With All Hallows’ Eve only a couple weeks away, spooky season is formally right here. Of course, the scares began creeping up the calendar a lot sooner at Universal Orlando Resort, the place the park’s annual Halloween Horror Nights occasion has been elevating goosebumps and chilling spines since September 1. That month-plus of frights has largely come courtesy of the celebration’s 10, elaborate haunted homes, together with an particularly terrifying tackle acclaimed PlayStation sport The Last of Us.
But whereas Joel and Ellie’s inclusion on this yr’s roster has fueled its fair proportion of nightmares, HHN’s different walk-through sights additionally deserve your screams. As any horror fanatic value their weight in spilled entrails is aware of, nonetheless, these cries of terror might be triggered by any variety of very particular components – from the monster lurking beneath your mattress to the clown peering via your window. With that in thoughts, we braved this yr’s slate of mazes and broke them down by distinct classes catering to fright followers of all stripes. Read on, when you dare.
Best Storytelling: The Darkest Deal
If you want your scares supported by absorbing storytelling, you will need to enroll in The Darkest Deal, the uncommon haunted home that prioritizes narrative development and character improvement as a lot as nightmare-conjuring encounters. Guests comply with the profession path of Pinestraw Spruce, a fledgling Mississippi Delta musician who lastly finds success after making the titular pact with the menacing “Collector.”
While Spruce’s journey introduces its share of horrifying foes, the assortment of hellspawn and different unsavory characters by no means overshadows the story. From the opening scene – the place we see Spruce accepting the phrases of the doomed deal – to the second we witness his soul being sucked from his physique, The Darkest Deal spins one of many occasion’s most complete, compelling tales.
Most Meta Approach: Chucky Ultimate Kill Count
Universal Creative might’ve simply crafted a Chucky attraction based mostly on the possessed plaything’s fashionable Syfy sequence, scared the pants off park patrons, and referred to as it a day. But the twisted minds behind this yr’s occasion had a decidedly extra disturbing thought: What if the “actual” Chucky – livid to find nobody’s truly assembly a grisly finish in his haunted home – crashed the social gathering to ensure a excessive corpse depend?
This refreshingly self-aware strategy sees the terrifying toy possessing the home’s 250 Chucky dolls, spurring his red-headed military to hold out a seemingly limitless number of artistic, gore-soaked kills. The intelligent idea even finds a few of the attraction’s stay performers reacting in utter terror to Chucky taking issues into his personal, murderous palms. A enjoyable crowning glory sees survivors passing beneath a digital counter tallying the night time’s deaths.
Most Inspired Concept: Dueling Dragons: Choose Thy Fate
Given a passing look, this maze would possibly appear to be a greater match for a Renaissance truthful than Universal’s annual fright fest. (Not to be confused with Six Flags’ annual Fright Fest.) But do not let the medieval fortress setting and Merlin’s whimsical greeting idiot you, as Universal Creative has brilliantly re-imagined one of many resort’s retired curler coasters – Islands of Adventure’s Dueling Dragons – right into a home that blends excessive fantasy with hair-raising horror.
The impressed result’s an expertise that retains the trip’s authentic story of rival warlocks battling it out earlier than being changed into fire- and ice-spewing dragons, whereas complementing the established yarn with loads of contemporary, terrifying touches. These embody a solid of bounce scare-inducing creatures – many enhanced by pulse-spiking results representing the warlocks’ respective elemental powers – in addition to a formidable look from the titular beasts. Toss in a number of endings – a cool callback to the coaster’s twin tracks – and we will not wait to see which bygone attraction will get the haunted home therapy subsequent.
Most Fan-pleasing Adaptation: The Last of Us
If you’ve got by no means skilled PlayStation hit The Last of Us, or watched the acclaimed HBO sequence it not too long ago spawned, this home will really feel like acquainted zombie-apocalypse fare. That mentioned, when you’re already acquainted with Joel and Ellie’s journey – significantly the pair’s harrowing trek via Hunter-occupied Pittsburgh – you are in for one of many night’s greatest sights.
An extremely genuine adaptation with skyrocketing manufacturing values to spare, this Infected-filled home is a heart-stopping romp that primarily places courageous company contained in the world of the sport. On high of recreating iconic scenes and unleashing a relentless lineup of fungally-altered favorites – from Stalkers and Clickers to Runners and Bloaters – the home packs sufficient fan-pleasing shoutouts, nods, and Easter eggs to fill a FEDRA quarantine zone.
Best Monster Mash-up: Universal Monsters: Unmasked
You needn’t navigate greater than a handful of the night time’s mazes to come across sufficient ghouls, ghosts, creatures, and creeps to gasoline a lifetime of nightmares. While you will meet every part from colonial-era cultists to creepy carnival people, few of the featured foes will prey in your fragile nerves just like the Universal Classic Monsters.
Luring unsuspecting company right into a creature-quadruple-feature of kinds, Universal Monsters: Unmasked pits patrons towards the Phantom of the Opera, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Invisible Man. Supported by gorgeous make-up, costumes, and units – together with the atmospheric, lantern-illuminated streets of Paris – the attraction trades the basic variations of those film monsters for gory, graphic reinterpretations that would not look misplaced in a viscera-splattered slasher flick.
Most Unexpected Connected Universe: Dr. Oddfellow’s Twisted Origins
Film and tv aren’t the one mediums cashing in on the connected-universe craze, as HHN’s Dr. Oddfellow’s Twisted Origins might give Marvel a run for its multiverse. While this maze initially seems like one other grotesque circus full of creepy clowns and scary carnies, the bloody massive high is definitely a decades-in-the-making deep dive into one of many occasion’s authentic creations.
Established as one among HHN’s “icons” 20-plus years in the past, Dr. Oddfellow returns to take heart stage, stealing souls and scaring company with an particularly twisted assortment of circus acts – the bullwhip-wielding dude within the pink tutu and animal masks nonetheless haunts us. But greater than respiratory contemporary life – and demise – into the “killer clown” trope, this one digs into the origins of the ringmaster/pretend doctor, in addition to his most well-known sufferer, Jack the Clown. Those courageous sufficient to additional discover Oddfellow’s story can go to the park’s 5 open-air “scare zones,” all of that are additionally tied to the disturbing doc.
Best Blood and Gore: Bloodmoon: Dark Offerings
If it is good quaint graphic violence you crave, Bloodmoon: Dark Offerings has your again – and possibly your ritually sacrificed backbone, too. Featuring sufficient severed heads, lopped limbs, and uncovered innards to show the abdomen of a slaughterhouse employee, this one is certainly not shy about flaunting its pretend blood finances.
But it isn’t all about gory shock worth both, as this richly detailed home successfully transports guests to a colonial-era group populated by lunar-obsessed cultists. Even as these robed, chanting fanatics hunt us non-believers with their blades, it is arduous to not admire the haunting great thing about the set design, in addition to its potential to immerse guests in its unsettling alternate historical past. That mentioned, it’s going to in all probability be the towering, sacrificial totem manufactured from physique elements that’ll follow you lengthy after you exit (escape?).
Best TV-inspired Haunted House: Stranger Things 4
Over 32 years, Halloween Horror Nights has tailored numerous style movies and TV sequence, precisely retelling their tales through spectacular units, cool results, and gifted stay actors. This yr’s Stranger Things’ home retains this genuine strategy and a spotlight to element, however adopts extra of a “best hits” place in recreating the sequence’ current batch of Vecna-haunted episodes.
For followers, this implies being positioned within the center – fairly actually – of a few of the season’s most iconic moments and memorable encounters. Walking proper between Eleven and Henry Creel, whereas the previous blasts the latter into the Upside Down, is a spotlight, as is any scene reacquainting us with fan-favorite Hellfire Club chief Eddie Munson. Whether you are looking for a season 4 recap or simply cannot get sufficient of Kate Bush’s “Running Up Tthat Hill,” this one delivers like a piping scorching Surfer Boy pizza.
Best Blend of Humor and Horror: Yeti: Campground Kills
If you like your horror with a serving to of darkish humor, Yeti: Campground Kills ought to occupy the highest spot in your HHN itinerary. Set in a ’50s-era National Park, this maze finds a crew of not-so-happy campers besieged by a household of the bushy, legendary beasts.
The towering creatures rack up fairly the kill depend, leaving quite a lot of bloody, indifferent limbs of their wake. But whereas the various mutilated corpses will ship a chill down your backbone, the colourful, B movie-inspired solid and story will stretch a smile throughout your face. From the pissed-off lady with obvious plans to fend off the intruders with a frying pan to the outside retirement social gathering that had the unlucky luck of being scheduled throughout the Yeti apocalypse, the morbid humor usually steals the highlight from the rampaging monsters.
Best Film Adaptation: The Exorcist: Believer
Billing this attraction as a film adaptation is dishonest a bit for the reason that movie it’s based mostly on hadn’t but been launched when the home first welcomed company. That mentioned, this scream-eliciting tackle the 50-years-later sequel to The Exorcist works brilliantly as a real-life, immersion-ratcheting teaser that’ll instantly put the not too long ago launched film in your radar.
Beginning with a tense setup surrounding a pair of lacking teenage women, the maze rapidly goes from unsettling to totally terrifying when the story jumps forward. While the kids are apparently discovered, they return house… completely different. More particularly, they have been possessed by a demonic entity that transforms them into two of probably the most blood-curdling youngsters this aspect of The Shining’s Grady twins. Toss in a chilling exorcism scene that solely appears to anger the possessed pair, and this home is healthier – and scarier – than its supply materials.
