Last Thursday, Universal Studios Hollywood kicked off the Halloween season with the opening of Halloween Horror Nights 2024, and it was a hot one, both in temperature and in entertainment.
Southern California’s most extreme Halloween event kicked off with more than one extreme as the region was hit with an excessive heat warning, making it one of the hottest opening weekends of Horror Nights that this writer can remember. Despite the extreme temperatures (it was still almost 90ยฐ around 11 PM on opening night), the event went off without a hitch, kicking off the So Cal haunt season with eight all-new terrifying haunted houses, a new Terror Tram experience featuring the horrors of Blumhouse, all-new scare zones, and live entertainment.
The opening weekend kicked off with the red-carpet arrival of several Halloween and horror icons. Among the celebrities in attendance were Blumhouse’s Jason Blum, Director and SFX creator Greg Nicotero, Director Eli Roth, Producer/Director James Wan, actress Lin Shaye, and even the horror master himself, John Carpenter.
This year’s lineup of houses features several recognizable IPs, including “A Quiet Place,” “Ghostbusters,” “Insidious,” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” all of which look incredible. Fans will also be delighted by the latest entries in the theme park’s Universal Monsters houses, with Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines and a second iteration of last year’s Latina American-inspired haunted house, Monstruos.
Among this year’s lineup of houses, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Legacy of Leatherface was my favorite (You can catch my complete ranking of all eight houses on Instagram). Paying tribute to 50 years of the iconic horror franchise, John Murdy, the Creative Director of Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood, called this house a love letter to the franchise during the Horror Nights presentation at Midsummer Scream, and that love showed. From sets to characters to flow, this “multi-verse” approach to the story of Leatherface and the Sawyer family was incredibly well done and features fan-favorite characters from across the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise in terrifying meat-themed environments.
Another highlight of this year’s event was “A Quiet Place.” Inspired by the first two films in Paramount Pictures’ critically acclaimed “A Quiet Place” franchise, the house is the first to incorporate American Sign Language (ASL) into a Halloween Horror Nights House. Beyond the unique usage of ASL, Universal’s set design and recreation of the Dark Angels as puppets in this house were incredible and authentic looking, making you feel like you were in one of these iconic films.
Sadly, Monstruos 2: The Nightmares of Latin America didn’t quite live up to my expectations. The sequel to one of my favorite houses of 2023 paled in comparison to the original house, which brought to life some of the most terrifying creatures from Latin American folklore. What hurt this house is that the first iteration had larger-than-life monsters, including Tlahuelpuchi, La Lechuza, and El Sibรณn, as focal points of the house. This year’s monsters, which included El Charro, El Cadejo, and El Cucuy, were on a relatively smaller scale, the exception being El Cucuy, which appears in a key scene at the end of the house. That said, I love that Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood continues to explore Latin folklore for its houses and its accompanying scare zone, Luchadores Monstruosos, featuring luchadors inspired by classic Universal Monsters, was a favorite.
Halloween Horror Nights continues September 12 and on select nights through Sunday, November 3.
A variety of Halloween Horror Nights ticket options are available for purchase to the Universal Studios Hollywood event. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit UniversalStudiosHollywood.com.
