If you were in the Orlando area recently and found everything just a little bit creepier, there's a reason for that. Halloween Horror Nights is back for 2024. The annual event is the crown jewel of the Universal Orlando Resort year. Many fans look forward to it, and this year there are 10 all-new houses for those fans to experience.
The theme this year was the duality of physical body gore, torture and psychological terror. The main icons are SINIST3R, the guardian of physical pain, body torture and gore, and SURR3AL, the overlord of psychological torment and terror. This was reflected in the scare zones and the houses. Some houses leaned more into body horror, while others messed with your perception and senses. To get through the park, you must choose either SINIST3R or SURR3AL’s realms, then you can make your way through their domains.
All HHN houses are worth experiencing, but every year some stand above all others. Which were the best houses at Halloween Horror Nights in 2024? CinemaBlend got an early look at all 10, and here are our rankings.
10. Triplets of Terror
The Barmy Triplets are the stars of this house. Universal didn’t want one original slasher, they wanted three. While the story of the house isn't entirely clear from simply walking through it, "murderous triplets you don't want to meet" is simple enough to understand.
This house was super gory. The mix of the sounds of screaming and child-like laughter was very unnerving. This house is catching some flak on TikTok for a dead dog, which may upset some, but this certainly shows how disturbing it can be.
9. Slaughter Sinema 2
If you're a Halloween Horror Nights fan, you're probably also a horror movie fan. Going to the theater to watch a gruesome murder is one thing, but becoming the victim is something else entirely.
This is a sequel house from 2018. The attention to detail with the movie posters was really cool to see if you are a fan of vintage cinema. If you like b-movies, you will appreciate seeing the different film concepts come to horrifying life.
8. The Museum: Deadly Exhibits
Museums are honestly naturally creepy places. So much of what they have are the remnants of civilizations long passed. Of course, when the stuff in the museum comes to life, it gets extra spooky.
This house has an incredible amount of detail in its design, which really makes you feel like you're in a museum. The makeup work on the scare actors, and the props, are also top-notch.
7. Goblins’ Feast
This was a super simple, but gory concept. I loved that the front of the house looked like a pub and was welcoming to humans. Things shift dramatically after you get inside. There were sounds of munching and slurping to add to the visual of the Goblins having their Thanksgiving feast of humans. This house is a great mix of horror and fantasy, something we don't see often enough
6. A Quiet Place
Everyone was wondering what Universal was going to do with an HHN house based on A Quiet Place since sound is a big part of how houses usually create fear. In this house, it starts out quiet, but that quickly changes. The common sound through the house was crying babies. It's very unsettling.
They did a great job understanding that it would be impossible to make people entirely quiet, but still honored the idea by making the scare actors who played mothers panic with the babies crying. And many guests do try to be silent, which, when it works, adds to the incredible vibe of a unique house.
5. Major Sweets Candy Factory
Many of Halloween Horror Nights' most popular houses are based on popular horror films, but over the years, the event itself has created its own stories, characters and lore. A couple of years ago, we got the Major Sweets scarezone, and it was a popular enough idea that this year it graduated to a full house.
The house is actually a prequel to the story from the previous scare zone. The storyline is simple, but very believable with the zombified children running around trying to kill you. There is a lot of gore.
4. Eternal Bloodlines
With a new Dark Universe land coming to the brand-new Epic Universe park, we're going to get classic Universal Monsters in entirely new ways. We got what might be a slight preview of that this year at HHN with Eternal Bloodlines.
There's all female monsters battling with the last descendant of the Val Helsing family, Saskia Van Helsing (daughter of Abraham Van Helsing). The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula’s daughter, and She-Wolf team up to end the lineage of the Van Helsing Family.
3. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
This year saw a new Ghostbusters movie in theaters, and while the film may not have set the box office on fire, it's the perfect setting for an HHN house. Sometimes you need a change of pace from all the scares, and Frozen Empire was that.
The animatronics in this house were awesome. This felt like you were inside the movie Frozen Empire, and true to form, it included some laughs along with the scares. There were familiar faces (new and old), and no spoilers, but right before you exit the house is one of our favorite sections of the house. It was a nice palette cleanser from the gore.
2. Monstruous: Monsters of Latin America
Monstruous: Monsters of Latin America was one of the best houses at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood in 2023. It was an exclusively West Coast house last year, so it was great to get it moved east so that another audience could experience it, and it was worth it.
The monsters may not be well known by everybody, but that only makes them more terrifying. They brought Latin American legends Tlahuelpuchi, La Lechuza and El Silbón to Orlando. It is a very graphic house with babies being eaten.
1. Insidious: The Further
This house was incredible. The jump scare potential in this one is off the scale. The scares come fast and often, and this house is easily the most frightening of all of the houses in 2024. The setup is very disorienting, which puts you on edge to begin with.
HHN keeps building every year. Bringing original stories to life, as well as finding new ones from around the world and throughout movie history, makes the event a lot of fun for hardcore horror fans and casuals alike. There are tons of easter eggs, too... if you can focus long enough between screams.
Halloween Horror Nights runs at Universal Studios Florida through November 3, and the Universal Studios Hollywood version gets rolling this weekend, with some of its own exclusive houses, including one involving The Weeknd.
