I will be the first to admit I am a huge chicken. When I watch horror movies, I do so at home with my hands partially covering my eyes. Yet somehow, I spent last weekend screaming my head off in 10 frightfully fun haunted houses at Universal Orlando’s annual Halloween Horror Nights event.
Why would a self-proclaimed scaredy-cat willfully put herself through several hours of monsters, demons, ghosts and gore? Because even though I may have lost my voice by the end of the night, there is so much more to Halloween Horror Nights (known as HHN among fans) than cheap jump scares. The teams who design and build the houses are as twisted as they are talented, and the scare actors give their minds, bodies and, let’s face it, probably their souls to fully embody the characters they’ve been cast to portray.
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Plus, there are all the makeup artists, costume designers, sound and lighting technicians, and other staff members who helped make this event possible. In short, despite being terrifying, when you walk into the houses at Halloween Horror Nights, you feel transported into the (under)worlds these artists have dreamt up. In between screams, I find myself awestruck by what they’ve been able to create. That feeling keeps me coming back year after year … along with the fact that I’m pretty good at laughing it off when I survive yet another house.
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To help you prepare for your visit, I’ve ranked all 10 houses from this year’s event. But for all the reasons mentioned above, my rankings aren’t based on scares alone. Almost every house is one I would happily take on again, and the ones that I’m less enthusiastic to repeat are only because of how terrifying they were. Instead, my rankings are based on how excited I would be to go through a particular house again.
Even so, rankings are subjective. My list will likely be totally different from yours, and that is just one more thing I love about Halloween Horror Nights. Each house has its own unique blend of storytelling, set design, creative characters and, of course, scream-inducing scares. No matter what flavor of horror you prefer, you’ll find it here.
Read on to see how my rankings compare to yours — I’ll see you in the fog.
Halloween Horror Nights 2024 haunted house rankings
1. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
This house is based on the newest film in the “Ghostbusters” franchise, but that doesn’t mean you won’t see your favorite characters (both human and otherwise) from the original films, too. You enter the house through Ray’s Occult Books shop before walking through scenes inspired by “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.” You’ll then meet Garraka, the evil god who tries to use his ice powers to destroy the world in the movie.
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As you move through the house, you encounter ghosts from the new movie, including dozens of Stay-Puft marshmallow men, but also classic characters like Zuul, Slimer, a library ghost and even Vigo the Carpathian from “Ghostbusters 2.” You also get to see the Ghostbusters doing what they do best — fighting ghosts with their electrified proton packs.
What really blew me away about this house, though, was the set design. Some of the rooms were so big and immersive that I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay and soak up every detail. This was all intentional, of course. While I was distracted by the scale and beauty of the house, Garraka had the perfect opportunity to pop out and scare me, which he did … several times.
2. Slaughter Sinema 2
This B-movie horror-themed house is (quite fittingly) intended to be a sequel to Slaughter Sinema, a haunted house that debuted during Halloween Horror Nights 2018. Both the original house and this year’s are set at the Carey Drive-In theater in Carey, Ohio, a recurring HHN location and the real-life hometown of one of the event’s creators.
When you enter Slaughter Sinema 2, you are dropped right into the middle of the bloody action of eight gory horror films, from a Mardi Gras murder scene to a strip club with soul-stealing mummies. What makes this house so much fun, though, is the sheer variety of characters and settings you get to experience. It’s almost like eight mini haunted houses in one.
My favorite scenes were “Blood and Chum,” an undersea shark attack with a shark puppet the size of which I hope to never see in real life, and “Killer Kringles,” which will make you very wary of ending up on the naughty list.
3. Monstruos: The Monsters of Latin America
This house highlights three Latin American legends — Tlahuelpuchi, La Lechuza and El Silbon — but these are not the bedtime stories I would tell my children at night. Tlahuelpuchi is a female vampire who feasts on the blood of babies, La Lechuza is a witch who can shape-shift into an owl, and El Silbon is a cursed soul that carries a sack of bones of terrifying unknown provenance.
Actually, you don’t have to imagine any of it. As you walk through the Monstruos, you get to see firsthand how these mythical creatures hunt and kill their victims. This house’s character design and gore level were top-notch, and I loved that the characters paid homage to real-life legends of cultural and historical importance.
La Muerte, a personification of death, was another recurring character seen at various moments in this house, but it was more sad and beautiful than scary, which balanced out the house’s more frightening moments without taking you out of the macabre myths.
4. Triplets of Terror
There’s a long history of slasher houses at Halloween Horror Nights, but they are often based on classic films like “Halloween” or “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” This year, Universal created its own slasher in Triplets of Terror. The house follows the Barmy triplets — Melody, Harmony and Junior. For reasons unbeknownst to us, the triplets murdered their whole family on the day of their ninth birthday. Every 10 years, the triplets “celebrate” their big day by recreating the murders in a new town with new victims.
I ranked this house so highly because as I was walking through it, I realized that it felt ready-made to be turned into its own slasher film. This house travels through space and time as we visit the scene of each new crime, leading to a scene that mirrors the triplets’ ninth birthday in a dark and disgusting way.
In most houses, you don’t know which scares to expect. In some ways, it was scarier knowing that all three of the triplets were hiding somewhere in each room, just waiting for the right moment to pop out and surprise me.
5. Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines
For several years, Universal has created a house dedicated to the classic monsters that made the studio famous. In this year’s iteration, every night is ladies night with the Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula’s daughter, She-Wolf of London and the mummified Egyptian princess Anck-Su-Namun taking center stage in the house’s all-female cast.
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In this house, Saskia Van Helsing, the daughter of Abraham Van Helsing and the Bride of Frankenstein, have teamed up to battle Dracula’s daughter, who has partnered with She-Wolf and Anck-Su-Namun for a battle to the death. I was so scared by all the monsters trying to attack me that I found it a little hard to follow the story.
I didn’t even realize who had won the battle (which I won’t reveal because I don’t want to spoil it for you) until other people in my group discussed it afterward. However, the scenery in this house, from Anck-Su-Namun’s Egyptian tomb to Dracula’s castle, was gorgeous, and the girl-power aspect gave it major points in my book.
6. Major Sweets Candy Factory
Each year, one house stands out as the “comic relief” house. This year, that house is Major Sweets Candy Factory. Building on the lore of the Sweet Revenge scare zone from 2022’s HHN event, Major Sweets has invited school children for a field trip to his candy factory, and you are among the lucky adults chosen to chaperone the trip. Unfortunately, Major Sweets’ candy is sweet in name only — these treats turn kids into murderous maniacs.
Make no mistake, this house has plenty of scares and an overwhelming amount of gross-out gore, but the over-the-top Major Sweets and Miss Treats characters, along with the candy-coated kids, added an element of fun.
If you get a chance to do this one, be on the lookout for two big red buttons in the house. You can press these guest-activated triggers to up the scare factor.
7. A Quiet Place
There are currently three installments of the “A Quiet Place” film series, but this house focuses on only the first two. If you haven’t seen the films, they are set in a reality where monstrous aliens have taken over the Earth. They cannot see, so they only attack what they can hear. The film’s premise put Universal in the position to build a house that was as quiet as the films. This starkly contrasts the usual loud music and sudden sounds in most haunted houses, but the effect was chilling.
Rather than walking through a house full of noise, there were characters who popped out of the darkness without making a sound. Because the house was so quiet, I knew that if I heard a noise in the distance, an alien attack wouldn’t be far behind. In staying true to the films (there is a deaf character in the first two movies), Universal incorporated the use of American Sign Language into the house. Universal worked with members of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community to bring ASL into the house in an accurate and appropriate way.
As much as I loved this house, the quiet factor was more unsettling in theory than it was in practice. I wanted it to be nearly silent, but when you have a house full of guests who are scared and screaming, that is hard to accomplish. I also thought, based on the premise, that there would be moments when we were the ones setting off the noises and alerting the aliens to our whereabouts, so I think my own perception of what the house would be may have gotten in the way of enjoying it for what it was. I can’t wait to walk through this one again with a fresh eye, though.
8. The Museum: Deadly Exhibits
The setting for The Museum: Deadly Exhibits is the Museum of International Folklore. There’s a new exhibit on display at the museum called the Rotting Stone and, as you may have guessed, it’s wreaking a bit of havoc. What I loved about this house is it’s not only the museum guests and employees who are being infected by the Rotting Stone, but the installations as well.
That said, even as a scaredy-cat, I didn’t run from this house with my heart pounding out of my chest. It wasn’t overwhelmingly scary, but I loved the uniqueness of inanimate objects coming to life.
Several of the exhibits began to move and come to life as the Rotting Stone took hold. I can safely say this house presented my first encounter with a haunted sail and possessed wallpaper, and I absolutely loved it.
9. Insidious: The Further
Let me preface this by saying the one and only reason I ranked this nearly last is because it was so scary that I hope to never pass through that big red door again. This house is based on all five installments of the “Insidious” film franchise. When you enter the house, you are walking through the red door into the Further, a dark dimension inhabited by demonic beings and the tortured souls of the dead.
The scares in Insidious: The Further are, in a word, relentless. It is one of the scariest haunted houses in my HHN history. It isn’t just the sheer number of jump scares but also how they come at you.
There are rooms full of drapes and curtains that could be hiding all manner of demons (which, of course, they are) and other rooms that are filled with so many demons and ghosts right out in the open that I was literally afraid to walk any further. When I did finally make it out, my heart didn’t slow down for a good 10 minutes. I talked to other guests who fell to the ground in this house because they were so frightened.
The demons and settings stay true to the films. The characters looked very much like they did on the big screen. I have friends who ranked this house at the top of their list, and I completely understand why. As someone who can barely be in the same room as a balloon because of how high I jump when one pops, this house shook me to my core and beyond. Into the Further, I hope never to go again.
10. Goblin’s Feast
Who doesn’t love a feast? Well, you may not love this particular feast if you are of the human variety. In this village of goblins, orcs and witches, you are what’s for dinner. There were hungry goblins feasting on body parts hiding around every corner, which definitely had me screaming.
There was one very large and very scary goblin at the feast table that I couldn’t look away from (which also provided an easy opportunity for his wife to scare me), but aside from that, it didn’t connect with me. I’ve heard several people say this was one of their favorites, so don’t take my word for it. Maybe I’m not a goblin girl.
Bottom line
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: There was not a bad house in the bunch. Every single house this year knocked it out of the park in different ways, and I cannot wait to go back. I should probably give my voice a few days to recover before I take on Halloween Horror Nights again, though.
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