[Impressions] Halloween Horror Nights 2025: Hollywood’s Best Showing In Years

Is it really Halloween season if you didn’t attend Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights? Probably, but as a Los Angeles resident of five years, it doesn’t feel like the season is upon us (me) until I’ve attended Horror Nights. Give the all the haunted houses, overpriced snacks, and scare actors ready to ruin my life. Thankfully, it’s that time of year again and I’ve got a rundown of Universal Hollywood’s Horror Nights lineup. Are you ready for what I consider to be one of Hollywood’s strongest showings since I’ve become a regular attendee?

Terror Tram: Enter the Blumhouse

The Terror Tram is turning into yearly advertising for Jason Blum’s company, which is currently enjoying a 10-year first-look deal with Universal Studios. This season’s setup is no different as you tram into Universal’s backlot, which is swarming with Blumhouse’s villains. M3GAN is unsurprisingly the master of scaremonies, and the familiarity of walking from the Bates Motel through Universal’s famed War of the Worlds plane crash backdrop doesn’t do much to fight off repetition complaints. That said, it wasn’t a bust like other years.

The Black Phone 2 is your first encounter, as a snow-dusted icicle version of “The Grabber” ice skates at you (an actor wearing Heelies), giving a nice seasonal flavor of what to expect from the sequel. What I didn’t predict was for Insidious to take over the motel section, and while it was clearly a quickie reuse of old costumes, it was nice to feel surprised (no matter why). However, following that with The Exorcist: Believer was a sour turn, because why else reuse branding from a film that was … politely … not well received beyond “Well, they’re here?” Then you exit through The Purge as usual, which feels like a Hollywood Horror Nights guarantee at this point.

But hey, at least I finally watched the new trailer for The Black Phone 2.

Fallout

Universal’s Fallout maze is based on Prime Video’s show, so it’s restricted to vault massacres and The Ghoul’s … well, The Ghoul. It’s not particularly scary and heavily relies on patrons loving what they’ve seen in television episodes. I’m not one of those people, so my marveling was at the architecture of miniature soundstages that turn indoor areas into nuclear-scorched deserts. The production design is impressive, but it’s also one of the shorter mazes, so there aren’t that many opportunities for scare actors to leave an impression.

Those familiar with Universal Hollywood will recognize the building that contains Fallout as where The Walking Dead’s year-round haunted house existed. Unfortunately, Fallout doesn’t fare much better than the save-it-for-last Walking Dead experience—a cursed location, maybe? Highlights include Maximus standing next to his full-sized Brotherhood of Steel Power Armor and The Ghoul’s pop-ins (sadly not Walton Goggins, though), but that’s about all. Maybe Fallout diehards will muster more excitement as they scamper through Vault 32, gawking at the size of iron doors, but for the common Horror Nights attendee, it’s a “meh” and a shrug.

Five Nights at Freddy’s

Fans of animatronics and large-scale puppetry should be first in line for Five Nights at Freddy’s … or anyone who wants to enter the house, really, since it’s the longest wait every night. You’ll enter one of Freddy Fazebear’s pizzerias and succumb to Chuck E. Cheese nostalgia, with an immediate greeting from a stage performing Freddy. It’s an introduction to the fantastic mechanical mascots that populate the house’s corridors, putting you face-to-face with your favorite security camera stalkers. It’s not a scary maze, but unlike Fallout, the practical craftswork behind Freddy’s gang is reminiscent of the awe felt during last year’s A Quiet Place house, filled with gargantuan Death Angels built from scratch.

Five Nights at Freddy’s is certainly a “vibes” maze, similar to Killer Klowns from Outer Space or Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, but it stands out as one of the better ones, thanks to its immersive qualities and special effects. I’m not a Five Nights at Freddy’s superfan, yet I found myself delighted when staring Chica in the face, or when her cupcake minion would poke out of a hole in the wall. The Fazbear clan are never mobile costumed actors, and their stationary nature can be a slight letdown, but they’re still impressive characters to behold. Also, you can’t be upset at a maze that pumps tempting pizza smells into its kitchen scenes, or makes solid use of strobe effects that make it appear like Foxy is charging at you from afar. 

This one’s for the “Horror Nights is magical” geeks like myself.

Scarecrow

Most years, former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash lends his shreds to either a house or Scare Zone. This year, Slash supplies a soundtrack for another harvest-themed house. Scarecrow ushers us onto a Depression-era farm that's been taken over by a swarm of vengeful scarecrows, crow-people hybrids, and actual crows feasting on human remains. There's a barnyard musk about everything that stinks of dusty butchery, and little surprises like the water squirts from an outhouse that splashed me and no one else in my group.

Horror Nights has done rather well with its original mazes, and Scarecrow is no exception. There are plenty of doppleganger jolts as scare actor scarecrows stand in rows with other prop lookalikes, which may be obvious, but adds an element of anxious fun. There's also a pleasant smattering of scarecrow designs, from male to female to animalian, as well as kooky touches like the prairie folk corpses stabbed full of corn cobs. Everything's cast under an amber hue as you're pursued by scarecrow bastards reaching from behind burlap curtains, all before you're greeted by the scariest, on-stilts alpha Scarecrow that tries to peck you to death with its massive beak before you complete your escape.

Another banger of a homemade house, continuing the harvest/scarecrow storytelling that's graced prior Horror Nights.

The Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks

If only the late Windham Rotunda, aka Bray Wyatt, could have seen his Wyatt Sicks clan come to life at Universal Studios. As a tribute, it’s a bittersweet victory. Hordes of park attendees will follow “fireflies” into the unknown as Uncle Howdy guides the way, before they're attacked by members of the Wyatt Sicks. Those who don’t watch wrestling, or maybe ditched WWE’s product years ago (like me), shouldn’t fret—the house’s maze fills in necessary gaps. Television sets play Bray’s promos, then it’s time to confront the Sicks: Howdy, Rambling Rabbit, Mercy the Buzzard, Huskus the Pig Boy, Abby the Witch, and Wyatt’s Fiend.

It’s not a lore-rich maze, but it narratively hits the notable details. Early on, you’ll walk through a nearly pitch-black hallway except for the “fireflies” (blinky lights) that line the walls. You’ll pass through the Firefly Funhouse, and spy cursed symbols nailed to trees in the surrounding forests. Then you have the freakish iterations of the Wyatt Sicks, all a tad more unsettling than remembered (Mercy is on stilts and towers over guests, for example). Scenes feel like the darkest R-rated visions of a Wyatt Sicks horror movie that never came to be, inspired by gore-driven, tweaked-out “family” flicks like Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects. There’s also a reminder of when Seth Rollins burned down the Firefly Funhouse, not long before you’ll pass a poster that reads “For Bray.”

I might be AEW all the way, but I’ll tell ya, I shed a tear passing the dedication to Bray. Peep the WWE references as you pass through, too. As long as you’re not distracted by the barrels of intestines and sacrificed WWE fans.

Jason Un1v3rse

Presumptuously, I feared the Jason Un1v3rse house would have the same problem as last year’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Legacy of Leatherface (not very scary, just an I.P. showcase). Not the case! Set against the familiar summer camp backgrounds of Camp Crystal Lake, Universal’s creative team plays the hits as we encounter Jason through the years: adolescent Jason, baghead Jason, hockey mask Jason. Crazy Ralph stands outside, yelling at us, trying to stop us from sealing our fates. But like any good horror movie, we ignore all warnings and are treated to a smorgasbord of Jason Voorhees’ signatures, from gruesome kills to … well, a whole lot of gruesome kills. 

Jason Un1v3rse features some of my favorite Horror Nights gimmicks, including decapitations that end with the headless body flailing about like a chicken with its head cut off (the scare actor’s hidden inside). The details are gnarly, featuring skewered s’mores roasters and a dummy that a hidden Jason punches the heart out of as you pass by, along with franchise callbacks like lightning strikes that reanimate waterlogged Jason. There’s also a recurring livestream theme that ushers Jason into a new era, which adds a new-school feel to the throwback nostalgia. Perhaps testing for a new screenplay angle?

Friday the 13th isn’t my favorite slasher franchise, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the hell out of Jason’s 2025 Horror Nights residency. This is how you keep an icon alive.

Terrifier

No, Hollywood doesn’t have the “Wet” route like Orlando does—but Art will still make you moist. The hotly anticipated Terrifier house is a sensory overload that isn’t afraid to make you smell bleach, feces, and popcorn as you attempt to escape Art’s most memorable slaughter scenes. While there’s no holiday horror maze this year, Terrifier makes up for the lack of Christmas spirit by letting the final stretch bring festive cheer as Santa Art hacks kiddies while a light, icy mist stimulates chilly snow. It’s a nice cooldown in the California heat, but will most likely be another layer of water atop all the “bloody” squirts from dead bodies.

The Terrifier maze is appropriately gross. It’s not just the charred skeletal remains smoking outside the Clown Cafe, or even an opening bisection that recreates Catherine Corcoran’s death from Terrifier. It’s the Naughty Potty setting that stinks like actual shit, with an Art writing in doodie on the walls. Or the party clown getting table-sawed in half, with a water cannon pointed at the room’s entrance that shot me directly in the mouth as I strolled into the line of fire. But what’s best about the Terrifier house is every Art scare actor, who are all doing immaculate David Howard Thornton impressions (same to the park roamers as well). These Arts are having a blast mutilating fake bodies and toying with attendees, amplifying the entertainment factor of another body-count-heavy house.

Oh, and there’s a massive [redacted] at one point you won’t see coming that RULES.

Poltergeist

I’ll admit, Hollywood’s Horror Nights lineup sometimes has a recycling problem. They’ll fill space with a house that was used not long ago, or update, say, a Halloween house (the movie) to be about another sequel by tweaking a few sets. That was my fear for Poltergeist, but color me a fool. Hollywood’s creative team reworked Poltergeist into another memorable experience, this one not as expansive as the last, but with all-new scare tactics that never felt like a cheap replay.

You can’t escape iconic scenes from the film that had to be included. Carol Anne sitting in front of the fuzzy television set, “The Beast,” the burial ground—you’ve gotta play the hits. That said, the ingredients are different this time around. “The Beast” appears in its most frightening iterations, but actions aren’t duplicated. The gangly, white-haired version is seen in all its glory, but the gargantuan skeleton head haunted us more than last time (or maybe it seems as such because Whitey is placed as a prop). You’ll pass through the kitchen during the height of supernatural activity, and become one with the Freeling family, but the glory of this house becomes clear as you attempt to leave. A gallery of coffins lines the subterranean pathway you must use, with no ability to tell if the corpse you’re walking by is a scare actor or dummy.

Do yourself a favor and record your most skittish companions as you walk through this part of the house. If I “got got” as the kids say, they’ll be flailing like they’re covered in invisible bees.

Monstruos 3: The Ghosts of Latin America

I hope they never stop with this Monstruos series. Every edition introduces Hollywood Horror Nights’ patrons to another batch of Latin American spirits, beckoned in by La Muerte (“Death) as he waves us inside. This third adaptation spotlights La Llorona, La Muelona, and La Siguanaba, staying thematic with three women of the damned. How better to learn about other cultures’ folklore than by encountering their nightmares face to face? 

There are some repeat hits, such as the terrifyingly massive creature eating children in multiple scenes, but it’s hardly a problem. Why ditch what’s continually the house’s centerpiece? La Llorona, La Muelona, and La Siguanaba fill in nicely as narrative throughpoints and provide varying flavors of “Monstruo,” from La Muelona’s menacing grin to La Siguanaba’s ghastly horseface (like, a real undead horse’s face, not the insult). It’s a lively maze, as Monstruos is wont to be, that feels the most lived-in and atmospheric with its reddened pools filled with drowned children and sizable building facades. We’re whisked into catacombs where Latin American ghost stories dwell, and emerge more knowledgeable about regional boogeymen and women thanks to the non-discriminatory nature of fears that translate in any language.