Review: Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights scares competition with new lineup

By Kenna Jenkins, September 29, 2026

Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights once again kicked off the scary season with a killer line-up of attractions.  

The event has eight mazes this year:, including “Stranger Things,” “Sinners,” “Hellraiser,” :Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness,” “Evil Dead Burn,” “Killer Klowns from Outer Space,” “Killceañera: Music by SLASH” and “Dead, Deader, Deadest.” In addition to the mazes, there was “Terror Tram starring Art the Clown,” which was a welcome change from the past two years of Blumhouse Terror Trams. 

Here are the top five 2026 Halloween Horror Nights mazes: 

 

1. “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” 

The maze, named after the 1988 horror comedy, that follows a small cast of townsfolk as the giant aliens called “Klowns” terrorize the town of Crescent Cove using their circus-themed weapons to capture and eventually eat the residents., was the scariest of the night.  

While the beginning of the maze leads into the neon multicolored spaceship, guests quickly encounter the Klowns popping out of walls and various extraterrestrial technology. Throughout the maze, guests can also enjoy recreations of the silly gags the Klowns play on the Crescent Cove residents, like small worm-like aliens popping out of toilets. 

 The bright set design added to the fun while not dampening the Klown scare actors, which easily stood 6 six feet tall. A carnival themed organ soundtrack added to the eeriness of the scare actor’s masks, which looked like a regular clown that’s been stretched and melted. 

The scare actors, not waiting behind a curtain to get you, teased and waved, pretending to blush at the attention before lunging at you and laughing at the screams and recoils. Klown laugh tracks from the movies were also played during and after their jump scares, which was easy to hear between the screams and loud sounds they play during scares which always gives me a boost of adrenaline.  

Due to the neon sets and the black lights throughout the maze, when scare actors did pop out of walls or from behind curtains, it was jarring seeing their white faces and bright red hair that stood out against the black walls and glowing props. 

For those that don’t like to get wet, beware of the surprisingly long-range water guns that left an entire arm of my sweater soaked for hours. 

The maze is located in the lower lot. I only waited 35 minutes, which was a welcomed surprise compared to the 50-minute posted wait time.  

 

2. “Sinners” 

Based on Ryan Coogler’s Oscar-winning film of the same name, the “Sinners” maze was, no surprise, one of the best of the night with amazingly detailed set recreations and unique stunts. 

The movie follows identical twins Smoke and Stack, both played by Michael B. Jordan, as they open their own juke joint for the Black community in the Mississippi Delta during the Jim Crow era and eventually have to fight off the violent attacks against them by Remmick, an Irish vampire played by Jack O’Connell.  

The maze starts off in the juke joint where scare actors playing Stack and Sammie, the musically talented younger cousin of the twins played by Miles Caton, welcome you to the maze before you enter into the actual attractions. This was an interesting setup I haven’t seen in a maze before, but it was enjoyable and fitting considering a big part of the movies is storytelling. 

Costuming for the scare actors were screen accurate and even included detailed special effects like vampire bites and stab wounds from wooden stakes. This was nice, considering recreated gore for mazes can sometimes look overly fake. All of this was likely due to the fact Coogler worked with Halloween Horror Nights to bring the maze to life.  

One of the first scares is Remmick, the Irish vampire who terrorizes the cast, thrashing behind a foggy, scratched up window. This part of the maze was extremely loud and got a lot of screams from fan, myself included, even though I’m sure people knew it was coming from the TikToks of people flirting with Remmick through the glass. 

Eventually you see scare actors reenacting the final battle, which played screams and gunshots in the background of the characters fighting off vampires, which is overall heighted by the high ceilings in the building the maze is located in. The building was clearly utilized well when building the sets because there were even humans fighting vampires on a balcony.  

While I waited a little less than 30 minutes for the maze located in the upper lot, after a couple hours, the wait time didn’t seem to drop below 90 minutes.  

 

3. Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness 

While I didn’t know much about Ozzy Osbourne, the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath who died last year July 22, I can say the maze did an excellent job of making Osbourne feel like the prince of darkness.  

The maze, which had a high wait time almost the entire night, took on a vampiric horror with a grotesque vampire vaguely resembling a younger Osbourne that jumped out at you throughout most of the maze interspersed with scare actors in white nightgowns wearing masks resembling bats.  

While I had no problem with the Black Sabbath songs that played outside and throughout the maze, the repeated use of Osbourne’s laugh from the intro of his song “Crazy Train” after almost every jump scare did get tiring after a while.  

Though the maze didn’t seem to have much of a plot, mostly taking you through trains, graveyards and tombs, it made up for it with the incredibly detailed designs through all the sets. Some of the sets felt reminiscent of the gothic horror Robert Eggers created in his 2024 adaptation of “Nosferatu.” 

It also had some of the best animatronics and jump scare props out of all the mazes, one of the notable ones being a train with a skull on the front that feels like its rushing toward you. They were well lit and detailed, giving the best animatronic, a giant man with a grotesque bat head, its own room, which felt intentional considering sometimes you are at the whim of an operator’s timing when hoping for highly anticipated scare.  

 

4. “Evil Dead Burn” 

Even though I found the movie  boring and lacking a plot, the “Evil Dead Burn” maze was bound to be fun considering  it might be one of the goriest movies of the year.  

The maze essentially follows the movie beat for beat, which shouldn’t be a problem for those who haven’t seen it, since the violence the Deadites, which are possessed humans that become the antagonist in Evil Dead movies, inflicted on their victims and their rare survivors is usually comically sadistic and full of personal teasing for turned loved ones. 

In the film, Alice, the widow of Will Price, grapples with the complicated grief of her abusive husband’s death while dealing with her aggressive in-laws who each turn into Deadites and torment her in the Price’s secluded vacation home.  

In most Evil Dead movies, the Deadites will verbally and physically tease their victims. “Evil Dead Burn” was not exception, and thankfully neither was its maze. As you go through the maze and encounter various scare actors dressed as Deadites, they mouth cruel and crude insults at you and other scare actors, which is always fun especially when they lunge toward fans.  

While the line, located in the lower lot, was about 15 minutes, this was at the beginning of the night during the early access period. 

 

5. Hellraiser  

Though I got a little unlucky with the timing of the scare actors, with the scares either being in front or behind me, it was hard not to notice the insane attention to detail on the scare actors in the “Hellraiser” maze.  

The masks look incredible with most of the people jumping out were dressed as Pinhead, the leader of the demons called Cenobites, who is probably the most recognizable character with a bald, blueish head and dozens of long, evenly spaced pins sticking out of it. They all stood out well against the scare actors clothing, which was usually some type of black leather robe. 

While I haven’t seen a single “Hellraiser” movie, I was familiar with the character design, and the leather wrapped science-fiction design of the movies.  

While the maze has aspects from different movies in the franchise, the first movie is the series, “Hellraiser,” is a science-fiction horror film from 1987 that follows the Cotton family as the deal with the repercussion of opening a puzzle box containing the sadistic Cenobites.  

Starting the maze, there were chains everywhere, a reoccurring theme for rest of the maze. The chains hung from the ceiling or ripped into the skin of bloodied mannequins.  

The maze was a good balance of bloodied scare actors and mannequins mixed in with the Cenobite scare actors. It could have done with a little bit more leather considering some of the sexual themes from the movies, but considering the Cenobites’ sadistic nature, it’s probably all the same.  

The line for the maze, located in the lower lot, was also about 15 minutes and was the first maze I did after getting into the event with early access. 

Halloween Horror Nights’ line up of mazes had multiple scream worthy scares and get costume and set design. For the mazes that didn’t make the list, many of the scares weren’t notable and were predictable, sometimes bordering on lame, or they weren’t based on a show or movie with a solid story to follow.  

While “Killceañera: Music by SLASH” had a fun mash-up of Latin and metal music, once inside the maze lacked a plot and was hard to follow even if I had a few good scare and very detailed, culturally-relevant costuming.  

The maze “Dead, Deader, Deadest” had some truly nasty looking set design with mannequins oozing green goo littered around almost every room, but some of the jump scares consisted of some flashing lights and scare actors lazily wiggling their finger in your face which was a disappointment. Even with some aspects of mazes being lackluster it was still a solid year designed to satisfy fans.