Every 2026 Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights Maze Ranked

Halloween Horror Nights at the Universal Orlando Resort is considered by many genre movie fans and haunt aficionados to be the preeminent haunted house event in the nation. This year's event, Halloween Horror Nights 35, lives up to that storied reputation. Once the sun sets, the park becomes overrun with scare actors and 10 unique haunted houses open their doors to terrified guests. The production values are always sky-high, the commitment to the bit from the actors always admirable, and the overall breadth of the experience generally overwhelming. In a good way, of course.

I was invited by Universal to check out Halloween Horror Nights 35, and because this is an article on the internet, you surely know what that means: I took it upon myself to rank all 10 of the new houses, which consist of five original houses and five houses based on existing movies, TV shows, and concepts. This ranking does not include the various scare zones that populate the streets around the park, but here's an honorable mention for "Downtown Clown Town," which is exactly what it sounds like and delighted me so much that I bought a souvenir t-shirt bearing its name.

When you have to build 10 new haunted house attractions from scratch every single year, there's always bound to be at least one dud. At Halloween Horror Nights 35, that dud is "Stranger Things 5," which adapts the grand finale of Netflix's massively popular streaming series. While there's nothing wrong with a house that decides to simply retell the events of a known story (more on that soon), that approach requires a sense of flow and cohesion that never gels in this confused house, which is far too static and far too reliant on "hero characters emerge suddenly" scares (shades of the equally underwhelming "Fallout" house from Halloween Horror Nights 34).

Will some fans be happy to simply exist alongside these memorable moments? Maybe. But when other houses at this year's event treat fans of other titles to such immaculate and imaginative concepts, designs, and approaches, everything about the "Stranger Things 5" house feels comparatively cobbled together. Even an ambitious set piece involving Will Byers using his newfound powers on a demogorgon fails to land thanks to HHN's "conga line" approach. Since you're unable to ever fully stand still and watch the action roll out, the beats arrive out of order — if you see them play out at all (I did not).

Fortunately, this is only true swing-and-a-miss at this year's event. Everything else is a substantial step up, even the ninth place house.

As a movie, "Evil Dead Burn" feels primed for the haunted house treatment. Once the first act is over, it's essentially non-stop action, scares, and gory set pieces. It's a relentless, nasty movie, which is perfect for an entertainment format that benefits from being relentless and nasty.

However, your enjoyment of this house will probably depend entirely on how much you enjoyed (or didn't enjoy) "Evil Dead Burn." As someone who admired the craft but found myself entirely disengaged from most of the film, I had a difficult time embracing this house, which plays like a movie highlight reel with each room acting as a "Hey! Remember this?" set piece. That's not necessarily a problem when the movie is spectacular (see "Sinners" below), but when it's a movie that doesn't hit as hard? Well, your mileage will vary. And for me, it results in a ninth place ranking.

The title of "Invasion: Alien Abduction" conjures up many familiar images. A barn and a farmhouse, under siege by alien invaders. A rural family, fighting for their lives against grey-skinned, round-headed aliens. People and animals caught beneath UFOs, forced skyward. It's iconography that still lands powerfully and this haunted house leans heavily into it, relying on the fact that most people who line up for a house with this title will be predisposed to have a good time with it.

And that would be a correct assumption. The house works! However, it's an experience with many good moments that could use a few great moments, and it desperately needs a key set piece to tie the various elements together. The placement in one of the smaller tent locations also proves a hindrance — how can you watch the skies when, by the very nature of the structure that houses the experience, everything is so cramped and claustrophobic?

Still, every Halloween Horror Nights needs a meat and potatoes house like this, one that delivers a solid jump with a fun theme between the more striking and ambitious experiences. But in a pretty stacked year, it falls here on the ranking.

How do you adapt director Ryan Coogler's "Sinners" into a haunted house? It's a problem facing any plot-heavy horror movie making the jump to Halloween Horror Nights, and it's especially a problem for this brilliant film, which is thematically rich and uses its horror to make grander points and bleed multiple genres together. The answer here is to take the "book report" approach to design: you walk through the events of the movie in chronological order: meeting the twin brothers Smoke and Stack; noting the arrival of vampires; and then entering Club Juke for a vale-piercing musical performance that is quickly overtaken by the undead. Seeing all of these locations and characters transformed into a walkthrough experience is thrilling stuff.

There's a lot of plot in "Sinners," and a lot of character and emotion, that simply cannot translate to a three-minute haunt experience. The result is a beautifully designed, highly entertaining house that reminds you of why you love the movie so much, but without finding the time or space to do anything new with the material. While it's understandable that the Horror Nights team didn't want to mess with a modern masterpiece, other houses on this list (like my number two) found better ways to adapt an existing title for this new format. You never feel like you're the star of this show — you're simply walking through the movie. And for a lot of folks, that'll be enough. However, I'll always give my preference to a house that makes you the main character for a few minutes.

In terms of pure originality, "Cybergoria" has every other haunted house at Halloween Horror Nights 35 beat. Set in the distant future — a thousand years from now, give or take a decade — you are among the many past humans being awoken from cryogenic sleep with the promise that the secret to eternal life has been discovered. Unfortunately, the robots that have been overseeing this whole process have decided that the best way for humanity to live forever is to tear them apart piece by piece and graft their flesh and organs to robotic exteriors.

Gnarly stuff, right? At its best, "Cybergoria" is a sick treat, full of terrifying robots that grow increasingly disgusting the deeper you descend into the maze of labs and metal hallways, eventually sending you face-to-face with bots who have grafted themselves with enough piles of human flesh to have become unrecognizable abominations. All kudos to the actors and the costume/make-up designers here, as these are among the freakiest creations in the entire park.

Unfortunately, "Cybergoria" is over too quickly, a brilliant premise full of incredible moments in search of a proper climax. Just when you think it's about to enter its grand finale, it just ... kind of ends. Perhaps that's a good problem to have. I walked through the exit craving more. A lot more.

Sometimes, all a great haunted house needs is an incredible premise, and "Madlands: Caged Cannibals" certainly has that covered. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, a once sprawling zoo has been taken over by factions of warring cannibals. Each gang inhabits a different section, modeling their personalities, appearances, and methods of killing on the extinct animals that used to be housed there. And yes, of course this house has a loud punk rock soundtrack underscoring the "Max Max + Animals" premise.

While "Madlands: Caged Cannibals" doesn't have the cleverest scares of Halloween Horror Nights 35, it's a visual feast that demands your close attention. Each new section finds new horrors, and therefore new details to absorb. In terms of pure production design, it's hard to imagine a more original or entertaining haunt. It's perfectly okay that the set pieces are more about freaky characters posturing than anything else. After all, you're on a tour of their turf, and they want to show off for the visitors/potential meals. If you're like me, you'll exit this one wanting to walk through again to hunt for the little details that define each gang. Personally, I'm most taken with the room where the gifts of the rhinoceros are taken to the next possible extreme.

Longtime Horror Nights aficionados will recognize the basic structure of "H.R. Bloodengutz Presents: A Halloween Fright-Tacular!" pretty quickly. A framing device — in this case, a psychopathic horror marathon host has escaped from prison and taken control of the public access station where he used to work, and is putting on one last show — allows you to experience a number of vastly different horror experiences in one house. Here, each room is a different forgotten B-movie programmed by your lunatic host, and each of them is a hoot.

Yes, there are moments that will likely startle you here, but the focus is less on big scares and more on laughs primed toward fans of kitschy old school horror. The humor ranges from the broad to the incredibly specific, but there is guaranteed to be at least one vignette that leaves you cackling. I won't spoil anything, but I will say that Halloween Horror Nights 35 will forever be defined by the dancing tiki bar werewolf seen in this house, and that's a sentence I never thought I'd write.

The best wholly original house of Halloween Horror Nights 35 is uniquely built to appeal to longtime fans of the event. "Jack & Oddfellow: Chaos and Control" explores the intertwined origin stories of its title characters, two of the most popular "icons" in Halloween Horror Nights history, and their inevitable teaming up after realizing they can get a lot more accomplished in the "scaring your pants off" department if they work together.

But even for those who don't follow Horror Nights lore, the house still maintains a base appeal: here's a supernatural serial killer clown battling, and then teaming up with, the dark sorcerer and circus ringmaster who created him. That premise is more than enough to generate material for a killer haunted house, and "Jack & Oddfellow: Chaos and Control" absolutely delivers on the nasty gore, the deranged carnival-flavored creatures, and the trippy, gooey realms in which these two characters battle one another. Some of the wildest and most ambitious monster designs at HHN 35 inhabit this house, and just when you think you've seen the most grotesque image the house can toss at you, the next room ups the ante. The result feels like a true journey, with the heavily structured and narrated opening giving way to carnage and gruesome abandon in the back half. This is the good stuff.

"Hellraiser" has long been on the the Halloween Horror Nights creative team's wish list, and the final results represent an experience that those who designed it have clearly been thinking about for a long time. Created with the guidance and approval of creator/original director Clive Barker himself, this haunt dodges the biggest misstep of most "IP houses," including others at this year's event: It never feels like you're speed-running the plot of the movie, and instead offers up an experience that lets you indulge in the vibes of the franchise above all else.

Wisely leaning on imagery from the first two "Hellraiser" movies (let's not talk about most of the others), the house sends you into a hellish labyrinth within the Lament Configuration itself, where Pinhead and the other cenobites torment and taunt you. But in true "Hellraiser" fashion, the jumpscares are matched by a sense of unease and dread, especially in moments that blend sensuality and terror in equal measure. To avoid that element would've been to avoid what makes the original movies, and Barker's work in general, so compelling. You're drawn in, fascinated and intrigued, even as you're repulsed.

Like the "Terrifier" house from the 2025 event, which similarly abandoned plot summary, "Hellraiser" should be a guiding light for future Halloween Horror Nights houses based on popular franchises. You aren't bearing witness to the events of the movies here. You are the main character, and this is your awful little journey into hell.

This is the part of the list where I tell you that my knowledge of the late rock icon Ozzy Osbourne is limited, I only know his greatest hits, and I certainly didn't feel I was the target audience for an entire haunted house inspired by his music, album artwork, and legacy. So color me very surprised that "Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness" is the best house at Halloween Horror Nights 35. Despite being one of the event's "IP houses," there's no sense of a series of checkmarks here, and you never feel a sense that the designers are serving more than one master. This is an experience that feels like a complete, unified vision from beginning to end, executed with dark beauty and even grandeur.

The premise is simple: a cult has assembled to resurrect the Prince of Darkness, which involves you traveling through a series of scenes (one of which is, yes, a Crazy Train) that blend traditional gothic horror, dark fantasy, and pure heavy metal excess into one intoxicating brew. There's a sense of verticality and detail to "Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness" that's lacking in the inherent claustrophobia of most haunts. You want to look up, and you want to absorb every detail.

There are scarier houses out there, but this one has other priorities. This is a celebration of an artist who mattered to a lot of people, and the enthusiasm oozes in every creature and actor and set piece. By the time you come face to face with Ozzy himself in the climax, he's not there to frighten you, but to celebrate his resurrection with you. It generated a feeling I had never experienced in a haunt before: a deep sense of compassion for an artist and his impact.