Halloween Horror Nights is the biggest event of the year at Universal Orlando Resort. The theme park builds multiple terrifying houses, or mazes, every year, some based on original concepts, others based on popular movies, TV, or video games. If you’re a fan, you can already pick up tickets for the 2022 event-- but be aware that if you do so, you don’t actually know what you’re buying a ticket for. Because none of the house themes for this year have actually been revealed yet.
In announcing that single night tickets are now on sale, Universal Orlando Resort does confirm that Halloween Horror nights will run for 43 nights from September 2-October 31 2023. There will be 10 different houses as well as five scare zones at this year’s events. But what those could be is only being rumored right now.
Vacation packages can now be booked and upgrades like the R.I.P. Tour and the Behind the Screams: Unmasking the Horror Tour are also available. The Frequent Fear pass, which allows guests access to multiple nights over the course of the run are not yet on sale but will almost certainly be made available later. It’s been standard practice in recent years for single night tickets to go on sale first.
The unveiling of just what the various maze themes will be is always a multi-month process leading up to the event itself. Universal Orlando Resort will usually announce them one at a time as a way to hype the event. But while we often have at least one announcement around the time tickets go on sale, anybody buying tickets right now is doing so on faith.
Of course, there are lots of rumors about what this year’s themes will be, and many of those rumors turn out to be true, so anybody buying tickets at least has a guess of what this year’s event will look like. Fear Street and The Last of Us are among some of the more intriguing theories of what we might see this year. Universal Orlando has also used the HHN Twitter account to tease what might be part of this year’s event.
Previous years have seen everything from The Haunting of Hill House to Ghostbusters appears at Halloween Horror Nights. Jordan Peele’s Us has been represented at HHN, and one rumor has been that his new film, Nope, might appear this year.
Of course, if we’re being honest, it probably doesn’t really matter that we have no idea what HHN will look like this year. If you’re a Halloween Horror Nights fan, then you have an expectation that the event will be great regardless of what the themes of the houses actually turn out to be. 2021’s return of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando Resort was awesome, so why wouldn’t this year be? Some people might make a decision to attend based on the themes, but for many you either love Halloween Horror Nights for what it is or not. The rest is just details.
Having said that, with tickets now on sale, and with 10 houses to reveal in about five months, we probably will learn what the first Halloween Horror Nights house is very soon, not only in Orlando but at Universal Studios Hollywood as well. Both locations have the event and while they tend to have some houses in common, each theme park also get unique houses, making both events special in their own way.
