Editor’s Note: The following editorial was submitted by longtime Universal fan David Daut. In it, he shares his thoughts on the current state of Halloween Horror Nights and explores how elements of Universal’s Fan Fest Nights could inspire new approaches to the event’s future. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MiceChat. We found the ideas presented here thought-provoking and believe they offer an interesting perspective for fans and industry observers alike. We look forward to your thoughts.
Guest Editorial by David Daut
Universal recently announced that Sinners will be part of this year’s Halloween Horror Nights event. Sinners is one of the best movies in recent memory, an original horror film that not only proved popular with audiences but was also widely hailed as a significant piece of filmmaking. A film rich in visual style and packed with memorable imagery. Landing that license is a major get for Universal, and the idea of a maze inspired by the film at Halloween Horror Nights should be exciting.
So, why am I worried the theme park experience may not live up to the potential inherent in the film?
As a longtime fan of Halloween Horror Nights, how did I get here? Since returning after the 2020 theme park shutdowns, Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood has increasingly felt stale. Overly reliant on rigid formulas and recognizable intellectual property rather than creative innovation. What makes the recent state of Horror Nights even more frustrating is that we’re having this conversation on the heels of Universal’s second season of Fan Fest Nights. Fan Fest is another after-hours offering from Universal, but one that feels vibrant and exciting, standing in stark contrast to the growing sameness of Horror Nights.
Last year’s Fan Fest was a solid first attempt at a new event concept: ambitious and interesting, but a little rough around the edges. This year’s version felt much more confident and polished. Fewer experiences resembled Comic-Con activations, instead making clever use of the park’s existing infrastructure. There were more performers, more interactive elements, and crucially, experiences that actually felt distinct from one another. Every Fan Fest offering felt intuitively connected, both to the physical space it occupied and to the core appeal of the fictional worlds it represented.
On some level, the disparity between Fan Fest Nights and Halloween Horror Nights makes sense. Fan Fest Nights is still a new offering, and Universal is clearly pulling out all the stops to build positive word-of-mouth and convince guests that this event is worth their time and money. By contrast, Horror Nights is an institution, one that is already enormously successful. There’s less pressure to innovate and more pressure to stick with what already works. “If it ain’t broke,” and all that. But resistance to change also risks leaving you outpaced by the competition and, in this case, by your own newer offerings.
With Halloween Horror Nights, Universal has access to budgets and properties that other players in the space simply can’t compete with, so the competition has to come from ambition, innovation, and originality instead. Knott’s Berry Farm’s annual Halloween Haunt has become the standard-bearer in that regard, leaning heavily into interactivity, theatricality, and immersive play.
Over the past decade, Knott’s has continuously experimented with new ideas: lanterns that trigger environmental effects, laser guns for battling monsters, branching maze pathways, theatrical opening scenes, and scare zones inspired by immersive theater. Their mazes vary wildly in tone and structure and rarely feel interchangeable. Even Six Flags Magic Mountain’s Fright Fest makes impressive use of limited resources, thanks to a cast that feels engaged and empowered to be playful.
In many ways, Fan Fest Nights feels like Universal earnestly attempting to match the ambition shown by its competitors in the haunt space, but that same energy has thus far not manifested in Halloween Horror Nights. Compared with the interactive Fan Fest experiences, Halloween Horror Nights mazes often feel like the same framework applied to whatever properties happen to headline that year. Performers are confined to popping out of “boo holes” to canned sound effects or repeating the same brief scene endlessly, disconnected from the guests moving through the space.
A friend of mine calls them “human animatronics” because they’re restricted to repetitive, robotic actions instead of being allowed to truly perform or interact with the audience.
“A friend of mine calls them ‘human animatronics’ because they’re restricted to repetitive, robotic actions instead of being allowed to truly perform or interact with the audience.”
Last year, Universal secured the license for Five Nights at Freddy’s, and by all indications, it was a massive success. The event drew noticeably younger crowds who were visibly excited about the property, many arriving in cosplay and spending most of the night waiting for this single maze. But the passion of the FNaF fanbase collided with a maze design that felt like it was pulled straight from the standard Horror Nights playbook.
Fans of the series, popularized by online gaming culture and livestreaming, pulled out their phones to record themselves walking through the maze, stopping to capture every effect and performance beat. You can fairly argue that these fans should have been more respectful and put their phones away, but I think the deeper issue was Universal failing to understand how fans expected to engage with this world. Instead of designing an experience around how fans engage with Five Nights at Freddy’s, Universal largely forced the property into the existing HHN mold.
That’s where Universal’s Fan Fest Nights really shines. Rather than forcing every attraction into the same rigid box, each offering feels distinct in style and purpose, designed around both the strengths of the source material and the unique infrastructure of Universal’s theme park and studio backlot.
One Piece featured a stunt show on the WaterWorld stage that embraced the property’s over-the-top anime action.
Jurassic Park combined interactive triceratops encounters with a thrilling raptor attack stunt show.
Harry Potter offered a guided Forbidden Forest walk-through led by a Hogwarts professor.
Meanwhile, the Scooby-Doo x Universal Monsters experience transformed the Little Europe sets into a sprawling interactive mystery complete with a cast of live performers playing and improvising with guests.
All of these experiences felt unique and creative, cannily embracing the fundamental appeal of their respective worlds instead of flattening them into a single attraction format.
So the question remains: Why is Universal able to do all of this for Fan Fest, but not for Horror Nights?
I think it makes sense for these events to remain distinct from one another and appeal to somewhat different audiences, but there are absolutely lessons Universal can and should learn from Fan Fest and apply to Horror Nights. Chief among them is starting from the premise that each maze should emerge from the world it’s adapting, rather than forcing every concept into the same pre-existing structure. Let the mazes feel distinct from one another, not just visually, but experientially.
Second is better leveraging the incredible physical spaces Universal already has at its disposal. It’s fun getting to walk around the Bates Motel, the Psycho house, and the War of the Worlds crash set every year, but it feels silly that the Bates Motel spends months hidden behind plywood walls to support whatever that year’s Terror Tram overlay happens to be. These locations are assets that no other Halloween event in the world has access to. Use them, don’t cover them up.
Finally, and maybe most importantly, Universal needs to give performers, and by extension guests, permission to truly exist in these environments. Let these spaces feel alive, or at least undead, rather than functioning as little more than elaborate dioramas guests are shuffled through.
Coming back to Sinners, part of what makes that film so compelling is how it creates a feeling of joy in community, of tapping into something larger and more profound than yourself, only to then find terror in how that same community can be infiltrated, co-opted, and corrupted. A Sinners maze should ideally embrace that duality and let guests feel like they are part of something rather than passive observers walking past a sequence of jump scares.
If I seem hard on Halloween Horror Nights, it’s only because I see the event’s potential. I want it to step into its own as something vibrant and exciting rather than coasting on a formula that has started to feel tired. Fan Fest proves that potential. By embracing ambition, creativity, and immersive storytelling with Fan Fest Nights, Universal has raised the bar for themselves as much as for anyone else.
There is more potential yet to mine in Halloween Horror Nights, and after seeing what Universal is capable of with Fan Fest, they don’t have to look very far for inspiration.
What are your thoughts on Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights? Does Universal get it just right? Or are you also starting to feel like you’ve seen it all before? What changes would YOU like to see?
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