Halloween Horror Nights officially kicked off its 33rd season at Universal Studios Florida Friday night. I toured all 10 new haunted houses at this year's event, which features four houses devoted to existing IPs.
As I have written before, it's a fool's game to rank Universal's haunted houses. Halloween Horror Nights is live theater, where the show can vary from person to person as they snake through a house. That's what makes the event so enticing for repeat visits, but also what makes one person's experience of less predictive value than on traditional theme park rides.
That said, let's look at this year's four IP houses. Here are my thoughts, starting with the house that made the greatest impression upon me this year.
This year's Universal Monsters house comes with an all-female cast. A new character, Saskia Van Helsing, is out to avenge her monster-hunting family and she has an unlikely ally - the Bride of Frankenstein. Together, the two set to destroy an all-star team of female monsters, including Anck-Su-Namun, She-Wolf, and the brides and daughters of Dracula.
Universal delivers an exquisite mix of scenic design and video effects in this house. However, it's the outstanding performances of its scareactor crew that push Universal Monsters again to the top the class. Far from being a gimmick, Universal's choice to go with an all-female fight here simply reminds us how rich and deep the Universal Monsters franchise can be.
This is another beautiful house, from the "frozen dinner" scene at the beginning to the pure fan service of some old favorites near its end.
Ghostbusters is a stretch IP for Halloween Horror Nights, allowing the event to appeal to fans of a franchise from the comedy end of the horror and supernatural spectrum. This house draws from the current film, but also delivers detail from previous Ghostbusters films, making it detailed and welcomed tribute to a beloved franchise.
My construction tour last week of the Hollywood version of 'A Quiet Place' set my expectations sky-high. Perhaps too high, after walking through the Orlando version tonight. I see some creative differences between the two houses, so I am looking forward to comparing this installation with Hollywood's completed version next week.
The Orlando version does not lean heavily into American Sign Language, and begins with a sensory-deprivation tunnel that leaves us without sight as well as sound. It's disorienting, which is appropriate for the IP, but also creates some logistical challenges for the house. The complexity of the puppetry and animatronics in the house mean that most scenes cannot quickly reset, leaving you with a subpar experience if you get the timing off, which happened to me on my first time through as a group ahead went through the dark tunnel so slowly that we bunched up. A second walk-through was better, but I found the house too reliant on the creatures and lacking the scale of the production design in the two houses above.
I am calling it now - this is going to be the most divisive house of the year. Inspired by the Insidious films, this house does not attempt a book report on any of them, choosing instead simply to immerse you within "the Further," the netherworld where souls attempt to possess your spirit-less body.
This is old-school Halloween Horror Nights. If you love getting close - and I mean really close - with scareactors, you are going to love this house. Insidious: The Further employs classic tricks to make you wonder who's real and who's just a dummy as it sets you up for scare after scare. But you also will find much stronger narratives and placemaking in other houses this year, which can leave Insidious feeling a bit, well... soulless in comparison.
I'm going to hell for that joke, aren't I?
For my authorized walk-through videos and analysis of the six original-concept houses from this year's Halloween Horror Nights, check out Reviewing Halloween Horror Nights 33: Original houses.
Halloween Horror Nights continues on select evenings through November 3 at Universal Studios Florida. To book vacation packages to Universal Orlando Resort, including Halloween Horror Nights packages, please visit our partner's Universal Orlando vacation quote request page.
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