LISTEN TO OUR FULL PODCAST EPISODE REVIEWING HHN HOLLYWOOD HERE
For many people in Los Angeles, a visit to Universal Studios Hollywood during the months of September and October are a must! Halloween Horror Nights has continually brought fans fears to life though immersive haunted houses from their favorite movie properties. And the list of properties that have been featured at HHN is extensive! 2024 being no different. This year HHN is bringing to life: Insidious, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, A Quiet Place, Universal Monsters, Blumhouse, and Texas Chainsaw! But it doesn’t end there! They’re bringing to life the ghoulish imagery from the mind of The Weeknd with “The Weeknd: Nightmare Trilogy” and some original concepts too.
We think HHN succeeds in one particular area this year that changes our entire experience…they made us laugh. The key to a well balanced halloween event, in our minds, is levity. There are so many different flavors of horror and people tend to forget about it! Not everything has to be the scariest experience in the world. There needs to be nuance as well as variety. This allows room for the absurd which in turn can elevate scares. With scare zones like Murder of Crowz and Luchadores Monstruosos; the event has been injected with a much needed dose of humor. Not only that, but this is the second time HHN has explored the IP of Ghostbusters which we consider to be “horror adjacent” and much more of a comedy/drama. Overall, is getting scared fun? Yes! But for those of us who rarely get scared anymore, having the ability to laugh our butts off makes for a memorable experience.
Another area in which we think HHN succeeded this year was it’s Terror Tram theme. There are HHN events across the globe, but NOBODY has the Terror Tram. It’s the one unique attraction to Universal Studios Hollywood. But in past years, sometimes it almost felt like the “paint by numbers” version of the Terror Tram. While boasting great stories and IP, the scares could be minimal. But this year got a big refresh with “Enter The Blumhouse”. The vignettes displaying different kills with Megan and the changed route by The Bates Motel were a fun change of pace for us. It’s simple changes like this that can elevate the over all experience. Then The Purge fits right at home in the War of the Worlds set! While we don’t get to visit the NOPE set this year, it’s not terribly missed. The Terror Tram feels lean and mean in it’s execution which we love.
Of course, events aren’t without their flaws and issues. Rarely are events perfect! For us, HHN could really benefit from expanding offerings throughout the park and an adjustment to it’s queue operations/management.
Often times at HHN, after walking through the main entry scare zones, you lose the halloween essence. This years scare zones are fantastic, but everything feels so condensed. Yes, there are houses on the Lower Lot. But if you’re not actively going through a haunted house there’s really not much to keep you in the halloween spirit. It could very well be you visiting Universal Studios Hollywood on any other night! We think HHN could be spiced up in various smaller ways to make it feel like a more cohesive event throughout the park. We also often say we wished there was a scare zone on the Lower Lot and that hasn’t changed. Crowds might be a large factor in not having a scare zone on the Lower Lot, but it’s missed greatly.
Then in terms of line management and operations, something has to change. Not because of the length of the lines, HHN has always been notorious for longer lines. That we have grown to accept with a massively popular event. But for us it’s the ways guests are being pushed through experiences. On both nights of our visit, we had HHN line management yelling “KEEP MOVING! KEEP MOVING! DON’T STOP! KEEP MOVING!” It completely takes you out of the moment and ruins all the hard work done to create a scary and fun experience for guests. We understand that guests throughput is essential, but there has to be a fair middle ground that doesn’t interrupt the overall experience of HHN. Look, we’d understand if people are actively stopping and management has to remind guests. But it was being yelled as people were actively moving and sometimes quickly. It just felt out of place in an overall very pleasant experience at the event.
Even with these minor issues, we still think Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood has a strong outing in 2024. Aggressive scares mixed with impressive sets and much needed humor was the winning combo for us. Let’s not also forget that this was truly the birth place of the horror film and started a movement. Being able to walk through the very soundstage where Frankenstein was filmed back in 1931 is nothing short of astounding. It makes HHN so special. The marked improvements in terms of it’s overall tone and it’s experiences shows that regardless of popularity, HHN continues to grow and change in ways that will help it last for decades to come!
FOR MORE INFORMATION REGARDING HHN AT UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD,
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