The Stories Behind the Scares: Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood 2026

September 18, 2026

Hello and welcome back to the Where In The Park Podcast, this is Kevin, and on this episode I'm going to be covering everything you'll find at Halloween Horror Nights 2026 at Universal Studios Hollywood.

If you want to learn all about the history of haunt events in general, please check out our episode from last year's spooky season entitled "From Scary Farm to Horror Nights: The History of Halloween Haunts".

Also, if you would like to listen to a conversation about our experience at this year's HHN, check out this week's episode of Imagine That over at Walt's Apartment Productions, where Amanda and I chat with our friend Kelly about the fun we had at this year's event. It was Kelly's first time ever at a haunt, so it was a great time getting to hear her perspective.

This, though, is the Where In The Park Podcast, so I'm going to be sharing some backstories of the experiences that are available this year, what they are, and why they're there, and what their story is.

A signature feature that you will find at haunt events are temporary walkthrough attractions with immersive theming and live "scare-actors" placed throughout. Universal Studios has a long history of creating original storylines for some of these experiences, while also creating attractions based on licensed properties, often from other film studios.

This year, it's 2026 as I'm recording this, which I mention just incase you're listening from the future, the park in Hollywood has eight haunted houses, four scare zones, and a Terror Tram experience.

If you have never been to one of these types of events, the term "Haunted House" is what Universal uses for their walkthrough attractions, which is only slightly less confusing than the term "maze" which they used to use, and is still often used by other parks. So, you might overhear people using the terms "house" or "maze" interchangeably when discussing these attractions, when in reality the experiences normally don't represent either of those things literally.

With that out of the way, the "houses" this year include four that are based on movies, one based on a Netflix series, one based on the music of Ozzy Osbourne, and two original concepts, one of which features original music from the artist Slash, a man famous for being the guitarist for the band Guns N' Roses.

Amanda and I have attended multiple Midsummer Scream conventions over the years, where we have sat in to watch panels being given by showrunners at Universal Studios Halloween Horror nights. In these panels, they have made it clear that they begin planning next year's event before the current year's event has even started.

But, to build anticipation, they wait to announce what guests will find at the event gradually throughout the year.

It was on May 21st that tickets went on sale for this year's event, and that was also the date when Universal made their first house announcement.

They let us know that if we were to attend this year, we will have a chance to walk through an experience inspired by the Oscar-winning film Sinners. This is actually a Warner Bros. film, not Universal, which was written and directed by Ryan Coogler, who is also known for his work on the films Creed, Black Panther, and Wakanda Forever. The majority of the story for the film Sinners takes place in 1930s Mississippi, with a supernatural threat, aka vampires, attacking a newly opened "juke joint" owned by twin brothers, both played by actor Michael B. Jordan. It has some allegorical connections to anti-colonialism and cultural appropriation, which is likely why it won Academy Awards when normally horror films don't even get nominated.

We took the Unmasking the Horror tour, which this year is the first time this type of tour has been offered in Hollywood, and we learned some fun details about this house. They explained that the vampires with light up eyes effect is done with small LED lightbulbs the size of grains of rice that the make-up team applies to the scare-actors, and thankfully the side facing them is black, and they can easily ignore them. Also, the trees in Magnolia woods section are from the E.T. attraction that used to be on the lower lot, where the Revenge of the Mummy is today, as well as trees that were made for the A Quiet Place haunted house, which was in the same location as this house two years ago. And, the truck that is parked in front of Club Juke is a picture car from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the George Clooney movie from 2000 that was co-produced by both Disney and Universal. Also, the music in the film Sinners, and therefore the house, is by Ludwig Goransson, who also did the music for Coogler's Creed and both Black Panther films, but also did the score for the Disney+ Star Wars series, The Mandalorian.

If you want to get a Club Juke beverage, they have temporarily converted Mulligan's Pub at the end of the street, across from the Secret Life of Pets ride, into Club Juke, but they didn't exactly go overboard with the retheme, so don't expect to many temporal anomalies.

Okay, so that was house one, announced on May 21st, and almost a month later, on June 17th, they shared that Stranger Things 5 would be the theme for another house. This, of course, refers the fifth and final season of the long-running and incredibly popular Netflix series, Stranger Things. It is the fourth time the franchise has found itself in Halloween Horror nights, with prior houses in 2018, 2019, and 2023. Those three experiences were completely different from one-another, with the first being based on events in season one of the show, the second based on seasons two and three, and the third being based on season four. In 2024, the series had haunted attractions at Six Flags Magic Mountain near Los Angeles and Great Adventure in New Jersey. From walk-thru videos I have found on YouTube, they look like they were fun, but clearly didn't have the same production budget as their Universal counterparts.

As for the series itself, it originally premiered on Netflix in 2016, created by the Duffer Brothers, that's Matt and Ross Duffer, and produced by many people, including Shawn Levy, with those three being named as having worked with Universal Creative to design the houses in the parks. It is reported that the close working relationship lead to digital files, set blueprints, and original prop vendors being shared with Universal to ensure the accuracy of the houses. Many sources have said that this year's experience is the final time the franchise will appear at HHN, but considering there is an animated series, Stranger Things: Tales from '85, that began a second season yesterday, if you're listening to this episode as it drops, so I don't know if this franchise is actually ready to definitively say it's done. If you have missed out on the series, it follows a group of kids who live in a town with a tear to another dimension filled with monsters, and in later seasons it is revealed that it's kind of rooted in one man's evil nature. Either way, there are magical powers involved, and it loosely resembles Dungeons and Dragons logic. Give it a watch, it's fun.

But yeah, a cool thing about Universal Studios Hollywood is that they use an actual soundstage for at least one house every year, and this year that's where you will find Stranger Things 5. According to the plaque outside, the house is built inside of Stage 29, constructed in 1964, and was used during the productions of Knight Rider, Murder She Wrote, Jurassic Park III, Bruce Almighty, and Fast & Furious V, among many others.

Continuing on, about two weeks later, on June 30th, they announced that a house based on the Hellraiser film franchise would be coming as well. This one takes inspiration from the original 1987 movie, as well as the 1988 and 1992 sequels. According to John Murdy, Creative Director for Halloween Horror Nights, the Hellraiser franchise had been his "white whale", trying for several of the past twenty-one years to get to bring it into the parks. This means that this is the first year Hellraiser has shown up at HHN, and that Hellraiser is obviously not a Universal property. The original film was produced by Film Futures and distributed by Entertainment Film Distributors, which aren't familiar names to me, but the rights eventually ended up with New Line Cinema, but it turns out that there isn't a movie studio today that owns the U.S. rights to Hellraiser, with it instead being owned by the original writer since December of 2021. The movie was written and directed by Clive Barker, and was inspired by a novella he had written a year prior, in 1986, named The Hellbound Heart. Interestingly, Clive Barker had a three year run at HHN, creating walkthroughs named Clive Barker's FREAKZ Maze in 1998, followed by Clive Barker's Hell in 1999, and Clive Barker's Harvest in 2000. By the way, according to my research, the FREAKZ maze marked the first of many times that Universal would use the letter Z instead of an S at the end of a word for an experience. When Universal announced that Hellraiser was coming this year, they mentioned that the original voice actor for the Pinhead character, Doug Bradley, would reprise his roll and record custom lines for the house. There are eight more movies in the franchise, so it's possible that we will be seeing more from Hellraiser at future events. As far as what the house is like this year? You walk into a large puzzle box, which in the films is known as a Lament Configuration, then you walk through some chains, simulating the beginning of the first movie when the box sends out hooks on chains to tear a guy apart. You then encounter some Cenobites (SEE-nuh-bytes), which are quote "angels to some, demons to others," who don't differentiate between pleasure and pain. Either way, the costumes and sets are amazing, and worth a visit just to get an up-close look at them.

It would take another three weeks for the next announcement on July 21st, when we learned that the fourth house would be for Evil Dead Burn. This is a film that released to theaters on July 10th of this year, and is the sixth movie in the Evil Dead franchise. If you aren't familiar with the franchise, it began in 1981 with The Evil Dead, a movie written and directed by Sam Raimi, a name that you might recognize from his work as a director on the Toby McGuire-lead Spider-Man movies from the early 2000s, as well as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Evil Dead burn was co-produced by Raimi, but was directed and co-written by Sebastien Vanicek (vah-nee-check). It is a New Line Cinema film distributed by Warner Bros. It is not the first time the Evil Dead series has appeared at HHN, with houses on both coasts in 2013 based on the Evil Dead remake from that year, followed by Ash vs. Evil Dead houses in 2017 based on the Starz TV series. And, there was a house in Hollywood based on Evil Dead Rise in 2023 that coincided with that film's release as well.

Speeding up the announcements, the following day, on July 22nd, the first scare zone was announced: Fortnitemares. This is based on a seasonal event of the same name that appears in the popular Epic Games video game, Fortnite. The game was released back in July of 2017, with Fortnitemares premiering as a special event in the game during the Halloween season of the same year. Besides costumed characters, this zone features a full-size Battle Bus from the game. As theme park fans, even if you haven't played Fortnite, you may have seen a large purple Llama or a guy in a banana costume at Legoland parks to promote the LEGO Fortnite crossover campaign. While, over at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios, the Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run attractions now connect to a Smuggler's Gambit island in the game.

The next day, July 23rd, they announced the fifth house, which was the first original, non-licensed, house for the season: Dead, Deader, Deadest. John Murdy wrote the treatment for this house, which is about the Deville Funeral Home where they use a fictional product named Ambrotox as embalming fluid. According to the story, it makes recently deceased people look good, but it does have the adverse effect of bringing bodies back to life. We ran out of time while were there and didn't get to do this one, but I watched a walk-thru on YouTube, and it looks terrifying.

A few days later, on July 26th, Ozzy Osbourne merchandise was accidentally released, spoiling the July 29th reveal that Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness would be the theme for the next house. This house, of course, isn't based on a movie or tv show, but it interprets songs by Ozzy Osbourne into a haunted house, including Crazy Train, Let Me Hear You Scream, and Bark at the Moon. This isn't the first time HHN has interpreted a musician's music into a house, as far as I can tell, The Thrilling Chilling World of Rob Zombie in 1999 has that honor, but it's also not the first time Ozzy Osbourne music has found its way into a house, with a Black Sabbath house appearing in 2013. There is a YouTube video that Five Fires posted of John Murdy discussing how he pitched the idea for the Black Sabbath house to Ozzy backstage in Austin, Texas, and he not only approved, he brought the family to Universal on opening night to go through it. He said Ozzy thanked him and gave him a kiss on the cheek to show his appreciation. After Ozzy died, in July of 2025, John called up Jack, Ozzy's son, and told him his idea for a house based on his dad, and he worked with the Osbourne family to create the house, getting photos to use for props, and the okay to include a giant bat biting off Ozzy's head.

Only a few days later, on July 31st, they announced the return of the show The Purge: Dangerous Waters in the WaterWorld theater. This show premiered at HHN three years ago, using the theater that was designed for the WaterWorld stunt show back in 1995. It has been performed at HHN every year since its debut in 2023. The storyline for the show is based on the film franchise by James DeMonaco, which began with the original The Purge movie in 2013. There have been four sequels and a tv series, with a fifth movie reportedly in the works. They are Blumhouse Productions distributed by Universal Pictures. The basic concept behind the franchise is that they take place in a dystopian future where once a year, for twelve hours, citizens are allowed to commit any crimes they want, which leads to lots of murder. As for the WaterWorld theater being used during HHN, the first time was in 1998 when Universal presented SlaughterWorld that year. Eight years later, they would bring back the idea with SlaughterWorld 2 in 2006 and again in 2007, and in 2008 it was updated to SlaughterWorld 3. All of these took place in roughly the same story universe as WaterWorld, except blood packets and gory props were added to make it more visually violent, while they also added some sexual innuendo to make it more adult.

On August 4th, they announced the return of Killer Klowns from Outer Space. This is the only licensed haunted house in Hollywood that does not also have a house in Orlando this year -they instead have a Killer Klowns scarezone. The first time the property appeared on either coast was in a queue video for an original house named Giggles & Gore Inc. in Orlando in 2014, but the first time costumed characters from the film appeared was in a scarezone, also in Orlando, back in 2018. The following year, houses showed up on both coasts in 2019. The Klowns returned to Hollywood with a revamped house in 2022, and this year marks what is likely the only time a house based on a single film has appeared three times on either coast. To be clear, despite multiple attempts at follow-up movies and a tv series, Killer Klowns has not yet filmed a sequel to the original 1988 cult classic film, meaning it's not a franchise like the other properties that have appeared multiple times. There was a video game that came out in 2024 for PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S, and Windows, with mixed to positive reviews, but it didn't really seem to expand on the original story. There is also an article from last year that reported that Ryan Gosling was working with Amazon MGM Studios to produce a remake, we'll have to wait and see if that happens. The original film was distributed by Trans World Entertainment, which after years of acquisitions, including being briefly owned by Seagram starting in May of 1998, which was during the same time when that drink company also owned Universal Pictures, but they would sell the rights to MGM by the end of 1998. The Klowns film was created by the Chiodo brothers, Stephen, Charles, and Edward, who are known primarily for their work as special effects artists for movies like Critters, Ernest Scared Stupid, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, the stop-motion elements in Elf, the 2003 movie with Will Ferrell, and many more, but to date it is the only movie they have written and directed. And for another music fun fact, the composer of the score for the movie, John Massari, had worked on the music for the last two seasons of Little House on the Prairie, as well as Johnny Quest, and composed the intro song for The Wonderful World of Disney, in the years before his work on Killer Klowns.

And continuing on, it was a few days later, on August 9th, as part of a panel at this year's Midsummer Scream, John Murdy and Universal announced that the Terror Tram would star Art the Clown this year. Art is a character from the Terrifier movie series. The character actually made his first appearance in a unrelated short film from 2008, named The 9th Circle, but the first feature-length film in the series came out in 2016. It was a relatively unknown indie film, until the sequel came out in 2022 and clips went viral on TikTok and Twitter. A Terrifier haunted house was built last year, and Art was given free reign of the entire park, even outside of scare zones. The house often had a long line all night long, which makes sense why they would expand the experience to the backlot. The theme for the Terror Tram went all in on Terrifier 3, which takes place during Christmas, while it also features repeat appearances of the Little Pale Girl from Terrifier 2. As you're walking through the experience, you'll go under house-shaped archways that look a lot like the house from the Blumhouse logo, and that's because they were reused from when the Terror Tram experience was brought to you by Blumhouse during the past two years. These Terrifier films are not Blumhouse productions, they are owned by Dark Age Cinema, a company founded by the writer and director of the Terrifier movies, Damien Leone. There is currently a lawsuit filed by a company named Ruthless Studios, which was reported on back in June of this year, where they claim they own the rights to The Terrifier because they paid $5,000 for the rights when they worked with Leone to create the original short films that Art appeared in. Either way, Terrifier 4 is reportedly in production, we'll have to wait and see what happens to the franchise in the future.

And, also announced at Midsummer Scream on August 9th, the final house is KILLceañera: Music by Slash. This was the other haunted house that we were able to take a tour of with our Unmasking the Horror tour, along with Sinners, and it expands on the original houses that have previously been in this location over the past few years of HHN. The story of this house, we were told, has been in the works for at least the past seven years. Universal Studios has been featuring folklore from Latin American culture at least as far back as 2010, when La Llorona was added to a scarezone, and then received her own house the following year, and again in 2012. The location on the upper lot known as the Parisian Courtyard was transformed into Mexico for El Cucuy (el koo-KWEE): The Boogeyman in 2013. The years that followed transformed the Parisian Courtyard into the home of various classic Universal monsters, from Dracula to the Bride of Frankenstein, until 2022, when it was turned back into Latin America for La Llorona: The Weeping Woman. The following year, it continued the story with Monstruos: The Monsters of Latin America, featuring Tlahuelpuchi (tlah-weh-POOCH-ee), La Lechuza and El Silbón. In 2024, the courtyard became Monstruos 2: The Nightmare of Latin America, which introduced to the park El Charro Negro and El Cadejo, and included the return of El Cucuy. And then, last year, the area turned into Monstruos 3: The Ghosts of Latin America, with La Llorona, La Muelona, and La Siguanaba, along with La Muerte as your guide. This year, the story revolves around Lola, a girl who was disfigured by a house fire on her 5th birthday that killed her parents. She had been bullied for ten years, and on her 15th birthday, her quincenera, she has summoned the spirits and monsters of Latin American folklore to help her get revenge on her tormentors. As you start this house, if you're lucky, a live character of Lola is on the balcony above the front door belting out an original song named 15 Candles. When you enter the building, you see a table with fifteen candles on it, and as you continue through the house, each kill is seen holding one of those candles. The monsters that you come across are El Cucuy (the boogeyman), Muerte (death), La Lechuza (a giant shapeshifting owl), La Llorona (the weeping woman), El Silbon (the Whistler), Tiahuelpuchi (a vampire-witch), and El Charro Negro (a devilish tall, handsome, elegant man in a black suit and a wide-brimmed hat).

As for it including music by Slash, like I mentioned earlier, he's most famous for being the lead guitarist for the band Guns N' Roses, but he has also been involved with HHN for many years. His real name is Saul Hudson, and he's actually an English-American, whose first collaboration with a haunt was 2014's Clowns 3D: Music by Slash, where he also appeared as a static figure. Back in 2014, he wasn't part of Guns N' Roses, having stepped away in 1996, but he would re-join the band in 2016. Starting in 2018, he would have a house featuring his music every year, except for 2020 when the event wasn't held. He did the music for Universal Monsters: Music by Slash in 2018, and his music would accompany Universal Monster-themed houses through 2024. In 2025, there was Scarecrow: The Reaping: Music By Slash, and there was also a Slash Bar that year.

According to an LA Times article, he attended HHN in Hollywood in 2013 and went through the Black Sabbath house with Murdy as his guide, and decided right then and there that he would like work with Universal to create a house as well.

Over at Universal Horror Unleashed, the year-round haunt experience in Las Vegas, there are houses based on Scarecrow: The Reaping as well as Universal Monsters, but their soundtracks aren't the versions created by Slash.

Continuing on, at Midsummer scream, they announced the three other scare zones joining Fortnightmares, Hackerz, El Circo de la Muerte, and Blood Bog, as well as two street experiences Murder or Crowz and Shriek of the Banshee. According to Murdy, the person in charge of the scarezones is a person named Pat Quinn, he is a creative manager who has spent over 45 years at Universal Studios Hollywood.

The Hackerz name for a scarezone is new, but the idea of a scarezone with chainsaw wielding maniacs goes back to the early days of HHN. Even the old Jaycee's that we discussed in our history of haunts episode reportedly included scares involving chainsaws.

El Circo de la Muerte is a 1930s Mexico-inspired circus scarezone, with the name being Spanish for The Circus of Death. From my research, it's the first scarezone to incorporate its own mini-haunted house, with a walkthrough that you can find past a ticket booth labeled "Espectaculo Macabro" which means "macabre spectacle," but the English text found underneath it in the park reads: "Sideshow of Death." It has several props, animated figures, screens, and up to two live scare-actors, in a short 1-minute experience that's easy to miss if you don't look for it.

Blood Bog is a very small scarezone located by the entrance archway to the Terror Tram right on the border of Springfield U.S.A. It has some moss covered creatures that like to hide along moss covered boulders that are technically known as Ghillie Creatures. But, like I said, it is small, and if you walk quickly through the fog on your way to the Terror Tram, you might not even realize you walked through a scarezone.

As for the street experiences, when they were announced, a few news outlets reported them as dance parties, but we wouldn't call them that. The first experience, Murder of Crowz, is actually a continuation of the use of the crow costumes that have been appearing at HHN since 2023. During their first year, they were free roaming characters that also appeared at the end of that year's Terror Tram, which was themed to The Exterminatorz. They have had their own scarezones every year since, and honestly, I'm not sure what makes it an experience this year instead of a zone. They have an animatronic baby chick crow that appeared in past years between the two doorways to the Studio Store across from Hollywood and Dine eatery this year, which is the area of the park where you will find them. If you're sitting on along the fence eating, they might pop their head over to surprise you, but other than that, they tend to not enter the seating area. There are a few stilt walking crows among the scare-actors, and they're fantastic at their job. Make sure to spend some time in this area, especially while The Purge is performing, and the crowds are light.

Oh yeah, they also confirmed that Death Eaters would return to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. These characters first appeared in the fourth book/movie, and are considered members of the inner circle of "he who must not be named." They're generally not great people. The wizarding world area in Hollywood opened in April of 2016, almost six years after the original opened in Orlando, but the Death Eater characters didn't show up at HHN on either coast until they premiered in Hollywood in 2022. The following year, they were on both coasts, but then for the next two years they were exclusively in Orlando. This year, they're finally back on this coast, and they're absolutely as magical as expected. We attended in 2023, and when we went to find them, they were relegated to the back alleyway behind the Owl Post's owlery in the land. This year, they were free roaming throughout the Hogsmeade section, and would occasionally get together to shoot a green burst of magic into the sky. Probably summoning Lord Voldemort, oops I said his name, and you can sometimes find the Dark Mark projected on the Hogwarts castle.

They also announced that fans of the film Obsession would have a chance to interact with the character Nikki. The film by Focus Features was written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Curry Barker, and it is a Universal-owned movie. It was released to theaters in May of this year, and was a huge success considering that on a budget of only $750,000, it went on to gross $475 million globally. Considering that they plan HHN over a year ahead of time, this likely means that her character was a very late addition to the event, but they were also able to add One Wish Churros to the food offerings, a play on the One Wish Willow from the film. If you haven't seen the movie, the willow is essentially a monkey's paw, where you can make a wish on it, but it's likely that bad things will happen. So, break those churros in half and make a wish at your own risk. I did not participate, so I'll just keep wishing upon the fresh made churros with chocolate sauce over at Legoland. If you haven't tried them, we highly recommend.

And well, I think that covers everything you're going to find at Halloween Horror Nights in Hollywood this year. If there's anything I missed or got wrong, please let me know! You can send a DM to any of our social media accounts, @WhereInThePark on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, or contact us through our website, whereinthepark.com. Even better, join our free private Facebook group, Where In The Park Explorers, share your experience and keep the conversation going.

Also, when you're ready to get to know Universal Studios on an even better level, pick up a Where In The Park game. Order a pack at WhereInThePark.com and we will mail a physical set of cards that each have an image of a detail that has been cut out from its background, and you will go on a quest to find out where in the park those locations can be found. Each card has a QR code you can scan for help along the way, to make the adventure as laid-back or crazy challenging as you want. Click on "Games" at the top of this page to start your adventure!

And well, this is Kevin signing off, until next time, we'll see you somewhere in the park.