As Halloween Horror Nights draws to a close, it’s time for us to reflect and finalise our Halloween Horror Nights 30 house rankings. Yet again, Universal have done a fantastic job with their houses, making ranking them a tough job. Even our least favourite house this year would be considered one of the best at most other haunt events. Without further ado, here’s our Halloween Horror Nights 30 house ranking from worst (but still not bad) to best.
10. Beetlejuice
It pains me to place this house at the bottom of my list, and I must preface my reasoning by stating that there really is no bad house at Halloween Horror Nights 30. With that being said, I have been one of the people calling for this house year upon year, so perhaps it’s the fault of my own high expectations that I’m a bit let down. The cast of this house do a great job portraying their characters and many of the scene recreations are amazing to see. We knew this wouldn’t be a scary house, but didn’t expect it to feel quite so empty. Perhaps we’ve just had bad run throughs. The interactions are great where you get them, but we never seemed to get that many. We must also point out, and this will be the only place we mention it, that the current precautions (of which we understand and respect the need for) only really significantly hindered this house. The plastic screens do of course affect the scares in all houses by showing you where to expect them, but as Universal has decided they are needed we won’t waste time saying this over and over. Despite this, Beetlejuice was the only house where we really felt they affected the set design. In addition to this, we thought the masks were poorly themed and disrupted interactions with iconic characters. We have no problem with either thing being there, we just wish they’d been blended better within this house. A clear mask or false print of Beetlejuice’s face would have worked well for his character. Even without these complaints, which we understand come down to safety precautions , the house would still fall at the bottom of our list. It wasn’t terrible, it just didn’t live up to expectations. Iconic scenes, particularly the table dance, just weren’t featured enough to satisfy us. Maybe we know and enjoy the film too much to ever be satisfied with a house.
9. Case Files Unearthed: Legendary Truth
This house is likely to be the last ever located inside the Shrek theatre. Although not often the location of one of our favourite houses, waiting in-line with a mash up of Halloween and Shrek theming has become a tradition. Legendary Truth has become a recurring part of Halloween horror nights, functioning as the events investigation team. In this house, you follow the film noir-esque investigations of the collectives founder Boris Shuster. We love the style of this house, and the scene in the Kitty Kat club stands out as a fun moment. There’s a good variety of scares and scenes, making this an interesting house, although not that scary. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of dead space, filled with posters introducing each case.
8. Welcome to Scarey: Horror in the Heartland
This house is set in an iconic location for Halloween Horror Nights, the incredibly unfortunate town of Carey, Ohio. Taking scenes from previous Halloween Horror Nights houses, this house blends a selection of Carey’s most terrifying moments into one house. With its location in one of the tents, this house is only small and as a result this location is often home to the events worst house. Despite this, we actually believe this is one of the best houses we’ve seen in this location, although our favourite is still House of 1000 corpses. The best part of this house for us was seeing Cindy Caine, H.R. Bloodbgutz and Sam & Meety Meetz, iconic Halloween Horror Nights original characters, all in one location.
7. The Haunting of Hill House
The hit Netflix show has finally come to Halloween Horror Nights, a fact I was personally so excited about. The interior facade of this house, Hill House, is one of the most stunning ones I’ve ever seen. The interior of the house isn’t much less gorgeous, with the iconic red room door, the exact windows and even door handles from the show. Getting to see all the ghosts, particularly of course the bent neck lady, is equally exciting and terrifying. Visiting the basement was certainly not something I ever longed to do, making this scene of the house a bit nerve racking. I love this house and really hope to see The Haunting of Bly Manor at a future event. My only criticism of this house is that there’s a bit too much dark space, which seems a shame when the rest of the scenes are so beautiful. Despite this, the music and characters from the show make for an excellent experience.
6. Universal Monsters: The Bride of Frankenstein Lives
Returning from last year’s Halloween Horror Nights Lite, this house tells the story of what happened after the 1935 film The Bride of Frankenstein. The Bride is desperately trying to bring Frankenstein back, capturing the Brides of Dracula in hopes they will help reanimate her love. The opening of the house is the highlight, beginning by projecting the destruction of Frankenstein’s tower and then taking guests into these ruins. It’s always great to see any of the classic Universal Monsters and we personally believe they should always be present at the event in some capacity. This house has a lot of good scares as well as impressive scenes.
5. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Although promotion seemed to suggest that this house would be based on the original 1974 film, it was later confirmed that this house would be set in 1978, between the first and second film. We really like this idea, especially as the film has already appeared as a house at Halloween Horror Nights 26. It’s great to start in the gas station this time, feeling more like you are following in the footsteps of the narrative from the first film rather than just visiting the Sawyers house as in 26 (although the impressive house facade from this year is somewhat missed). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of my favourite films, so seeing it come to life in a new way was very exciting. My personal highlight is the Leatherface scare actor who scares with a miniature version of his chainsaw ballet from the 1974 films conclusion.
4. Revenge of the Tooth Fairy
This was another house that was open last year. This house tells the story of what happens when a child refuses to give up their tooth to the Tooth Fairy. The houses facade looks like the inside of a children’s pop-up book and is one of the coolest and most creative ones we’ve seen. If you don’t think you could handle dental gore, this isn’t the house for you. It’s quite incredible what a weapon tooth floss can become. The fairies themselves are tiny yet terrifying, making for a cute yet gory house.
3. Puppet Theatre: Captive Audience
A deserted puppet and ballet troupe in an abandoned San Francisco theatre want to turn you into a human puppet. The abandoned theatre facade of this house is just gorgeous, and the characters doing the scares would be amusing if they weren’t so darned scary. Who knew a ballerina or puppet could be quite so terrifying. The story of this house is a unique idea and was executed wonderfully. The house has many scares, a great variation of characters and the sets are both beautiful and creepy at the same time.
2. The Wicked Growth: Realm of the Pumpkin
This house was an extremely close contender for number one, as it provided just about everything we have come to love from Halloween Horror Nights. This house really does deliver on what so many fans of the event love about the original houses; it’s scary, it’s unique, it’s full of Halloween and it has been designed to perfection. In this house, the Pumpkin Lord needs sacrifices, and one of those is you. The entrance to this house is a tunnel of pumpkins, which for any Halloween fan is a dream come true. Inside, you get to walk through a pumpkin farm, into the pumpkin lair. Part of this house takes you inside a pumpkin, where you are surrounded by pumpkins and yes, of course, pumpkin guts. This house is Halloweenx1000 and has some of the best scares at this year’s event.
1. Halloween Horror Nights ICONS: Captured
For the events 30th anniversary, Jack (and the whole group idea of having an event icon) is back. Inside this house, is practically every (or exactly every official?) Halloween Horror Nights icon. Once you enter through the awesome facade, playing videos of the icons and featuring figures of them, you meet The Caretaker, Chance, Jack and Fear in an epic introduction. Next is the realm of Lady Luck, then The Directors set, followed by the cinema haunted by The Usher. After this, you visit The Caretaker’s funeral home and then see the Storyteller telling a tale. Bloody Mary is even present, with a winding mirror hallway. Finally it’s Chance’s patient room and Jack’s Carnival realm. To conclude the house was Fear’s throne room, where a variety of switching icons would be seated or scaring. This house, while certainly scary, felt like a meet and greet with a cross between celebrities and old friends. Some of these icons we’ve been lucky enough to experience at their own events but others we’ve only read about. It was like the most exciting museum of Halloween Horror Nights past, and gave me the chance to experience the icon overload of my dreams. For this reason, and as huge Halloween Horror Nights fans, this house has to be number one.
If you were lucky enough to experience this event, what was your ranking? Remember everyone has different preferences and experiences different run throughs, so there’s no right or wrong!
