This year, I attended Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando for the first time. Overall, I really enjoyed the event and lineup of haunted houses this year.
This year’s event includes 10 Haunted House Attractions, 2 Shows, and multiple scare zones. Instead of going into detail about all of the attractions, I am going to highlight my top three:
Cybergoria
This was definitely the most intense house out of HHN’s selection this year. I liked how this house had plenty of actors throughout and constant jump scares. This was the only house where I actually jumped multiple times from the scares, and I feel like the HHN team did a great job of creating unpredictable scares in this one. All of the scenes were well-constructed and detailed, making the attraction not only fast-paced, but also giving a strong sense of immersion.
Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness
This house was absolutely incredible, and it actually was not one of my most anticipated. While I do like Ozzy’s music, I am not a mega-fan and only a little bit familiar with his work. This house took me by surprise, and I loved every second of it. The house had so much detail to it and a large variety of themes throughout. I felt that the music was well-integrated into the attraction, seamlessly blending the songs and lyrics into the different rooms.
H.R. Bloodengutz Presents: A Halloween Fright-Tacular!
Similar to Ozzy, this attraction also took me by surprise. I am not really familiar with the background or origin of this unique HHN character, but I loved this haunted house. The thing I liked most about this whole house is the large variety of themes that you go through. I like how you’re kind of stepping into this themed TV show every other room which covers a large variety of Halloween-based themes. Like the other attractions, I found this one very immersive and something that stood out to me in this one particularly was the way they used scents to add immersion in different rooms. I really loved the pumpkin spice room!
Event Management
There were some things I liked and didn’t like about how the event was run.
The biggest positive was the ability to add the Scream Early package. I think this was absolutely worth it as it allows you to get to the park at 2 o’clock and select haunted house attractions open before the regular ticketed entries. This allows you to maximize your time in the park going through the haunts or enjoying other rides.
There were a couple things that I was not a big fan of, in regards to how the event is managed though. I am sure other people have commented on this as well, but I feel like the way that they send people through the houses like a Conga line really does ruin some of the scares. The only haunted house where I actually jumped multiple times was Cybergoria, but the other haunted houses did have jump scares. I just saw them in advance because you can see everything happening in front of you. Additionally, I was walking at a steady pace through the haunted houses, but they had non-actors (regular staff members) in what seemed like every other room and multiple times I felt like I was being rushed to hurry up with groups in front of me who were sometimes running. This was really frustrating because when I go to haunted house, I like to take in the detail and experience the houses fully. When you either wait in line for multiple hours or pay hundreds of dollars for a fast pass experience, it was very frustrating to be rushed through the houses. Not only did it feel like you were being rushed through the houses, but having all these regular staff members throughout the houses also took away some of the immersion for me.
If I were to put HHN on a rating scale, I would probably give the attractions themselves a 9/10 overall. However, the way the event is run puts it closer to a 7-7.5/10 for me. I know this is a busy event and I understand why they do this things, but as a guest and a haunt enthusiast, it is notable that the way the event is setup does impact the way guests experience the event and at times, takes away from the experience. Overall, I would still recommend going. These are really incredibly designed haunted houses.
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