Universal Studios

It had been on John’s bucket list to go to Halloween Horror Nights in Universal Studios way before I even knew this was a thing, and this was the first opportunity to be able to do this together.

In this post we will each rate the houses, show pictures of the scare zones, and share the lessons we learned.

Houses

We melted in the sun as we waited in the holding area to access The Last of Us area. When they finally released the throngs of us, John and I hurried over to the line of The Last of Us house. For over an hour we listened to the theme song play on a loop. Finally, we reached the entrance and made sure our phones were put away. I did not know what to expect, and I was really hoping to feel a lot of fear, but the person right in front of me got all the scares. I left the house disappointed about that but thoroughly enjoyed the city scene and fungus-infected zombie monsters.

Our next house was Universal Monsters: Unmasked. Now that we were able to use the express pass, we just zipped right by people. We entered into the Paris Catacombs and had to face Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde and the Phantom of the Opera. I still managed to miss all the scares in this house, too, so it was another disappointment. I was realizing that I needed to lower my scare expectations.

After a quick dinner, we headed over the Darkest Deal. In our research beforehand, I did not have high hopes for this house where a blues musician makes a deal with The Collector. John and I exited with big smiles, though. It’s all about timing, and we were positioned just right.

Next up was Dr. Oddfellow’s Twisted Origins. There was a lot going on in this house; it had a circus-gone-wrong feel. I didn’t know much about it going into it, and I was actually startled when this weird doll-like thing jumped out of her hiding spot.

We left the eastern part of the park to head over to the Dueling Dragons: Choose Thy Fate “castle.” John was most excited about this house (he’s a big dragon fan, lol), and when we completed it the first time, his expectations were aptly met. We originally wanted to take a right to choose the ice dragon to be the victor, but when we got to the crossroads, everyone else was going that way. We quickly decided to change course and take full advantage of ideal timing. This happened again when we went through it the second night, and we chose the exact same path. So, even though the fire side was neat, I’ll always wonder about that ice…

John and I were both super excited about YETI: Campground Kills because in our research someone had mentioned walking through sleeping bags that were hanging from the ceiling and how you couldn’t really see what was ahead of you, which means that there was ample opportunity for a good scare. The reality was a bit different: this section was not long enough; it was literally, like, three sleeping bags. Plus, the yetis were kind of lame. Sorry, yetis.

We hurried to get Chucky Ultimate Kill Counts out of the way. I’m not a fan of gore, especially not from a stupid doll’s idea of fun. This was both of our least favorite house.

By the time we got to Stranger Things 4, we were so tired, but we really had no choice but to suck it up and do it, unless we wanted a repeat of waiting in long lines. Earlier in the night I changed my expectations about being scared to just enjoying the scenes, and I did exactly that. Eddie’s house looked so much like the one in the show. Though most of it is a blur, I vividly remember seeing cheerleader Chrissy twisted in awkward angles on the ceiling. I would have loved to had another chance to walk through it again.

We did not have the express pass for the second night, so we figured we’d get the two houses that we missed, watch the Nightmare Fuel Revenge Dream (this show was full of fire, really great music, half-naked people wearing thigh-high boots and crazy-fast dance moves) and enjoy the scare zones.

We started with Bloodmoon: Dark Offering. We had listened to a podcast give the back story for this house, and I’m so glad we did; it really added to the experience. I definitely felt rushed, maybe even more than in any other house because I wanted to see everything, and there is literally no way to be able to do that with only one trip through. John got really freaked out toward the end of the house where people were sitting in pews, but some of them were actors, and you had no way of knowing which ones were until they got you. This is one of the houses that I would have wanted to do a bunch more times.

After we exited Bloodmoon, we hustled to The Exorcist: Believer. This house was truly creepy. Neither of us had watched the original movie, but I had knew of some vague references. None of that really mattered because this house was inspired by the new movie (which I really want to see now). There was a particular smell that made the house even more eerie. Out of all the houses, this was my favorite and the one I found the scariest (even though I did not get spooked, directly). A+

Scare Zones

The first scare zone (at the front lot) is Dr. Oddfellow’s Collection of Horrors. Though relatively short and not that exciting, it got you in the spirit of the night.

The Dark Zodiac scare zone was full of characters on stilts, masked men brandishing chain saws and various monsters – based on the zodiac symbols – ready to chase you down. On our last walk through this zone, I was finally scared by a malevolent creature who took advantage of me being distracted by John.

The Jungle of Doom scare zone was small and narrow, which meant that you were more likely to have a hidden jungle monster ambush you.

Continuing around the pond to the San Francisco area you had the Shipyard 32 scare zone. In my opinion this one was lacking in scare quality. It was also the shortest zone. We opted to spend more time in the others.

In Diagon Alley there were at least six Death Eaters mingling with muggles, using their evil magic to control them. John and I didn’t spend as much time in this area, but we did happen to witness them take to the stage to focus their wands to cause a burst of flames. I was excited thinking I caught it all on video, but turns out my timing was off and all I got was a video of legs.

The final scare zone was Vamp ‘69. To me this was the most fun because it was a long stretch of bloodthirsty vampires moving through the crowd as flower-power music blasted from speakers. By far this zone had the most actors and props to complete a concert scene gone wrong. We spent the most time here.

Lessons Learned

We had tickets for two nights: the Thursday and Friday before the long Indigenous Peoples’ Day weekend. The express pass was necessary for us to be able to conquer 8 of the 10 houses on Thursday night. But here’s where we messed up: instead of waiting in the line for The Last of Us before we could actually use the express line, we should have started at a less popular house (Bloodmoon, for example), and then we would have been able to visit more houses with the express pass in the hour-plus we spent waiting in line for one of the more popular houses. Second lesson: get to the holding area by 4pm. The first night we were way too late and just about melted in the sun as we shared tight quarters with hundreds of others. I felt like cattle waiting for slaughter; it was miserable.

So:

• Get an express pass for at least one night
• When you have an express pass, start at a less popular house
• If you don’t have an express pass, get to the holding area of the most popular house before 4pm
• Do your research by listening to podcasts that talk about the houses and strategies