunate as only four rides were open all night; a 25% reduction was not good for wait times. The others were Transformers, Men in Black, and Revenge of The Mummy. Of course I rode the latter because duh.

GIVE HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS A TRY

Listen: if I can do EIGHT haunted houses in one night, any one can. It’s all a matter of wanting it. If you straight up don’t want it, that’s fine; this event is not for you and you don’t mind in the slightest!

If it’s a matter of nerves, however, nerves can be tamed. Our brains work this way to keep us safe, but the truth is that movies and Horror Nights haunted houses can’t hurt us. I promise the scare actors want to give you a good time, not a new trauma.

Should you care to make the conscious choice to hear them, start small. Watch a horror movie with the lights on. Read something lowkey creepy in public surrounded by people. Try some haunted houses with horror-comedy themes. Check out my post on last year’s Horror Nights for more tips on how to prepare. (Kitty Ears of Courage or your preferred equivalent are clutch!)

Ooh, ooh, you know what else you could do? Go with me! I’ll be your canary in a coal mine. Anything I balk at, you can balk at too. (Example: I wouldn’t come within fifty feet of an Alien haunted house). But if I get in line, you’re coming with me. Be brave, little Piglet!

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