Halloween Horror Nights 35 Reviewed & Ranked
Here we go into the fog again…
Editor’s note - Once again our loyal Horrorspondant (and my wonderful husband), Mitch Krpata has braved the houses of Universal Orlando Resort’s Halloween Horror Nights to report back for all of you loyal readers! Below is his take on this year’s event! If this sounds like fun there is still plenty of time to visit, reach out and I’d love to help you plan your trip! Without further ado, take it away Mitch!
Folks, it’s Halloween season once again, and once again I failed to resist the siren’s call of Halloween Horror Nights. Every year I tell myself that it’s not a good financial decision, that I’m a grown-ass man with responsibilities, and that missing one year won’t kill me. And then, every year, they announce something that shatters my resolve and sends me running to my nearest travel agent (she’s usually upstairs).
Mitch ranks Hellraiser the #1 House for HHN 35!
This year’s was another excellent event, with very few clunkers among the houses and scare zones. I went for two nights, and while I didn’t experience everything they had to offer, as usual I can give you some thoughts, some helpful tips, and of course the haunted house rankings. In fact, since I know that’s the most important part, let’s get right to it.
#1 Hellraiser
I saw the movie once and remember thinking it was only ok, but after going through the Hellraiser haunted house twice, it’s an easy pick for my favorite of this year’s event. The costumes are excellent and the set dressing is extremely gory – lots of flayed skin, chains and hooks, and occult iconography. The designers made good use of perspective on this one. There’s one scene in which you enter a gigantic, highly detailed version of the puzzle box, and another with a simple graphic showing some kind of endless hellscape. This one also made effective use of audio samples from the movie, in particular the famous “We’ll tear your soul apart!”
#2 Jack & Oddfellow: Chaos and Control
A common HHN experience is asking every Universal employee what their favorite house was. The answer we heard was this one, Jack & Oddfellow: Chaos and Control. Despite having been to about 9 HHN events by now, Oddfellow was a new one to me, but it was obvious why this house is so popular. There’s a more salient storyline than the houses often have, and the visuals lean heavily on blacklight effects and bright colors. Jack & Oddfellow also has not one but two disorienting rooms, one in which a portal effect makes you lose your balance, and another in which the floor is slanted upward. I love stuff like that.
#3 Cybergoria
On paper this one didn’t seem especially exciting, but it turned out to be great. The premise is that you’re cryogenically frozen in the modern era, only to be awoken 1500 years in the future in the midst of an insane robot holocaust. The theming was really strong here, with robots that gradually become more and more freakish. There’s also some sly humor. Really good stuff.
#4 INVASION: Alien Abduction
This was the one that convinced me to go this year. When I was a kid, I was absolutely terrified of aliens and convinced that they were coming to take me away every night. INVASION (their styling) gives us a classic abduction scenario in a rural farmhouse that’s under siege by the gray guys. This is a really fun house that includes a lot of great details like people being sucked through the ceiling and (my favorite) a cat snoozing away on its bed, oblivious to it all. My one criticism is that, like all HHN houses, it goes from 0-60 instantly. I might have preferred a slower-paced, eerier intro.
#5 Ozzy Osborne: Prince of Darkness
HHN has done houses based on musicians before, including Alice Cooper and The Weeknd, and this was my favorite of them. Ozzy is such a natural fit. The structure is what you’d expect: multiple scenes based on different songs. That’s right, we finally get to meet the conductor on the Crazy Train. He’s on stilts. But the ultimate highlight of the Ozzy house was the man-sized bat that is capable of biting off your head.
#6 Sinners
I rewatched Sinners shortly before the trip, and it’s an excellent film. The house is faithful and entertaining, just not transcendent. Partly that’s because I generally don’t enjoy houses with regular human characters playing a role, as is the case here, and partly because the vampires aren’t as demonic and frightening as the monsters in certain other houses. That said, it’s a cool property and the house was a lot of fun.
#7 Stranger Things 5
You could basically say the same thing about Stranger Things as I did about Sinners, with the difference being that I was pretty tired of Stranger Things by the time it ended. The house leans heavily on the Demogorgons and Lord Vecna, which is cool enough, especially the recreation of Mrs. Wheeler’s fight against the Demogorgon in the kitchen. The annoying fat kid in the striped shirt was also represented. Most people liked him.
#8 Evil Dead Burn
Aaaand the same story here, in that it was a well-done house for a movie I thought was decent, and whose characters were largely just regular old people with some makeup on. Points for the glowing-eyed hellhound that showed up around many corners and some of the exteriors. Didn’t make me want to run home and rewatch the movie, though.
#9 H.R. Bloodengutz Presents: A Halloween Fright-Tacular
Funny story: Molly surprised me with a trip to Halloween Horror Nights for my 30th birthday. It was the first time I’d gone, and she bravely made the attempt to accompany me. That lasted until partway through her second house, the original H.R. Bloodengutz experience, and a zombie Abe Lincoln that leaned into her face and screamed at her. We hustled her out of the park and she has not been back for this event. In this year’s house, old H.R. has escaped from prison and returned to the TV studio to host a Halloween movie marathon. It’s an old HHN premise: multiple rooms that each explore a single movie parody. It was fun enough but hasn’t really stuck with me.
#10 MADLANDS: Caged Cannibals
As sometimes happens, this one was a mash-up of different themes that failed to gel. It’s kind of about a zoo and animals, but also a Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic wasteland, and I guess they’re cannibals but I don’t think I would have picked up on that if not for the name. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it bad – there have been years with haunted houses that I thought genuinely failed, and this wasn’t one of those. But compared to the rest it wasn’t fully realized.
Although I won’t rank the scare zones, they were all pretty good this year. Some thoughts:
Downtown Clowntown – Very large, taking up parts of New York and San Francisco. One section featured the Killer Klowns from Outer Space, another had a stage with live shows starring Jack and his assistants, and the rest were kind of like midway attractions from a carnival. Good stuff.
Sideshow of Decay – Also carnival-themed, this one had a bunch of freaks in cages trying to kill me. There were some great costumes and makeup here. I also saw a cat costume that I think was used in one of last year’s scare zones. I’ve been to Halloween Horror Nights too much.
Fortnitemares – Don’t really care about Fortnite, but the costumes were neat and there was a lot to take in (don’t forget to look up into the trees!).
Infernal Carnival of Nightmares – Not much here, mostly just the opening show with Jack and Oddfellow, plus a ticket-taker on stilts.
Mel’s Die-In: Zombies – Same as in the past few years. It’s pretty fun to see zombies on roller skates.
Club Horror – I don’t really understand the point of this. It’s just like four people in costume dancing on platforms.
Some other one – It’s not listed on the website, but there were people with chainsaws milling around the Simpsons area.
The Twisted Philly
As for the food, I tried a couple of this year’s selections. The “Twisted Philly” is like a cross between a cheesesteak and a stromboli. It tasted good but was a mess. Definitely get a fork. I also enjoyed the “Carn ‘Evil’ Smash Tacos,” which I gather are the big hit this year. They’re basically like a Big Mac served open-face on a crispy tortilla. Also a little messy, but not as bad as the Twisted Philly.
I didn’t have any of the themed drinks but we all took note of an absolutely insane one at the Stranger Things booth called “Hopper’s Recharger”: 360 Vodka® Mandarin Orange, yuzu juice, Powerade® Lemon Lime and Monster Energy® Zero Ultra. Good lord.
And a few last observations.
As I always say, get the Express Pass. The price seems to jump noticeably every year – it used to be cheaper than the base ticket, even – but to me it’s still worth it. The math is simple: with the Express Pass, you can get to every house in an evening, and without it you can’t. If you have a few nights and want a more leisurely pace, you can do without it, but if time is short and/or you want to be assured of seeing everything, you gotta do it.
Endless Summer Surfside - 2 Bedroom (really one bedroom) Suite!
This year I stayed at Endless Summer Surfside. I enjoyed it, especially for the price. It’s smaller than Dockside (and sounds less like someone with a Noo Yawk accent talking about the Force). The decor is bright and cheery, and the pool area was nice. I got upgraded to a suite for some reason, which was a little much for a solo traveler, but I could see it working well for families. The only thing I didn’t like was the food court. It was smaller than the one at the Dockside, none of the food I had was good, and one of the Freestyle machines was messed up while the other was always short on flavors. Still, it was about 10-15 minutes to the park and you can’t beat that.
If you’re staying onsite and planning to rope drop, take advantage of the dedicated park entry for resort guests. After about the first 30 minutes, it doesn’t matter anymore.
If you go this year, be aware that there’s still a lot of construction happening around the site of the former Rip Ride Rock-it. The paths to the houses over there get constricted and crowded.
Ok, that should do it. Now time to rewatch Hellraiser.
