ORLANDO, Fla. — For more than three decades, Universal Orlando Resort’s Halloween Horror Nights has consistently delivered a terrifying experience to its willing victims through the creation of over 200 haunted houses.
So why stop now?
The 33rd year pilgrimage is upon the faithful who are paying to be frightened across the Universal Studios Florida theme park during a record 48 select nights of ghoulish festivities.
Thousands of screams, gallons of sweat and multitudes of goosebumps later, one must question what could possibly possess humans to come back year after year to battle enormous crowds and face their deepest fears.
Lora Sauls, Universal Orlando Resort’s assistant director of Creative Development and Show Direction, Entertainment Art and Design, has an answer.
“We are the world’s premier Halloween event for a reason,” she says. “They know we change the content every year, which makes our fans excited to see what we have in store for them. Our guests get movie-quality sets in our haunted houses accompanied by great scares.”
This year’s theme introduces a pair of sisters that look pulled from a “Hellraiser” movie, controlling dark realms in the park and giving designers a wide swath to create the horrors.
Greeting guests all night at the entrance to the park are SINIST3R, embracing blood gore with her attractions, and SURR3AL, who loves all things ghostly and demented.
The pair have delivered by far one of the best selections of haunted houses in the history of the event for sheer variety, intensity and jump scares.
So, let’s dive into the 10 haunted house mazes scored for narrative clarity and gory scares, with occasional behind-the-scenes insight from Ms. Sauls, and, then look at the scare zones, park highlights and final tips for those daring to take on the macabre mission.
A Quiet Place – Based on the first two films of the burgeoning extraterrestrial invasion horror franchise, the haunted maze attempts to replicate the shocking tale of the Abbott family.
Often focused on mother Evelyn and her 15-year-old deaf daughter Regan on their farm, they must remain silent (only communicating through sign language) or become one of the hunted by creatures with only a keen sense of hearing.
The stars of the house are, of course, the variations of large monsters nicknamed Death Angels popping out (mainly heads) when least expected as visitors roam through the upstairs living quarters, basement and a boat dock with a big battle between a fully visible version of a creature fighting Regan as a finale.
Devoid of a musical soundtrack and diminished effects reduced to screams, shotgun blasts, a baby crying and the monsters clicking and growling, one can hear one’s heart pounding as they traverse the winding location.
Despite designers trying to create a more subtle narrative with sound, it is still just a full-blown monster jump scare.
Story: 9 out of 10; Gory: 5 out of 10.
Behind the magic: “This year we went into developing the ’A Quiet Place’ haunted house with a newfound challenge for sound. We were able to work with our audio engineers to make sure the only sounds heard within the haunted house experience were environmental, and then of course the creatures.”
Goblin’s Feast — A narrative finds a group of mythical creatures hanging in and around a Middle Ages-style restaurant celebrating with their own special Thanksgiving meal as they prepare and devour their favorite kind of meat … human.
Unsuspecting guests meet a variety of goblins, orcs, goblin witches, even a few looking like Yoda, ready to take a chunk out of them.
Details abound down to seeing a giant troll on a projection screen looking down on visitors, a giant goblin statue holding a lantern, a roughly 8-foot-tall animatronic goblin swinging its arm, the vivisected bodies of half-eaten corpses and a caged woman in distress waiting for her demise.
And, an almost-too-clever twist, as visitors enter the tavern, they see the “Goblin’s Feast” banner covering the actual function of the establishment marked “human slaughterhouse.”
By far one of the best houses of the night, it’s worth going through multiple times just to appreciate the nastiness, sound effects and variety of costuming and goblin masks.
Story: 10 out of 10; Gory: 9 out of 10.
Behind the magic: “’Goblin’s Feast’ has been an idea our Senior Show Director Charles Gray has been wanting to do for more than 10 years, and this year it fit perfectly into our slate of content.”
The Museum: Deadly Exhibits — A museum of folklore gets infected by its latest exhibit, “the rotting stone” that takes over its collections of artifacts and employees, spreading neon-colored creepy crud across its path of destruction.
Visitors enter through a bricked facade to walk through hallways of rare relics while meeting possessed curators and monsters covered in what reminded me of the fungal infection in the video game series “The Last of Us.”
Beware of some of the multicolored walls and try and take the time to read about, as well as examine some, of the artifacts.
Not a bad idea for an original house but not as high impact as the other houses for the too-short walk-through.
Story: 6 out of 10; Gory: 6 out of 10.
Slaughter Sinema 2 — This hilarious and terrifying follow-up to a house from Halloween Horror Nights 28 offers a homage to beloved grindhouse B-movies through a collection of scary film titles that each play out in a brief, live-action dioramic setting.
Take a walk through the Carey Drive-In to enter titles such as “Heavy Metal Hell in 3-D” featuring a skeletal guitar player shredding in all leather garb, visit Santa’s workshop to meet the “Killer Kringles” or get a heavy dose of what nightmares are made of with “Night of the Undead Clowns.”
Visitors also get the chance to get puked on by a party reveler about to die by the knife from a scary costumed demon in “The Mardi Gras Murders” or come face to face with a full-sized Great White shark in “Blood and Chum.”
For my money, “Mummy Strippers: Unwrapped” wins with a scene of watching a slowly unwrapping member of the undead pole dancing, now that’s a groovy ghoulie.
Story: 8 out of 10; Gory: 8 out of 10.
Triplets of Terror — In the goriest traditions of the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “House of 1000 Corpses,” guests walk through the Barmy household in Toledo, Ohio, and help celebrate the birthdays of Melody, Harmony and Junior in the most horrifying way possible.
These twisted serial killers consume death, and they hunt any living human in their humble, disheveled abode.
The police car at the front of the entrance with lights on is a nice touch as visitors witness plenty of decapitated heads, one of the young killers in a bunny mask, a lit window scene of Junior killing a nubile woman in the shadows and mummified corpses of the parents.
Easily the most disgusting moment of all the house is found here as Melody uses a portable circular saw to split the head open of an unfortunate house guest.
Story: 6 out of 10; Gory: 10 out of 10.
Monstruos: The Monsters of Latin America — The popular house at Universal Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights debuts in Orlando offering one of the better pure monster experiences of the night bathed in Latin American folklore.
Guests first meet the skeletal El Muerte (death) as he walks them through the introduction of scenes featuring three famed creatures — La Lechuza (the Owl Witch), Tlahuelpuchi (a vampiric witch) and the 12-foot-tall El Silbon (an emaciated, damned man child nicknamed the Whistler).
The too-short walk-through offers plenty of masked surprises within a village and cemetery setting complete with fog, piercing screams and Mexican architecture while, most impressive, the gruesome monsters are first introduced as paintings with a slick lighting effect that reveals their living entities.
The house also features the best animatronic beast of the night, a massive, winged spread and hissing La Lechuza pecking at guests as it perched in its nest, and one of the better jump scares with a ferocious El Silbon’s giant head popping out from almost nowhere.
Note: The mythology revealed that includes babies in distress, being devoured and crying as well as dismembered humans will be unsettling to some.
Story: 10 out of 10; Gory: 9 out of 10.
Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines — A welcomed feminine twist to Universal’s legendary movie creatures (dating back to 1913 by the way) featured an elaborate set design, deep narration and an all-female line-up, female show director and even a score by Emmy-nominated composer Sara Baron.
The woeful tale finds Saskia Van Helsing (daughter of vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing) teaming up the Bride of Frankenstein to battle Dracula’s offspring Countess Marya (last seen in 1936’s “Dracula’s Daughter”), the She-Wolf of London (from the 1946 film) and mummified Anck-Su-Namun (from 1999’s “The Mummy”).
Visitors travel from the Van Helsing family crypt to Egypt and then Dracula’s castle to learn of the war via live-action scenes, Saskia’s words, elaborate, wall-sized murals, jump scares and confrontations.
Although, an impressive line-up on paper with enthusiastic actors and a much-appreciated monster cinema history lesson, the “Eternal Bloodlines” plot is almost impossible to fully digest in a short amount of time especially with long lines occasionally causing visitors to have to rush through the house.
I did see some cool costumes, masks and excellent makeup and visual effects devoted to legendary monsters, but a disconnected plot remains the sore spot that never really established the Bride working with Van Helsing.
Story: 6 out of 10; Gory: 9 out of 10.
Insidious: The Further — The popular supernatural horror franchise returns to Universal Studios Orlando and now takes visitors into the dark dimension located between Earth, Heaven and Hell and filled with tormented souls.
They get a “best of franchise” experience the moment they walk through a giant red door in a maze of rooms that focus on the key demonic and ghostly forces that have followed and infected the Lambert family and psychic medium Elise Rainier.
Almost a dozen iconic creatures appear including Doll Girl, Bride in Black, the Man Who Can’t Breathe, KeyFace and the overseer of the Further, the Red-Faced Demon.
Full adherence to the guidelines of what a haunted house should be are followed, maximum jump scares per foot around nearly every corner and all delivered under a red glow throughout, it is by far one of the best experiences of the night and certainly a treasure chest of memories for “Insidious” fans.
Story: 7 out of 10; Gory: 7 out of 10.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire – Enter Ray’s Occult Books shop, meet Ray Stantz and then follow the plot of the latest “Ghostbusters” film in what is by far the most general audience-friendly house of the night.
The legendary franchise gets done right in a multi-location maze that not only boasts appearances by many of the original and new Ghostbuster’s teams (with some pretty good-looking impersonations of Gary Grooberson and Phoebe Spengler) as they fight the chilling specter Garraka but offers appearances by such franchise ghoulish legends as Slimer, the Miner Ghost, Terror Dogs, the Library Ghost and Vigo.
Moments for fans to savor abound including visiting the Ghostbuster headquarters’ firehouse in mid-battle as it gets frozen, watching some cool proton pack beam effects, seeing the Hell’s Kitchen Sewer Dragon and a final confrontation with a full-sized Garraka that also has the Ecto-1 mobile blast through a wall.
The designers are also obsessed with the mini Stay-Puft Marshmallow Men who appear constantly to generate some laughs.
Story: 8 out of 10; Gory: 2 out of 10.
Behind the magic: ” Our team got a first glimpse of the script a year ago and thought this new film in the Ghostbusters franchise would make a great haunted house for our event. From there our teams worked directly with the production on making sure we were bringing their film to life within our Halloween Horror Nights haunted house. We got an early glimpse of the characters, locations and costumes to achieve this one-of-a-kind haunted house experience.”
Major Sweets Candy Factory — Well, the streak of brilliance for the night hit a mild bump in the road with this house, which certainly ramped up the gore to cover up a lack of memorable characters and scares.
Visitors act as school chaperones as they take a field trip through a candy factory to find it overrun by sugar-saturated, murderous children.
The visuals get more and more grotesque as the tour goes on as dead adult bodies are featured in various states of torture with even intestines getting intertwined in a taffy machine. Yuck!
One noteworthy addition was the use of interactive props in some of the rooms. I won’t disclose all but think twice about grabbing a treat from that candy dish, even if beckoned to do so by host Major Sweets.
Story: 4 out of 10; Gory: 8 out of 10.
To get to most all of the haunted house mazes, visitors will need to walk through scare zones that offer another layer of in-your-face horror to the festivities.
This year, five zones were available but were a mixed bag of scares and stories.
Best of the bunch by far was Demon Queens that offered a chance to meet SURR3AL and her four main minions in all of their gory glory with the entire Hollywood area also infested by other demons sporting impressive costuming and makeup effects.
Also worth a look, for fans mainly, is Enter the Blumhouse featuring key characters from the famed horror movie studio’s wildest masterpieces including “M3GAN,” “The Black Phone,” “Happy Death Day,” “Freaky” and “The Purge.”
Less notable were the slightly zombie-filled Swamp of the Undead and the almost-too-difficult-to-stomach renaissance Torture Faire complete with strung up, decapitated and rotting corpses, a human dunking and a look inside an iron maiden.
Have an all-scary day at Universal Studios Florida
Those visiting the Universal Studios Florida theme park during the day will want to enjoy some of the attractions to set the mood for an evening of Halloween Horror Nights.
First, and new to the park this year, is the Mega Movie Parade that presents only once per day 13 movie-inspired floats complemented by visual effects, animatronics and more than 100 performers.
A trio of movie moments that offer a minor fright first includes a pivotal scene from the 1979 film “Jaws” as a giant Great White consumes the boat of legendary shark hunter Quint while he looks on it disbelief and anger. As the float passes by, expect to see the mayor of Amityville, Police Chief Martin Brody and a full marching band.
Next, parade watchers get a full-sized animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex representing “Jurassic World,” growling and moving its head and arms in front of a destroyed jeep and looking for its next meal.
Finally, and the most fun and relevant to Halloween Horror Nights is the epic battle between the original Ghostbusters and demigod Gozer plucked out of the first movie from 1984. The evil female entity stands within her temple in New York City’s Shandor Building as a pair of heroes in flight suits wearing proton packs attack.
A massive 16-foot Stay Puft Marshmallow Man sits behind the structure as part of the impressive presentation with even the famed librarian ghost popping out from the side of the building.
Three other scary attractions are also open during the day and during Halloween Horror Nights.
For Harry Potter fans, a stop by the recommended financial institution for wizards and warlocks will lead them to the dark ride Escape from Gringotts where visitors will come face to face with not only a full-size fire-breathing dragon but Voldemort and his Death Eater minion Bellatrix Lestrange as they try to escape.
By the way, a collection of Death Eaters will sporadically appear in the Harry Potter area during Halloween Horror Nights.
And, equally fun and just a pinch scary is the live-action video game found in Men in Black: Alien Attack where players, six to a car, attempt to stop an alien invasion, shooting at a variety of creepy extraterrestrials and competing for high scores.
Finally, the Revenge of the Mummy roller coaster will not disappoint as it pays homage to the 1999 film. Visitors go to an active movie set in Egypt and enter Imhotep’s tomb and encounter the evil mummy before plummeting to their doom in an old-school coaster experience. It’s by far one of the best visual presentations in the park, mixing animatronics and visual effects, as well as quite the fright during the harrowing ride.
Attending Halloween Horror Nights
Out-of-town visitors have numerous options for attending a night. They can simply buy a ticket (starting at $82.99) and wait in horrifying lines, sometimes over two hours, probably never able to get through all 10 houses.
They can also buy an express pass (starting at $159.99) with a Horror Nights ticket and still wait in fairly substantial lines (about half the time of the posted waits) with a fairly good chance of getting through the houses by the 2 a.m. close.
Or they can seriously consider finding the extra cash to buy an RIP Tour (starting at $399.99 per person plus HHN ticket purchase) that allows a guide to walk everyone to the houses for a one-time, nearly immediate visit and leaves plenty of leisurely time left during the night to enjoy the other parts of Halloween Horror Nights.
The RIP Tour obviously works best for vacationers on a tight schedule. Consider, if the money has already been spent for hotel, car and, airfare and other park tickets, and the family is already exhausted from their Universal adventures, why wait in lines for the coveted event?
The RIP Tour also includes a pre-tour buffet and express passes to any of the rides opened during Halloween Horror Nights (Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit coaster, Revenge of the Mummy coaster, Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts and Men in Black: Alien Attack).
• Jacquie Kubin contributed to this report.
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IF YOU DARE GO
Where: Universal Studios Florida, Kirkman Road and Interstate 4, Orlando, Florida.
Fear factor (out of 5): 4.5 for adults; parental discretion is highly advised for children younger than 13.
Hours: Open select nights between Aug. 31 to Nov. 3, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 6:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. depending upon the night and date.
Price range: Single-night general admission ticket is $82.99. Look to the website to find other combo deals tied to park admissions and multiple-day access.
Special pricing packages can help with the pain of the excruciatingly long lines. First, look for an HHN Express Pass (starting from $159.99) for shorter wait times or the aforementioned RIP Tour (starting from $399.99 per person).
Website: https://www.universalorlando.com/hhn/en/us
• Joseph Szadkowski can be reached at jszadkowski@washingtontimes.com.
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