Universal Studios Hollywood Halloween Horror Nights 2022: Houses

Universal Studios Hollywood, Universal City, CA

Welcome to our second day of Halloween Horror Nights coverage! Yesterday, we posted our general review. Today, we take a closer look at the eight haunted houses formerly known as mazes this year. In prior years, we’ve treated this as an extended review of each, but for the sake of shortening my always bountiful workload during haunt season, and knowing that the photos are probably what most people are here for anyway, we’re going to keep the assessments more to list form and make this more informational.

This year, Halloween Horror Nights brings eight houses to thrill and terrify guests, with three located on the Upper Lot within regular park property, two on the Curious George parking structure accessed off the back of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and three located on the lower lot. The Metro Lot, which required a walk through a tunnel themed scare zone, is once again not being used for haunted house sites this year.

Before we get into the details, some premises… Yes, despite the new name, the HHN houses are still the same format, predominantly filled with boo boxes that use strobes and loud sounds to trigger a scareactor hiding from an unseen compartment to pop out with a jump scare. Some mazes utilize statue scares as well, but HHN is going to HHN, and their tried and true (for them) is that sensory overload jump scare. We’ve criticized this in the past, but we’ve made our peace with it. Secondly, the black hallways of years past are actually pretty minimal this year in comparison, which we appreciated. The only grossly egregious example actually occurs in one of the best houses, Universal Monsters: Legends Collide. But overall, the set design and detail was pretty strong. Lastly, maze experiences can be pretty random and often hinge on the “luck of the draw” of the talent that happens to be working when a guest passes, if a guest is at the start or end of a pulsed group, and if a guest happens to be targeted. So while we have our opinions, your trip to HHN may result in different preferences. All of this is okay and is part of the fun. Finally, this deeper dive will obviously contain spoilers, so if you don’t want to see what anything looks like or read details, then stop reading now.

And with that, lets dive into the mazes—er, houses!!

The Horrors of Blumhouse

Location:
Water World queue

Background:
This two-part haunted house follows the recent trend of incorporating recent Blumhouse Productions films. This year’s house takes guests through the 2020 movie, Freaky, about a girl who is perpetually bullied by fellow students and teachers until she switches bodies with a serial killer; and through the 2021 film, The Black Phone, about a kidnapped child who can communicate with the ghosts of previous kidnapping victims via a disconnected rotary telephone.

What We Liked:

Honestly, not much, but Freaky had a more cohesive visual storytelling than The Black Phone.
Woodshop teacher Mr. Bernardi’s death scene.

Areas for Improvement:

The Black Phone half seemed much more sparse than the first half.
Lots of plain sets, minimal detail, little scenic interest.
Prop chainsaw in climactic scene of Freaky was odd given that the scare zone monsters use real chainsaws.
The Black Phone scenes seemed disjointed, with a greater prevalence of unthemed, dark hallways.

Universal Horror Hotel

Location:
Old location of the AMC Walking Dead attraction, next to the Secret Life of Pets ride.

Background:
An old Hollywood hotel that was the site of a serial killer, Maximillian Deville, and rumored practices of dark arts has reopened, but the Maxie has come back from the dead, and he won’t be allowing guests to check out alive!

What We Liked:

Use of an original story for the maze instead of another IP.
Backstory established via numerous news reel videos shown in the queue.
This felt like a gory version of an Old Hollywood, Tower of Terror setting, mixed with an ambiance of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining.
Making a long hallway actually a themed long hallway instead of a black corridor.
Mythology makes a good potential for a sequel.

Areas for Improvement:

The visual storytelling did not seem to progress through any actual plot, instead appearing to just run through a series of scare scenes.
Maxi Deville’s connection to the dark arts seemed a little vague and disjointed… was he leading a cult, or did he practice it himself?

La Llorona: The Weeping Woman

Location:
Parisian Courtyard, near Mel’s Diner

Background:
An updated version of the 2011 and 2012 La Llorona mazes, this haunted house delves into the legend of La Llorona, a woman who drowned her children to be with her lover, only to be rejected, and now spend eternity weeping for her lost young ones—and looking for new victims to take their place.

What We Liked:

Another mostly original house contributing to the most non-IP line-up in HHN Hollywood history.
Beautifully spooky and haunting sets, very atmospherically laid out.
The return of iconic scenes from the old mazes, including back to back finale scene scenes from 2011 and 2012 where a giant La Llorona devours a child hole.
All the dead children made this maze incredibly creepy.
Rotting horse monsters… great costuming.
Organic integration of video effect scares.

Areas for Improvement:

Death odor used in the crypts.
Other than the usual commentary about over-reliance on boo box scares, not much.

Universal Monsters: Legends Collide

Location:
Behind The Mummy attraction, the entrance this year is on the Jurassic World side of the bottom of the Starcade escalator, which has normally been the exit side of this maze/house location

Background:
The fourth iteration of Halloween Horror Night’s popular Universal Monsters series, this original story using Universal’s most iconic IP’s pits Dracula, The Mummy, and the Wolfman against each other in a search for an amulet that can free each of their immortal curses.

What We Liked:

Fun, original story pitting three Universal horror icons together for the first time.
Use of genuine props from The Mummy throughout the maze, enhancing the beautiful set design.
Multiple Easter eggs throughout the maze for fans of the IP’s.
Soundtrack by Slash, which was less electric-guitar / dubsteppy and more cinematic at the beginning.
Stilt walking Anubis monster.
Greater variety in the scare tactics used.
Triple scare finale with the icons was pretty fantastic.

Areas for Improvement:

John Murdy noted that this maze is the second half to the version in Horror Nights Orlando; some sort of synopsis of what happened over there might have enriched the story.
Visual storytelling was not as strong as last year’s Bride of Frankenstein Lives (though that’s more a testament to last year’s stellar maze).
Extended black corridor (with “scare string”) completely brought the momentum and flow of the maze to a stop.

The Weeknd: After Hours Nightmare

Location:
Soundstage 29, to the left of The Transformers attraction

Background:
Horror imagery from the music videos of several songs from Grammy Award-winning The Weeknd’s 2020 After Hours album form the basis of this haunted house.

What We Liked:

Creative risk-taking by using an inspiration that many people might not normally associate with horror (fans of The Weeknd would understand, but those who aren’t as familiar likely question the choice).
Good use of the album’s disturbing imagery.
The soundtrack (if you like The Weeknd).
Mirror maze portion, ala Super Bowl Halftime Show.
Metro map Easter egg of The Weeknd’s albums and songs.

Areas for Improvement:

Scare moments felt less frequent in this maze compared to others.
We would have liked to see the progression of the maze follow the album music video storyline progression.
Sparse theming in some of the rooms, such as the for “Heartless,” “After Hours,” and “Save Your Tears.”

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Location:
Backstage area to the right of The Transformers attraction

Background:
A mirror clone of the 2019 maze dedicated to 1988 Chiodo Brothers’ cult-hit horror-comedy classic, this house features an invasion of aliens who look like clowns who come to Earth to capture, harvest, and feed on humans as food.

What We Liked:

Playful and fun nature of this maze in contrast to serious and intense feel of most HHN mazes.
Much less water effects than the 2019 version, which was practically a splash zone.
Great variety in scare tactics.
Still love the hand puppets scare.
The ventriloquist scene with Officer Mooney.
Location sort of randomly backstage felt appropriate for aliens landing in an obscure area.

Areas for Improvement:

This was an exact clone of the 2019 maze, and a few additions here or there would have been beneficial.
Some of the black hallway transitions were more noticeable.

Halloween

Location:
Curious George Parking Structure, accessed by passing through the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and following the backstage path behind Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey

Background:
Based specifically on the original 1978 John Carpenter classic about Michael Myers and his rampage through the town of Haddonfield.

What We Liked:

This was a very faithful and well executed rendition of the popular movie, hitting all of the main movie beats.
Great, quality sets throughout the maze.
even though they were expected, the jump scares throughout the maze were executed very well.

Areas for Improvement:

Only major nitpick is that Halloween has been used so much at Halloween Horror Nights that it could use a break for a little while. But this house did well for what it set out to recreate.

Scarecrow: The Reaping

Location:
Curious George Parking Structure, accessed by passing through the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and following the backstage path behind Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey

Background:
In the 1930s Dust Bowl Midwest, crows and supernatural scarecrows have taken over a dying town and harvesting those remaining citizens to become sustenance and new scarecrows!

What We Liked:

Another original story used for a haunted house instead of an IP.
Creative prop death scenes from the crows and scarecrows.
A VERY gory maze that almost felt like Universal channeling the inner Knott’s Scary Farm.
Not as many water effects as feared after John Murdy promised them for an outhouse and a rookery (or perhaps they weren’t working opening night).
Great energy from the scareactors.
Good mix of statue and boo box jump scares.
King Crow stilt monster finale.

Areas for Improvement:

More victim live actors could have enhanced the storytelling of the crows and scarecrows taking over this Dust Bowl habitat.
One of the scarecrow scareactors near the end was literally button spamming the boo box trigger, and while this was funny, it took away from the experience.
Would have liked more of a soundtrack than just mostly sound effects.

And that’s our take from this year’s Halloween Horror Nights! Overall, we though the maze line-up was pretty strong. Maybe not the strongest ever on account of no single maze truly rising above to be cream of the crop, but as a whole average, most of the mazes were pretty enjoyable and creative. Again, we commend the talent that had to swelter through the 90°-100° heat and gross humidity on opening night. They still put a lot of energy into their performances, and that is not an easy task at all.

We’ll wrap up our 2022 Halloween Horror Nights coverage by looking at the scare zones, Terror Tram, themed dining offerings, and Death Eater Encounter. Until then, stay spoopy!