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Universal has been preparing for this day for 112 years. The studio began making horror films with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1913 and have dropped one stone cold classic after the next: The Lon Chaney-starring The Phantom of the Opera in 1925; the immortal Tod Browning-directed, Bela Lugosi-starring Dracula in 1931; the James Whale/Boris Karloff Frankenstein in 1931. It released Bride of Frankenstein in 1935; The Wolf Man, 1941; Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1954; Psycho, 1960; An American Werewolf in London, 1981; The Thing, 1982; The Mummy, 1999; Drag Me to Hell, 2009 … dozens of movies all told, counting numerous sequels, spinoffs, do-overs and farcical meet-cutes with Abbott and Costello.
And they’re still at it. In 2017 Jordan Peele began making gold-standard horror for Universal with Get Out. In 2020, Leigh Whannell rebooted The Invisible Man to enormous critical acclaim. And the studio’s deal with Jason Blum’s horror indie Blumhouse Productions has created a string of fresh horror franchises for 21st-century audiences—Insidious, The Purge, Happy Death Day, M3GAN, Unfriended, The Black Phone—and refreshed The Exorcist and Halloween franchises. Universal has pretty much owned American horror cinema since the beginning of cinema itself. A24 can try all they want.
But Universal also dominates horror in another sphere: its theme parks. Halloween Horror Nights—a spooky season takeover featuring themed shows, transformed attractions, “scare zones” of actors in costume and, most significantly, top-tier haunted houses—has been an annual fixture at Universal’s parks since 1991. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before Universal Destinations & Experiences realized it could take all that nightmare fuel and put a roof on it. Astonishingly, that roof is in Las Vegas.
Universal Horror Unleashed, a permanent horror attraction at the north end of the newly expanded Area15 experiences and retail district, packs the HHN experience into a 110,000-square-foot “abandoned warehouse.” Horror Unleashed boasts not one, but four world-class haunted house walkthroughs; multiple themed areas, including the body horror-inspired Kill Vault and a “prop graveyard” populated with creepy dolls and wax figures that may not be wax figures at all; multiple bars and restaurants, including the Blumhouse-themed Premiere House and a “chainsaw-carved” small plates counter called Rough Cuts; and a properly creepy variety show hosted by cheerfully grotesque HHN mainstay Jack the Clown and his deranged, but sassy partner Chance.
Horror Unleashed is “all fear, all year,” as its denizens say. And to hear it from Universal Destinations & Experiences’ vice president of entertainment art and design TJ Mannarino and show director Nate Stevenson, distilling Halloween Horror Nights down to its most concentrated and combustible form—and in so doing, creating a ground-up attraction outside of the company’s theme parks—wasn’t just a challenge to be met and bested. It was a monster point of pride.
“I have 30 years with this product; he has 15,” says Mannarino, gesturing to Stevenson. “A lot of what’s experienced here comes from that long history of working with audiences and finding what scares them best, what wonderful stories to tell them, what characters they’re most afraid of. And we’ve taken the best of the best and brought it here.”
That care shows in the … well, the scare, at the risk of veering into Dr. Seuss territory. (Universal owns the theme park rights to Dr. Seuss’ books, should Horror Unleashed ever decide to relax its “not recommended for children under 13” advisory by doing the funniest thing ever.) Its four mazes—The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, based on Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic; Blumhouse’s The Exorcist: Believer, adapted from David Gordon Green’s 2023 franchise reboot; Universal Monsters, featuring all the OGs from Dracula to Frankenstein’s monster; and Scarecrow: The Reaping, a fan-favorite HHN original set on a Dust Bowl-era farm ravaged by nature and possessed by the supernatural—aren’t the same idea repeated four times with different characters and sets. They stand apart from each other in fascinating ways, from the closeness and claustrophobia of the frights to the sheer bloody integrity of the storytelling.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacremaze is a perfect example of both. It begins, fittingly, with the cult film’s opening text crawl (“The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths…”) hanging in the sky above the queue; it’s like walking into a drive-in movie screened by the night sky itself. Once you get inside the maze, not only does it offer faithful versions of the film’s set pieces—the gas station with the van parked out front, the terrifying house—but it introduces virtually all its characters, rather than just one guy endlessly chasing you around with a gas-powered saw, as a lesser scare attraction might have done.
“It takes you room by room, and in a linear fashion, goes along with what happens in the film. When you get to that dining room scene, that’s where the chase begins with Sally [Hardesty, the protagonist]. But also, as you’re going through the house, you’re now being chased by all the characters,” Stevenson says. Turns out that bloodied victims popping out of nowhere, begging for help you can’t give, is also pretty damn terrifying.
“We wanted to make sure we didn’t just have Leatherface as the aggressor,” Stevenson adds. “We have all the other aggressors from the film—the Hitchhiker, the Old Man, Grandpa. And every single victim from the film is represented in the house. We really wanted to tell a complete story.”
And then there’s the strange case of the Universal Monsters, which is more of a vibe than a straight narrative; every one of those monsters occupies its own distinct story, after all. But just as Marvel Comics gave the MCU a Nick Fury to introduce its heroes and antiheroes, Universal gifted Stevenson with his own connecting element. “We start you off with Van Helsing, who fought every one of these creatures. We have very distinct moments with each creature, but Van Helsing is the tie that binds the whole thing,” he says. The monster hunter narrates the maze, giving it a feel that’s more impressionistic than the others … and, in places, even kind of beautiful.
Victims … er, guests are sent through the mazes in small groups, which gives performers and sets time to reset. It also allows time for a special, personalized scene that Stevenson says is in every one of the houses.
“It’s a moment where we stop you and you actually stand there and experience the story instead of just walking,” he says. In Universal Monsters, it’s Frankenstein electrifying his creature (“It’s alive!”). In Scarecrow, it’s a dust storm; in Exorcist, it’s the eponymous exorcism; in Chainsaw Massacre, it’s—well, use your imagination.
A year-round haunted attraction in Vegas may seem a bit like a chancy roll of the bones. Filmmaker Eli Roth’s Goretorium opened on the Strip in 2012 and closed after a year, but on the other hand, Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum has been going strong since October 2017. Horror Unleashed has all the thematic impact of the former, but also the brand recognition of the latter. It seems likely to carve out a space for itself, even during spooky season, when local competition is heavy. (Freakling Bros is taking a year off while its co-proprietor, The Long Walk and Strange Darling screenwriter JT Mollner, devours Hollywood whole. But they’ll be back.)
Universal has likely delivered yet another horror institution in Horror Unleashed, one that’ll grow and flourish (fester?) as the years go by. Jack and Chance are home to stay, and may even nest and redecorate over time.
“Our history has shown we love to evolve with our audience. Tell stories that change. They become bigger and grander, or we find whatever niches that are popular within a given year. This building should see that same type of evolution,” says Mannarino, adding mischievously, “We won’t tell you how it might evolve. But it will be a part of this world of horrors, have that sense of discovery and mystery.”’
UNIVERSAL HORROR UNLEASHED Area15, 800-447-0679, universalhorrorunleashed.com. Thursday-Monday, 2-10 p.m., $69, $59 for Nevada residents.
English (US) ·