Happy Halloween! I have always been a lover of haunted houses and themed attractions, even as a child walking through homemade mazes in the yards of neighbors’ houses. As I grew older, it was be no surprise that I graduated to regularly attending the seasonal haunts at the amusement parks that scatter southern California. Now, as a horror fan, it is always a fun game guessing what properties Universal Studios Hollywood (and Orlando, but I have yet to make my way to the other side of the country) will feature and while we had a few rough years during the pandemic, the event seems to be crawling its way back to the intensity that fans remember.
This year, the event featured 8 total mazes or haunts, along with the Terror Tram, featuring a good combination of newer films, revamped versions of films that have visited the park before, and HHN original mazes. I was lucky enough to make my way through all of the mazes (a surprising feat without the help of an express badge thanks to much shorter wait times than what I’ve seen the last few years) so here is my ranking of all of the offerings of Halloween Horror Nights 2024.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Unfortunately, Ghostbusters is at the bottom of my list. This maze welcomes you into Ray’s Occult Books and takes you through some fun sets that take you through the movie, which is really the joy of going through an HHN maze. Universal Studios delivers on the production design, even if Hollywood’s version is not as impressive as Orlando’s. You get to see some talented frozen actors, the cutest little mischievous tiny Stay Puft marshmallow men, and Slimer! I did in fact get slimed right in the face! While it is not always a fun sensory experience to get wet in a maze, it was only fitting that Slimer did the honors. Putting this last does not necessarily mean it was a bad maze. I certainly enjoyed the experience, but considering I have not seen the last couple recent Ghostbuster’s films, I was not the target audience here (but that is okay).
Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines
It’s Universal Studios! Of course, there has to be a Universal Monsters maze and this one brings a new spin with an all-female cast. Saskia Van Helsing is hunting the Bride of Frankenstein, the Brides and Daughters of Dracula, She-Wolf, and more. Housed in Stage 12, the birthplace of the Universal Monster pictures, where Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Bride of Frankenstein, were all shot, walking up to this maze felt special. Although it plays like girl boss Universal Monster fanfic, it is an interesting story. However, there are some hiccups in this one. It feels largely anticlimactic and uneventful even though the story we’re being told overhead is an action-filled epic. The voiceover itself is another issue. The time loop on much of the audio is not long enough, which only seems to be an issue in overcrowded houses with dramatic park goers too scared to move forward and holding up the flow, but it was certainly an issue in this fairly empty maze. Moving switfly through each set, I was shocked to hear the same line repeated a handful of times and it takes you out of the movie magic that these mazes usually create. Other than that, as a Monster lover, it was fun!
A Quiet Place
When A Quiet Place released in 2018, it tugged on heart strings and got heart rates jumping as we watched Emily Blunt’s character go into labor while a Death Angel stalked the house. We’ve seen a few sensory depravation based horrors– A Quiet Place minimizes sound, Bird Box takes sight away from its characters, and the cult in Azrael has renounced speech. It is an interesting feat for a writer to weave together a horror story when they have taken away one of the key ingredients in the recipe for terror, and I figured this would translate excellently into a maze! However, I think I am in the minority in thinking that this maze did not deliver on this expectation. It is definitely a chilling walkthrough, which frequent park goers would recognize as the now year-round attraction that took over the skeleton of The Walking Dead attraction, but I think the scares were one note. Each time you turned a corner or stepped into a hallway, another Death Angel animatronic popped out of the wall with flashing lights and that same gag repeated for the majority of the maze. Obviously, mazes rely on a lot of disorienting noise that comes from their many effects, but that is why I thought adapting a film in which terror swells in the silence would be impressive. Considering the physique of the Death Angels, and the frequent use of stilt-walkers at HHN, I was surprised that more of the scares did not come from trying to make your way past giant horrific scare actors, but instead relied on the same animatronic repeated throughout.
Dead Exposure: Death Valley
Experiments to create super soldiers turn into a nightmare of radioactive zombies. Zombies are a guaranteed way to get some screams out of people, but this maze also takes you through a Primate Research Lab that is actually quite grotesque, reminding me of the early moments of 28 Days Later and leaving me a little sad. Despite wishing there were a few more mazes based around IP this year, this theme was fun!
Terror Tram: Enter the Blumhouse
Initially skeptical, the Terror Tram delivered on the Best of Blumhouse. Once the tram drops you in the backlot, you make your way first through dancing murderous M3GANs, then through to the Bates Motel where Tree and Millie fight off the Baby Face Killer and the Blissfield Butcher. Once you make your way past the dozens of Tree corpses, The Grabber is waiting to show you a magic trick. My favorite bare chested Grabber even sits and waits for you. Once you make your way up the hill past the Bates house, the War of the Worlds set is transformed into the anarchy of The Purge. Topping it all off is the biggest fright of all: having to watch the Speak No Evil trailer AGAIN on your tram ride back to the park…I really wish I was joking…
Monstruos 2: The Nightmares of Latin America
Monsters from folklore across Latin America have almost become their own staple at HHN, and I am not complaining. The first rendition of Monstruos was a hit, and a couple years ago, one of my favorite mazes was La Llorona: The Weeping Woman. This line up of monsters includes El Muerte, El Charro Negro, El Cadejo, and El Cucuy. Now, I didn’t grow up with these tales, but this maze put the fear in me. An eventful walkthrough with plenty of scares and even smells.
The Weeknd: Nightmare Trilogy
I was shocked by how much I enjoyed The Weeknd: After Hours Nightmare back in 2022, and I am just as shocked by how much I enjoyed the Nightmare Trilogy. Referring to his albums After Hours, Dawn FM, and the upcoming Hurry Up Tomorrow, the maze features moments inspired by his music videos and live performances. I am hoping that means this maze would make more sense to fans of The Weeknd, but I myself have never seen any of his music videos or performances so any references would have been lost on me. However, that does not take away from my enjoyment of this absolute bonkers bloodbath. You get Paparazzi Monsters, Old Man Weeknd, mysterious cloaked figures, giant eyeballs, surgery rooms, a grotesque Baby Weeknd winged-insect monster emerging out of The Weeknd, splitting “After Hours” Weeknd and Old Man Weeknd in half. Definitely unforgettable.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Legacy of Leatherface
In celebration of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre‘s 50th anniversary, this newest rendition of a “Texas Chainsaw” maze pays homage to the legacy, featuring characters and set pieces from the many iterations we’ve seen over the decades. This maze delivers the blood and guts, not to mention a horrid smell that immerses you in the horror of the Sawyer family. We see multiple versions of Bubba (aka Leatherface”), the hammer yielding Grandpa, the unhinged hitchhiker “Nubbins,” and even Bill Moseley’s metal-plate scratching Chop-Top. I wish I was kidding when I say I jumped for joy at the sight of Chop-Top. There’s nothing more dreadful than the sound of the camera flash bulb, or stepping on up into the infamous Sawyer house waiting for Leatherface to come out from behind that sliding metal door with a mallet in his hand. I will say, however, that I wish this could be in my top spot, but I think I was hoping for a little more for the 50th anniversary, especially when this is not my first time making my way through a “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” maze at HHN.
Insidious: The Further
This maze is for those of us who jumped out of our seats when we saw “lipstick-face” behind Patrick Wilson’s head. As someone who still has my ticket from seeing Insidious back in 2010, I loved stepping through the Red Door and braving the misty depths of The Further. My favorite ghostly entities lurked around this haunted house, along with an onslaught of Red Face demons and excerpts of everyone’s favorite Tiny Tim song, making this the scariest maze of 2024.
There you have it! Another successful Halloween Horror Nights in the book, and with everything that the last couple of years of horror have offered us, I am excited to see what haunts they bring in 2025.
Siren Death Cult 