Do you smell that? That unmistakable blend of fake fog, delicious fried food, and hard-working scare actor sweat? That can only mean one thing: nature is healing, because Halloween Horror Nights is
back at
Universal Studios Orlando for its 34th edition!
This year, the ever-popular event runs on select nights through November 2, so you’ve got plenty of time to gather your scream squad and head back into the fog. And with ten brand-new haunted houses, four sinister scare zones, a sexy stage spectacular, the return of the lagoon show, and the sudden appearance of zombie servers outside Mel’s Die-In, you certainly won’t find yourself short of things to do.
The Houses of Halloween Horror Nights 2025, RANKED
Whether this is your first time visiting Halloween Horror Nights or your 34th year of attendance, it’s important to have at least a vague plan of attack once you get through the gates. Are you going to prioritize the big IPs with the longest lines to ensure you don’t miss out, or try to fit in as many original houses as you can while you wait for a 100-minute wait time to drop elsewhere? And if you’ve only got an hour left, should you try to do one more house or snag a seat at Nightmare Fuel: Circus of Decay?
There’s no one right answer—it all depends on what you want to get out of your Halloween Horror Nights experience! But if you’re looking for a little guidance about which houses are totally unmissable and which ones are an if-the-line-goes-down option, let our Halloween Horror Nights 34 house ranking be your guide.
10. Fallout
Let me caveat this bottom ranking by saying that fans of Amazon Prime’s
Fallout will have a lot of fun seeing the series recreated in loving detail by the talented team at Halloween Horror Nights. I’d count myself among them: I binged the first season in a week before setting foot in the house and appreciated it all the more for it. It’s also a great appetite-whetter ahead of season two, premiering this December. But Fallout is not, at its core, a scary show, and that inevitably translates to an unscary house.
There’s still plenty to love here. You’ll experience Bunker 33 under seige, wander the irradiated wasteland, meet familiar characters like Lucy, Maximus, and my baby boy The Ghoul, and keep your eyes peeled for some fun easter eggs. But it’s hard not to walk away with the sense that the HHN team had to navigate some tight guardrails in terms of what they could show, how much they could alter, and which lines of dialogue they could use. However, I’ve heard that additional scare moments have been added since my visit at the start of the season, so I look forward to experiencing them when I return in late September—possibly after scarfing down some of the surprisingly delicious
Yum Yum Deviled “Eggs” at the tie-in food booth.
9. Five Nights at Freddy’s
I’m fully aware that I’m getting into controversial territory early, so let’s rip the band-aid off: Halloween Horror Nights’ Five Nights at Freddy’s house didn’t work for me. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the look of the animatronics—built by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, which also created the animatronics for the film, they simply could not be more accurate. Unfortunately, the design of the house means that the appearances of these killer mascots are both heavily signalled and create massive bottlenecks as guests drag their feet waiting for the animatronics to light up and do something creepy.
Other than Mr. Cupcake, the no-doubt very expensive animatronics are also limited in their movements and set far back from grabby hands, further restricting their ability to startle and scare. A few dead kids and a fairly convincing stand-in for
Josh Hutcherson are on hand to fill the popping-out-from-the-shadows quota, but don’t expect Freddy Fazbear and friends to get up in your face. It’s a fantastically detailed house, and the opening scene alone (featuring the animatronics singing cheerfully on stage in the restaurant before glitching out) is a delight to walk through. But with wait times regularly hitting the three-hour mark and beyond, this is likely a one-and-done for all but the most dedicated Fazbear fanatics.
8. The Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks
Wrestling fans: don’t pummel me. Based on my interactions with other guests exiting The Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks, I feel confident in saying that this house is both a treat for WWE viewers and a touching tribute to the late
Bray Wyatt, who developed the characters the house is based on and is represented inside by a still-glowing lantern. As someone who has never watched a single wrestling match in her life, though, I’ll confess that I was mostly confused, so take this ranking with a grain of salt.
Despite my ignorance, I was impressed by the energy and enthusiasm that the scare actors brought to The Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks. It’s clear that there are wrestling fans lurking both within the maze and behind the scenes, all fully committed to making this a house to remember for those in the know. It helps that many of the scare actors are also huge. A hulking horror lunging out of the dark is scary even if you have no idea who they’re supposed to be.
7. Jason Universe
Speaking of big dudes lunging out of the darkness, the Jason Universe house at Halloween Horror Nights is chock full of them. If you’re at all familiar with the never-ending
legal entanglements surrounding the Friday the 13th franchise, it will come as no surprise that the iconic date is conspicuously absent from the marketing around this one. Those constraints carry over into the content of the house as well.
Rather than a recreation of any particular movie or scene, Jason Universe offers a whirlwind tour through a world almost entirely populated by different incarnations of Jason Voorhees, all intent on introducing you to the business end of a machete. Pamela makes a brief appearance, but this is the Jason show through and through, culminating in a race through an admittedly pulse-pounding corridor of Jasons before you can leave. It’s a good time, if not a particularly unique one. The fact that we don’t eventually end up in space was also a miss in my semi-serious opinion.
6. Hatchet & Chains: Demon Bounty Hunters
Slaughter Sinema 2 was my
second-favorite house at Halloween Horror Nights 2024, so my interest was thoroughly piqued when HHN announced that one of the fictional films within would be getting the full house treatment for the 2025 event. While I would have personally preferred to see the neon-drenched musical stylings of Heavy Metal Hell Rockers or the grindhouse-inspired sleaze of Mummy Strippers: Unwrapped, Hatchet & Chains was a solid choice.
A tale of two bounty hunters—
one who can understand demons, the other a demon himself—Hatchet & Chains: Demon Bounty Hunters sees the titular duo facing off against lava demons that like to get all up in people’s bodies. This leads to a few neat scares involving hands bursting from mouths, as well as some especially cool demon horses. The story is also easy to follow, communicated from the jump by a scare actor restlessly pacing a porch set as guests filter inside. This house is a quick walk-through, though, and some ideas are better realized than others, with a video-based train effect standing out as particularly jarring amidst the practical effects.
5. Grave of Flesh
There have been no shortage of graveyard set pieces in Halloween Horror Nights’ houses over the years, but HHN 34’s Grave of Flesh finds a way to keep this familiar location fresh. After entering through the gates of the graveyard, you’ll find yourself plummeting into your own grave (be sure to look up to see the unsettling sight of a freshly dug hole complete with tombstone looming above your head as you pass). But as you’ll know if you’ve ridden Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride on the other side of the park, death is only the beginning, baby. Now in the underworld, you’ll have to dodge flesh-eating creatures as you step into the cavernous depths of eternity. Good luck with that.
It’s always fun to see if your character “survives” a house at Halloween Horror Nights, so it’s a novel twist to start out dead and go from there. Grave of Flesh also hides some toothy horrors among its cadre of scare actors, and the sound design will leave you feeling suitably hunted. The sets can get a touch repetitive, but the ghoulish lighting hides a lot of sins.
4. El Artista: A Spanish Haunting
I’m just going to say it: I might be a little bit obsessed with scenic designer Dylan Kollath. HHN 31’s Dead Man’s Pier: Winter’s Wake was one of my favorite houses of all time, and the moment I stepped into El Artista: A Spanish Haunting, I knew the same designer was behind it. Like that previous house, El Artista features a staggeringly beautiful facade, winding sets that allow you to see aspects of this haunted world from different angles, and some jaw-droppingly cool wirework from a scare actor. I won’t mince words: this is a gorgeous house, and it’s unsurprising that the overarching motif for this year’s event stemmed from its crumbling walls.
So why isn’t El Artista higher on this list? As much as I love and want to live inside it, I can’t deny that the plotline of this house can get a little lost as you venture deeper inside. Set in 19th-century Spain, El Artista centers on Sergio Navarro, a tortured artist whose attempts to find inspiration within the isolated La Casa Creación manor ultimately spiral into madness as his art forms a gateway for something evil to enter our world. It might be worth giving the
relevant Discover Universal Blog entry a quick read while you’re in line to get the most from this house, but there’s plenty of beauty to gawk at even if you find yourself struggling to follow the story to its grim conclusion.
3. Dolls: Let’s Play Dead
Chucky may make regular appearances at Halloween Horror Nights, but he’d better keep out of Dolls: Let’s Play Dead, or he might just meet his match in Lyla, a cruel little girl who delights in torturing her toys. Playing cleverly with scale, this house forces guests to see the world through the perspective of the dolls that Lyla has mutilated. You’ll walk past battery packs as tall as you are, peer out of windows of the doll house, and even enter an Easy-Bake Oven that Lyla is using to cook more than muffins. Gulp.
It’s all incredibly immersive and creative, enhanced by video effects that offer flashes of Lyla’s madness as she “plays” with you and the other doomed creatures in this plastic vision of hell. The design of the dolls is equal parts horrifying and heartbreaking, all melted faces and mangled limbs. Keep an eye out for Guest Activated Triggers in this house that reveal hidden secrets and scares. These are usually marked by big red buttons that beg to be smacked, and I spotted at least two.
2. Gálkn: Monsters of the North
Choosing the final order of the top three houses this year was no easy feat. Since I’m fairly certain I caught an actor changeover during my first walk through of Gálkn: Monsters of the North, I have a feeling it may rise to the pinnacle of my personal fondness scale upon revisiting. Even with some scare actors obviously missing, Gálkn proved a memorable house and is sure to be a hit among fellow fans of folk horror.
The story takes place in a remote Nordic village, where a wicked being has risen from the dead and brought its posse of monsters along for the ride. The sets are stunning, and the Wicker Man-inspired effigy that gradually comes into focus as you move through the besieged village is truly a sight to behold. Gálkn also boasts one of the largest puppets that I’ve ever witnessed at Halloween Horror Nights, up there with the big boy at the end of 2019’s Killer Klowns From Outer Space house, and I could marvel at that thing all day. This is the house I’m most excited to check out again, and since it’s located at the very back of the park, the lines are likely to be short at the start of the night as guests flock to the popular IPs just inside the gates.
1. Terrifier
I can already hear my editor laughing as I write this, because I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m not a fan of the
Terrifier franchise… But damn if it doesn’t make for a great house. Halloween Horror Nights proves to be a match made in heaven (or should that be hell?) for Art the Clown, a character whose exaggerated miming and penchant for extremely graphic gore translate seamlessly into the immersive, gross-out medium of a haunted house.
Based on the trilogy-going-on-quadrilogy from director Damien Leone, the Terrifier house features a variety of familiar kills from across the franchise, along with some original ideas. Art features prominently, of course (both within the house and beyond its walls as he roams freely around the park causing havoc), but you’ll also spot familiar characters like the unfortunate Victoria and the eerie Little Pale Girl. Fair warning: some scenes reportedly feature pungent smells, but since I apparently have no sense of smell (I seem to miss the house scents every year), I can’t comment on that.
What I can comment on is the wetness of the
wet path at the end of the house. It’s pretty damn wet—or at least, it was for me. The person directly in front of me escaped with barely a drip on them while I had water dumped on me from above, so the question is, are you feeling lucky, punk? Art will goad you into the bloodbath route as you approach the branch, and I’d recommend you listen to him in this instance, despite the risk. Your bravery will be rewarded with a glimpse of Sienna in her angel armor, a triumphant note to end the carnage on.
Never go alone (or without snacks) at Halloween Horror Nights
Those are my initial rankings for Halloween Horror Nights 34 at Universal Studios Orlando! It’s always interesting to see how houses evolve over the course of the season and what different guests get from them, so don’t be dissuaded from checking out something that you or your scream quad are interested in just because it fell low on this list.
Have fun, wear comfortable shoes, and be sure to grab a Walking Taco before getting into that punishingly long Five Nights at Freddy’s Line—the vegan chorizo version is especially delicious this year!
