Halloween Horror Nights 2023 - Highlights
On October 29th, my friend and I ventured up to Universal City, CA to go check out this year’s Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood. This event typically runs from September through the end of October. There, it offers haunted attractions such as mazes based off of popular horror films and tv shows, scare zones, and other horror themed experiences. We bought General Admission tickets with the plan to upgrade to Express after 11pm. For those who don’t know, if you do this you save $100 on Express and get to do every maze without waiting in long lines. It was well worth it.
Scare Zones
Park entry for Horror Nights guests starts at 7:30PM unless you bought the Early Entry park ticket. I’m not sure if there was an opening ceremony with all of the scare actors where they do a choreographed number before charging at guests with chainsaws. We entered the park a little after that so if there was one, we missed it. It didn’t matter though, because as soon as you walk in you are greeted with all sorts of crazy characters from giant beaked ravens with red eyes on stilts to creepy dolls, deadly teddy bears and other possessed toys creeping up on unsuspecting guests and scaring the crap out of them. There were of course some chainsaws thrown in there and a lot of fog. That whole area was the first scare zone. They also have one in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter where you’re surrounded by Death Eaters who want to take your soul. I always enjoy seeing those. There’s something spooky about walking down a dark alley by yourself with green lit fog lighting the way and people in black robes and masks waving their wands at you. They have a nice music score they play throughout the land. It’s somber yet kind of creepy. They do projections on the Hogwarts castle as well. The projections consist of the Death Eater symbol appearing as a giant skull before vanishing off the side of one of the towers. If I had to describe this area of the park I’d describe it as “eerie”. If you love the dark side of Harry Potter then you will love this part of the park. It’s not loud and in your face. Instead, it’s more of an atmosphere. Another scare zone we encountered was called El Terror de las Momias. There were giant skeletons you could take pictures with and scare actors roaming around wreaking havoc. I really liked their costume design. There were ghosts of the dead wandering around as well as skeletons. They looked like they had crawled out of a grave. Some of the costuming was giving me Indiana Jones and Egyptian vibes. The title of the scare zone translates to The Terror of Mummies, so that makes sense.
Mazes
There were so many mazes. They were as follows: Stranger Things 4, The Last of Us, The Exorcist: Believer, Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count, Evil Dead Rise, Universal Monsters: Unmasked, Monstruos: The Monsters of Latin America, Holidayz in Hell and Terror Tram: The Exterminatorz. I enjoyed all of these because they all brought something unique to the park.
Evil Dead Rise had the shortest wait time for some reason at 5 minutes. While you’re in the line queue they have a cutout in the wall that they transformed into the elevator scene where the main character gets pulled up into it and her feet are dangling. That is the first thing you see before you even enter the maze which I thought was cool. This maze was really creepy and I wish I would have paid more attention to the detail in it, but I was overstimulated with all the sounds and flashing lights to really pay attention to that. The scenes in the maze were from the movie so it all took place in the apartment. I liked that the main character Ellie was in this maze a lot. Alyssa Sutherland was so creepy in this movie when she got possessed. The makeup looked really good on the scare actors. They looked just like her. If I had to rate this maze I’d give it a 7.5/10. It's basically a copy of the movie but lacked a few of the other minor characters in it which I would have liked to see.
The next maze we went to was Monstruos: The Monsters of Latin America. This was an original concept maze that involved the storytelling of Latin American folklore. I like mazes that teach you something about a specific culture and it’s not just a generic haunted house or monster maze. You’re essentially walking through these different scenes that are specific to the different monsters. The names of these creatures featured are: Tlaheulpuchi, La Lechuza and El Silbon. Overall, the set design was pretty good from the crypt to the village and the lair. I’d give this maze a 7/10.
The Exorcist: Believer was surprisingly scary. I hadn’t seen the movie, but the characters and special fx makeup were super creepy. I’m the type of person to hide my face in the face of danger, but I happened to glance up at a scare actor longer than I should have and that face stuck with me the rest of the night. It was like a decaying old person’s face. You could see part of the skeleton showing through. I didn’t notice this as much because I was trying to get out as fast as possible, but my friend said they were playing creepy audio in the maze of what sounded like an exorcism happening. I don’t know if it was real audio of an exorcism or fake for the maze but either way, I don’t mess with demons so that maze freaked me out. 7.5/10 just for the scariness.
Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count I had been looking forward to all night because I just finished binging the series on Peacock. This maze is based on the show and I was super happy to see familiar scenes from the first 2 seasons incorporated into it. This was a nice palette cleanser from The Exorcist because it was more “fun”. Like the title alludes to, you walk through different scenes from the show where Chucky is murdering people in various ways. I liked the scene where he electrocutes Luke Wheeler. They did Devon Sawa dirty though because that mannequin looked nothing like him. I liked the special fx they did to make it look like the electricity was moving up his arm. There were a lot of scenes of Chucky squirting water at you for some reason. Sometimes he would be in the bathtub and sometimes he would squirt you wherever he was just because. Tiffany and Glen were also there. Another scene that stood out to me was Chucky coming out of the chimney during Christmas time with a chainsaw. I thought that was very festive with the Christmas tree up and dismembered people on the floor. In case you’re wondering, are these Chucky dolls scare actors or animatronics? They are all animatronics. I wondered that too before I entered the maze. I feel like in the past they have used real people to portray Chucky, but they probably didn’t want to stir up any controversy with that. In the show, Chucky is a puppet/animatronic so maybe they wanted to keep everything the same theme. I’m biased because I like the show, but I’m giving this maze an 8/10. Points deducted for the random and unnecessary water fx.
Holidayz in Hell started off as a scare zone but then turned into a maze. If I’m not mistaken, they had this maze last year as well. I don’t remember if it was the exact same story or not but let’s just say no matter how many times Universal incorporates Holidayz in Hell into the park, I’m always going to enjoy it. I just love the concept of all the different holidays coming together to be completely terrifying. It starts in chronological order so you have New Years, Valentines Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, the Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Baby New Year popping out at me was terrifying. Valentine’s Day I don’t remember what they did but I assume there was a creepy Cupid involved. St. Patrick’s Day had freaky Leprechauns. Those got me good. I was not a fan of those jumping out at me. Easter had a killer rabbit who looked like it wanted to eat my face. Fourth of July had a zombiefied Uncle Sam who looked like his face got blown up by a firecracker. Halloween had a bunch of spooky neon pumpkin people and Thanksgiving had a giant killer turkey. Christmas of course had a Krampus looking Santa. It was a fun maze. 7/10 for becoming a Universal classic.
Stranger Things 4 is a maze based on, you guessed it, season 4 of Stranger Things. This included scenes of Vecna terrorizing Max, Eleven using her powers, Lucas in the Creel House and Chrissy levitating in Eddie’s trailer. I felt like there were some characters missing when we walked through. I didn’t see Eddie at all or Max aside from her mannequin. I didn’t see Dustin or the other kids either. Dr. Brenner was there being his usual suss self. Overall, I liked the set design and attention to detail. It felt like they packed a lot into it. At one point you were walking through the desert to that underground bunker Eleven is being held at. They scrapped the Russia stuff altogether so there was no Hopper or Joyce. Season 4 was a long season so I get that they had to be selective on what parts of the story to keep. I’d give this maze a solid 8/10. Points deducted because I think there were some scare actors missing. It’s always the luck of the draw when you go into these mazes who’s there and who isn’t.
Universal Monsters: Unmasked was probably my least favorite just because I got bored walking through it. I did, however, really like the part with the Invisible Man. That was a cool effect. I love Universal Monsters in general, but I think if I had read about the maze before entering it and knew what it was focusing on then I’d like it more. I don’t know much about some of the minor Monsters characters that were featured in the maze. I just knew who the Invisible Man was and Phantom of the Opera. I’m glad they did something different though by not always focusing on Dracula, the Wolfman and Frankenstein. If I had gone through the maze a 2nd time maybe I would’ve appreciated it more. I’m going to give it a 6/10.
The Last of Us was the most anticipated maze at Horror Nights and I’m so glad I was able to walk into it without having to wait in those long lines. This maze was hands down my favorite because it felt like you were in the video game and tv show. You follow Ellie and Joel throughout the maze as they try to navigate all the clickers and vigilantes trying to take over the city. While the set design wasn’t anything special, I enjoyed the scenes that were acted out and the practical fx they used like the part where you’re being shot at and there’s bullets flying into the walls around you. There’s a military tank moving back and forth beside you and you hear the sounds of Ellie and Joel yelling “Run!” as you try to get away from the bad guys. There was a part in the maze where Ellie and Joel came at me from both sides, Ellie with a rifle and Joel with a pipe and I thought he was going to hit me with it so I ducked and dodged it and in doing so almost fell on my face. It was great. You felt the high stakes like you do in the game. I watched my friend get jump scared several times by various sized Clickers. He walked into a wall at one point. It was chaos. It was a great combination of fun and scary because you had real people trying to kill you as well as the monsters. This gets a 9.5/10. I took a half point away for the set design but otherwise, I’d probably give it a 10/10.
The Terror Tram: The Exterminatorz had no wait the entire time we were there. I don’t really know why considering it was one of the better themed original Terror Tram concepts. I hate bugs so that’s saying something. Larry Larva leads a group of alien bug creatures who want to take you out as a form of pest control on the human race. There were a lot of these alien bug creatures, some of them squirt water at you. I saw some bug people eating bugs, which isn’t that cannibalism? There’s a portion where you’re in this maze and everything is all neon. That was kind of cool to see the bug ooze all lit up on the walls. Part of the Terror Tram lets you walk up to the Psycho House for a photo op with Norman Bates. You also get to walk through the War of the Worlds plane crash set as well as take a stroll through Jupiter’s Claim from the movie Nope. I enjoyed that part of Horror Nights last year when I went because they had characters from Nope and Us there to scare you as you walk through the western town. Overall, I enjoyed the Terror Tram. It wasn’t groundbreaking or anything but it was a fun story that was easy to follow which I appreciated. I’d give Terror Tram a 7.5/10.
Experiences
There were two experiences offered at Horror Nights this year. One of them was Blumhouse: Behind the Screams and The Purge: Dangerous Waters. Unfortunately, we had no idea The Purge experience even existed so we only saw Blumhouse. Outside of the Blumhouse experience you were greeted by The Grabber from Black Phone. He was dancing around with his black balloons trying to entice people to come inside and check it out. While in line, Megan the doll showed up. It was a real person dressed as Megan. She stood in the corner and twitched her body making for an uncomfortable ambiance. We all thought she would do something more but she just stood there and looked creepy. Once we got inside, we were greeted with movie props and wardrobe from various Blumhouse movies like Megan, Black Phone, Happy Death Day, Freaky, and more. The main stars of that room were the screen used animatronics from Five Nights at Freddy’s. That was really cool to see. Those animatronics were bigger than I thought they’d be and they were very dirty. I loved that about them. They let you take a few photos inside the museum before rushing you into the theater. My only gripe was the fact that I spent like 3 minutes in that room and didn’t get to see everything before they made us go into the theater. We go sit down and they start playing trailers from some of the Blumhouse movies. When it ends the room goes dark and a bunch of Megan dolls appear. They all start dancing to this club music which was a vibe and I was here for it. It was fun. It felt like you were at a party with Megan. It was kind of a silly experience overall. I wish they would just leave the museum open so people could come and go as they pleased. Those who want to see the Megan show can stick around and those who don’t want to see it should be able to stay in the museum.
After exploring most of what Halloween Horror Nights had to offer, I can safely say this was a big improvement from last year. I felt cheated on some of the mazes last year. I couldn’t even tell you what they were because I don’t remember them. I’m happy to see they didn’t cut as many corners this year. After a worldwide pandemic and easing our way back into normalcy, I have to give Universal and HHN credit for keeping this event going for us, the fans. I’ve been to other haunts that are good, but not on this level. I highly recommend that if you've never been to Horror Nights in Hollywood and you love horror, you’re missing out. It’s a fun time.
