For its 35th anniversary as the premiere theme park destination for gorehounds and horror nerds, Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights has brought out the big claws. We’ve got the first Oscar-winning haunted house in Sinners, the fourth and final Stranger Things house (and water show), a tribute house for Ozzy Osbourne, and the first attraction devoted to Hellraiser, to name but a few. As you can probably tell from the headline and my constant wincing from the pins sticking out of my face, Hellraiser is going up on the pedestal.
As a huge fan of Clive Barker’s stories and directorial debut (though a more passive fan for much of what came afterward), I was pumped to be invited to attend the opening night presentation and tour at Universal Orlando Resort. And I was even more pumped to discover just how much work went into designing it. To the point where I came away thinking it’s the second-best representation of Barker’s source material after his own movie.
Nothing Can Deliver The Hellraiser’s Immersive Vibes Like HHN Does
To me, the majority of the Hellraiser movie sequels are still A+ for Cenobite iconography, but generally lack characters and narratives that give rewatches much value. While I haven’t read them all, I have enjoyed several of the comic book series that have been released over the years from Epic Comics and Boom! Studios. (Including the one that just debuted ahead of HHN 35’s kickoff, co-written by Clive Barker.)
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But let’s be real. This franchise is all about evoking utmost pleasures and abject pain, and it’s not always easy to put movie audiences in that kind of headspace. I’m very optimistic that the upcoming video game Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival will do a good job on that front, but until that comes out, Halloween Horror Nights serves as a genuinely spooky and moody pinnacle of immersion. Helped along by Barker giving the design team some notes, as well as the vocal stylings of OG Pinhead actor Doug Bradley himself for all of the attraction’s dialogue.
I won’t got fully into everything that goes on, as not to spoil the metaphorical ride. That said, the house starts with a few sparse hallways that made me question any seemingly wasted space, but then opens up with a giant puzzle box opened up for fans to walk into, and there are such sights to behold in there. As well as lots of swinging chains to get smacked with, while marveling at fake blood and viscera having a texture without being sticky and gross.
It Takes Fans Into The Lament Configuration Instead Of Mirroring Exact Movie Plots
Like movie sequels, Halloween Horror Nights’ haunted houses often represent licensed movies and TV series with a near-sequential order of familiar events that characters go through. Which is totally understandable, since that’s how storytelling works. But instead of going through all the motions of 1987’s Hellraiser or truncating sequences from the entire 11-film franchise, it essentially feels like a greatest-hits mix of locations and monsters, of ecstasy and torment, of life and death.
And oh man, SO MANY CENOBITES. Lots of Pinheads pop up throughout, putting Doug Bradley’s voice to great use, but it’s absolutely just as fun and frightening to have Female Cenobites, Chatterers, and Butterballs jumping out in the midst of the house’s labyrinth. Excellent costumes as well.
Hellraiser Is Now In My Top 5 Haunted Houses Of All Time
I can’t pretend to be some kind of HHN expert or anything, as this year marked only my fourth time attending the event. And I also haven’t been privileged enough to attend haunted houses spread across the country. But I’ve been to a bunch, so there’s definitely competition to be had on that front. And from both an IP fan-perspective and an overall quality perspective, I feel confident putting Hellraiser‘s HHN 35 house among my five all-time favorites.
The practical effects and prosthetics, the house design, the lighting effects and other tech, the costumes , and the scare actors all worked in tandem to deliver a uniquely scary experience. Though the only real Hell involved was seeing the Exit sign.
Halloween Horror Nights 35 is currently taking place on weekends and select weeknights from now through November 1, with other houses based on Evil Dead Burn, as well as a co-op house between event Icons Jack the Clown and Dr. Oddfellow. Check Universal Orlando Resort’s site for dates and ticket prices.