ORLANDO, Fla. – Universal Orlando is set to begin its 32nd annual Halloween Horror Nights.
Beginning Sept. 1, guests will come face to face with sinister characters in 10 highly immersive haunted houses, five terrifying scare zones and one explosive live show.
[EXCLUSIVE: Become a News 6 Insider (it’s FREE) | PINIT! Share your photos]
All new this year, the twisted and creative minds at Universal Orlando plan to bring stories from some of Hollywood’s biggest horror films and originals shows to life for guests to experience. Some of the new haunted houses include the upcoming Blumhouse and Universal film, “The Exorcist: Believer;” the USA & SYFY series “Chucky: The Ultimate Kill Count;” Naughty Dog and Playstation’s “The Last of Us;” and “Universal Monsters: Unmasked” – a new story featuring Universal’s legacy cinematic creatures.
Also new this year, Universal Orlando is diving into the back story of a Halloween Horror Nights legend, Dr. Oddfellow, a 1930s circus owner with a chaotic and dark past.
Fans of the event may not be familiar with Oddfellow’s twisted origin – but may know his horrifying clown, Jack, who has been featured in horror nights past and has since become an icon of the event. Guests will come face to face with his legendary story not only in the haunted house “Dr. Oddfellow: Twister Origins,” but also in several of this year’s scare zones.
Some of the other original haunted houses include the western themed “The Darkest Deal” and a slaughter cult in “Bloodmoon: Dark Offerings.” For Universal Orlando fans, two other original haunted houses may seem a bit familiar. Halloween Horror Night guests will come face-to-face with bloodthirsty monsters in “YETI: Campground Kills” and a fire and ice dragon in “Dueling Dragons: Choose Thy Fate.”
Happening during select times of event nights, guests will also get to experience the mind-blowing show, “Nightmare Fuel Revenge Dream,” a live show filled with performers and incredible special effects.
In addition to the bone-chilling screams inside the haunted houses and scare zones, this year’s event is also rolling out new food and beverage options including Peacock’s Halloween Horror Bar, an area with a nightclub vibe packed with themed drinks, photo opportunities and more.
Alongside those popular pizza fries, horror night fans will also find some new food offerings including a bloody campground poutine, El Pastor Torta and new this year, sour apple pie fries.
Universal has also brought back its popular Halloween Horror Nights Tribute Store for guests to be immersed in. This year’s store will take guests page by page into a mysterious and terrifying 1960s NYC comic book shop. Guests will find several items inside including t-shirts, long sleeve shirts, mugs, bags, keychains and much more.
Meantime, at Universal CityWalk, guests will once again get to enjoy a drink at the Dead Coconut Club, which will have a new theme and menu.
See descriptions of each of the haunted houses and scare zones below.
Haunted Houses
For the first time ever, Naughty Dog and PlayStation’s award-winning post-pandemic video game “The Last of Us” comes to life in an all-new haunted house that propels guests into an obstacle course of carnage and mayhem as they join a brutal journey in a world overtaken by a fungal virus that turns humans into various forms of a new threat known as the Infected. Guests will find themselves navigating iconic locations from the video game in a desperate attempt to escape and survive.
Season 4 of Netflix’s original series “Stranger Things” is brought to life in a terrifying all-new haunted house that transports guests to Hawkins, Indiana where they will be immersed in the eerie Upside Down for a heart-pounding experience while traveling through iconic scenes. Guests will confront their deepest fears and come face to face with otherworldly creatures like demobats, and even Vecna himself within his blood-red Mind Lair in a race against the clock to escape and save mankind from his deadly curse.
The Exorcist: Believer
Inspired by Universal Pictures’ terrifying new horror film from Blumhouse and Morgan Creek Entertainment (in theaters Friday, October 13), “The Exorcist: Believer” haunted house will transport guests to a bustling street market in Haiti, where an innocent purchase of a strange folk doll with three eyes leads to the opening of a demonic portal, the awakening of sinister spirits and the subsequent disappearance of two 12-year-old girls in the U.S. The girls are found three days later with no memory of what happened to them. After the girls begin to exhibit unsettling behavior, it soon becomes clear that only an exorcism can save them – and everyone who encounters them, including unwitting guests, is suddenly at risk of losing their souls.
Inspired by the hit USA & SYFY series and cult classic films, “Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count” casts this killer doll as the star of his very own haunted house for the first time. A true sadistic killer, Chucky has been mired in the agony of disrespect he feels from his peers at not being taken seriously. Thus begins his quest to turn his haunted house into a living slaughterhouse by killing every person who enters.
Universal Monsters: Unmasked
The dank Catacombs of Paris house a much darker secret sixty feet beneath the bustling streets, as the all-new haunted house “Universal Monsters: Unmasked” takes guests down into the infamous burial grounds where every corner and crevice overflows with millions of skeletal remains and even more sinister secrets. Deep within the Catacombs, Universal’s most notorious creatures – The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dr. Jekyll and his deranged alternate personality Mr. Hyde, and Dr. Jack Griffin, aka The Invisible Man – lie in wait as they bide their time and seek vengeance against guests after the opening of the Catacombs to public visitation. These desperate and dangerous fiends have become filled with a rage toward guests navigating the twisted tunnels of their underground labyrinth home.
Dr. Oddfellow: Twisted Origins
In the 1930s Dust Bowl era, guests won’t be able to resist going inside Dr. Oddfellow’s menacing menagerie of twisted oddities where they’ll encounter grotesquely distorted animals and freakish fiends. In “Dr. Oddfellow: Twisted Origins,” the price to enter this creepy caravan is steep as souls feed his immortal power.
Dueling Dragons: Choose Thy Fate
The great wizard Merlyn has been transformed into the Enchanted Oak, leaving a power vacuum. When two powerful warlocks invade his castle to steal his spell book, they are turned into dragons of fire and ice. Now guests are caught in the middle of their battle and are forced to choose a path and a victor. But beware, one never knows who will win in “Dueling Dragons: Choose Thy Fate.”
YETI: Campground Kills
In a 1950s campground, a group of towering, terrifying yetis are running rampant, ripping apart campers, rangers and anyone else who gets in their way. In “YETI: Campground Kills,” guests must flee through the campground into cabins, a bait shack and even the outhouse in hopes of making it to the ranger tower before it’s too late.
The Darkest Deal
In the Mississippi Delta, blues musician Pinestraw Spruce meets at a crossroads with a diabolical entity known as The Collector to make a deal: his soul for musical glory. Guests will witness his big break performing for a crowd before The Collector drags him to Hades with the other musicians who learned the terrible price of fame in “The Darkest Deal.”
Bloodmoon: Dark Offerings
Colonial-era villagers begin to worship the moon obsessively. When the blood moon rises at their fall festival, they take it as a sign that they must hunt down any non-followers within their village. Guests will need to try not to become part of the sacrifice as they gather body parts to form a grisly offering in “Bloodmoon: Dark Offerings.”
Scare Zones
Dr. Oddfellow’s Collection of Horror
Dr. Oddfellow will lure guests into Halloween Horror Nights with a promise of immortality. As he lifts the veil on all the horrors to come, they’ll soon realize they may not even survive the night.
At a 60s music fest in a small New York town, guests will jam to popular bands with fellow concertgoers until Dr. Oddfellow unleashes vicious vampires on the audience that are out for blood.
Dark Zodiac
Dr. Oddfellow has entered a dark dimension to harness the power of the Zodiac and live forever. He twists the signs into malevolent beings who foretell one’s doom. As his star rises, yours falls.
Jungle of Doom: Expedition Horror
In the 1920s, Dr. Oddfellow ventured deep into the darkest jungle, performing horrific experiments on nature. Now his monstrous creatures are running amok and on the hunt.
Shipyard 32: Horrors Unhinged
Enter a 1940s San Francisco shipping yard full of mysterious crates and cages bearing Dr. Oddfellow’s symbol. Beware, his nightmarish oddities have now escaped spreading fear and chaos in their wake.
Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights will run for a record 48 nights.
For those guests planning to visit, all event tickets are now on sale. This includes single-night tickets and the popular Frequent Fear and Rush of Fear passes. Universal’s website said new this year, guests wanting to purchase a multi-night pass will have to select a start date for their pass at purchase. For those guests looking to up the chills, Universal Orlando also has event upgrades on sale including express passes, R.I.P. Tours and the daytime Behind the Screams: Unmasking the Horror Tour.
U.S. residents can stay, scream and save up to $200 (savings based on a seven-night stay) with a special vacation package that includes one-night event admission, five days of admission to all three Universal Orlando theme parks and hotel accommodations. Florida residents can save on a vacation package that includes one-night event admission, hotel accommodations and two-day tickets to all three Universal Orlando theme parks.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.HalloweenHorrorNights.com. Due to popular demand, event nights are expected to sell out and tickets should be purchased in advance.
Use the form below to sign up for the ClickOrlando.com In the Loop: Theme Park Scoops newsletter, sent every Friday morning.