Halloween Horror Nights 2025

HHN is dead, this is my eulogy. I don't mean to be grim, but the magic has been bought and sold. Everything that use to make Halloween Horror Nights the best event of the season has been done away with. The elaborate stories that brought the characters to life in the Original houses have been replaced with terrible podcasts that seem like an afterthought to go along with the overall theme of the house. The scare zones might as well not even be there. But I'm getting ahead of myself, we'll do a deep dive into each of my grips. Let's go...

Scare Zones:

Overall the scare zones are really weak and I'm not sure it's Universal's fault entirely. There is just SO MANY DANG PEOPLE! And I went in the middle of September. I can't imagine how clogged these streets are going to be once October hits and people go out of their way to attend these haunted attractions. It is very hard to even see the scare actors or the sets through the hundreds of people in these areas. Plus the ever present problem of scare actors posing for pictures, both people taking pictures of just them and the hugely annoying people taking pictures with the scare actors. I get that in this day and age companies can't and won't stop people taking pictures so they get more eyeballs online, but that won't stop me from hating it. Shame on you if you are a scare actor and go out of character in order to high five a child. This is a horror event that is recommended for 13 years old and up so for you to encourage these parents to bring their young children is another reason why the event has lost it's magic.

The Origins of Horror

Description from the Universal website:

"The Origins of Horror

Discover the Root of Fear

Enter a decaying conservatory where artists carve tributes to Halloween Horror Nights. You’ll encounter monstrous crows, gargoyles and more."

This scare zones makes no sense. It has some pieces of destroyed construction and statues of the IP's, so not only does it not make any sense it also hot spot for people to take photos with the statues thus clogging up the whole path. I think this scare zone was supposed to be some extension of El Artista, but with how far away the house is from this area it is just confusing. The only redemption of this area is that the set pieces are sorta pretty.

Score 2/10

Masquerade: Dance with Death

Description from the Universal website:

"Masquerade: Dance with Death

Your First Dance May Be Your Last

You’re invited to a masquerade ball where blood thirsty vampires lurk behind ornate disguises. When their masks fall, you’ll be their prey."

I usually like scare zones in this area, it's off the main drag and thus has a little more breathing room. Masquerade was...okay. It was definitely the best scare zone of the bunch, but it was definitely missing something that is difficult to put my finger on. The set pieces were pretty and story line was good so what gives? Maybe the scare actors were just sort of lazy? They didn't really do much and that took a lot of the wind out of it's sails. With one exception, on my second go through one of the stilt walkers chased a young boy (maybe 10ish) through the zone. You rock stilt walker, never change!

Score: 5/10

The Cat Lady of Crooked Lane

Description from the Universal website:

"The Cat Lady of Crooked Lane

Cat Got Your Tongue?

Travel a winding path to a mysterious home, where trick-or-treaters are transformed into feral felines. Be careful or you’ll be next."

This area is always a cluster, it is a choke point with crowds because it is so tight and the mini stage show at the end of the zone didn't help. The story is alright, but the costumes really hindered the scare actors ability to do much besides paw at you. Not scary, over hyped in my opinion. A few points for trying to make a thorough story line for a scare zone.

Score: 3/10

Mutations: Toxic Twenties

Description from the Universal website:

"Mutations: Toxic Twenties

You’ll Radiate Fear

In a 1920s neighborhood, a BuzzCon truck with with radioactive cargo crashes into a mobster getaway car sending the city into toxic pandemonium."

This zone was just stupid. The podcast that set up the story is awful in every way. The voice acting was bad and the idea is lazy. The scare actors seemed to just be walking around the zone, not really doing anything. The sets were ugly, the story is dumb, and getting through this area was a nightmare. No highlights.

Score: 0/10

On to the houses!

Let me preface this by saying that Universal has made it impossible to do all the houses without express. That is just a fact. I think that is awful as a whole, but Universal has made it clear they want to squeeze as much money out of people as possible. So they will oversell the event and force people to buy express then you end up waiting for hours in line with no hope at getting through all the houses. All that being said, I didn't get through all the houses. I left at 1pm and there was no way I would have been able to run to the last six houses before closing. To be fair, I did arrive at 8pm so that definitely played a role in it. Although I do have my doubts that I could do all the houses even if I was waiting at the gate when they opened.

I am also very skeptical of IP's and greatly favor Original houses so with the heavy IP integration this year, it's safe to say I really was not looking forward to the lineup.

El Artista: A Spanish Haunting

Description from the Universal website:

"El Artista: A Spanish Haunting

Maestros del arte y del terror

In 19th century Spain, a tortured artist moves to an isolated country manor to seek inspiration. Instead, the art comes alive and possesses him. You’re about to be part of the permanent exhibition."

This house is PRETTY! I'm a sucker for a pretty haunted house. And it smelled great! El Artista used a lot of neat tricks in the house, including stilt walkers, Pepper's ghost illusions, and Zipline actors. All that being said...it wasn't very scary. This fact is disappointing, but it definitely didn't destroy the house. El Artista got major points for the sheer beauty of the house and the effort I can tell was put into TRYING to get scares. The story was alright, but it could have been executed more clearly. The podcast surrounding this house was trash. It took any interest I had in the house and destroyed it. Just avoid it. But overall it was a very good house.

Score: 7/10

Fallout

Description from the Universal website:

"Fallout

The Vaults Can’t Save You Now

Face your fears in post-apocalyptic LA. Escape from the vaults to the wasteland and confront the formidable bounty hunter The Ghoul."

So next I headed to Fallout. I watched the show for this event and was surprised by how much I liked the show. This is one of two houses that is in the back and the walk is a HIKE. The bathroom back there is weird so be sure to use the permanent bathrooms before you head back there. The first thing you'll notice is the weird AI looking picture of the characters from the show. I'm sure you will recognize it because it is the only image related to Fallout that is used throughout the park, it is used on all the merch and all the advertising (it can be seen above!). Seeing it blown up on the building really shows the swirly dream-like quality of the image that makes me think it's AI. Lazy.

Overall the house was okay. I really liked seeing Vault 33 and Vault 32 with a ton of little details from the show, very fun!

A few things were disappointing about the house. There wasn't a lot of face characters in it in favor of random side characters. I really wanted to see a lot of Lucy's, the Ghool, and the lake axolotl finger person thing but there was a max of one of each of these characters in the house that I saw. I also really wish they would have stayed in the vaults for longer rather than moving into a more ambiguous scrap yard area for the latter half of the house. Overall it was fun, not super scary (except for the rad roaches, they got me twice).

Score: 5/10

Five Nights at Freddy’s

Description from the Universal website:

"Five Nights at Freddy’s

Can You Survive Five Nights at Freddy’s?

Get ready for the night watch at a creepy, abandoned pizzeria, where nothing is what it seems and possessed animatronics are lurking."

I'm not going to lie, I do not like FNAF. I went through this house to dunk on it. I played the first game and then promptly never interacted with FNAF again except for brief descriptions from other people who like the franchise. I think the FNAF house really shows Universal selling out to the highest grossing franchise and that the event is going into a direction I don't care for. That being said, even without my dislike of FNAF, this house sucked. You can tell that the entire budget for the house was spent on animatronics, which were very cool. That first scene walking into the house with all the animatronics singing was the highlight of the house. It all went down from there. There were hardly any scares (save for a few jump scares from the cupcake guy) and there were way too many people actors in a house about animatronics.

Score: 2/10

Gálkn: Monsters of the North

Description from the Universal website:

"Gálkn: Monsters of the North

Call Forth a Legion of Terrors

In a remote northern village, a wicked being rises from the dead, bringing a horde of monsters and demons from the fjords to wreak havoc on the townspeople. Try to escape the belly of the beast."

This was by far my favorite house in terms of scares! The overall vibe was neat, I like the Nordic theme and it had a lot of interesting creatures (pretty sure I saw a few Wendigo!!). The house did the annoying thing where there is a lot of spoken story explaining the mythology of the house right when you walk in. Now I love story, but there is never enough time to hear the whole thing in the 10ish seconds where you are in the first area of the house. And good luck hearing it over the rest of the noise in these sprung tents. So I have no idea what it said, which is a shame. The front and end of the house were the best scares with it falling off a little in the middle. The skeleton people in the belly of the beast were amazing and the best part of the whole experience for me! I would hike all the way to the back for this house again if I could!

Score: 8/10

Food and Beverage:

The lines were long for everything so my food and drink choices were limited due to wanting to spent the most time getting to houses.

I got a Long Island in the souvenir cup and a Butter Beer. The Long Island was okay, not the best I've ever had but very worth the cost compared to the premixed theme drinks. The cup was nice, you get a discount on refills if you buy the souvenir cup. A lot of people were upset that there isn't a blinky cup this year, but I didn't mind the change.

If you didn't know, the Harry Potter area is open during HHN so you can get those themed foods as well. I wanted to try the Butter Beer since I have hear people rave about it. It has a strong butterscotch taste, which I found a bit off putting. It is also about 95% sugar so be ready for that. For the cost, I would skip it.