Halloween Horror Nights Week 4 Recap HHN25

Universal Orlando wrapped their 4th week of Halloween Horror Nights on Sunday night. We were able to attend the event on Thursday, Friday and Sunday and went through all 9 houses multiple times as well as spending time in the scare zones again. The following is our weekly recap of scores and rankings, along with news and notes for the houses and scare zones.

Haunted Houses / Mazes Scores & Ranks

1. Jack Presents: 25 Years of Monsters and Mayhem – At this point, it would take an epic event for this house to be knocked out of our top spot. Hands down, this continues to be the best house of HHN25 with its variety of scares through its rooms of greatest hits. Of special note, the #HHNBear in the second room continues to dance away when chanted at as folks make their way through the room (BEAR, BEAR, BEAR). (5* out of 5*)
2. Freddy vs. Jason – At the end of week 4, this house continues to fire on all cylinders. We’ve had a couple of runs through that we’ve missed scare timing, but overall, this is a pleasure to experience. At press time, our run through score was Jason 11, Freddy 9. (5* out of 5*)
3. Body Collectors: Recollections – This has also been the most consistent house week over week with no huge changes (with the exception of the sometimes person in the ceiling and/or person crouching by the exit). The scareactors in this house give their all, which contributes to the wow factor during the many kill sequences. (5* out of 5*)
4. Insidious – Though still a solid house, it feels like the scares have become more hit and miss lately with Insidious. We’ve been through a few times where we’ve had gaps in places that actors were previously and the house hasn’t seem to had. We’ve heard that there is a new scare at the end of the house, but during our visits, we have yet to experience it. (4.0* out of 5*)
5. Run: Blood, Sweat and Fears – While this house continues to improve week over week, the effectiveness seems to be driven by the cast within and can be hit or miss depending on which cast is inside.   (3 1/2* out of 5*)
6. Asylum In Wonderland 3D -This house hasn’t changed much week over week and remains one of the strongest 3D houses that Halloween Horror Nights has had to date. We’ve tried the house without the glasses on this week and still found that the effects were pretty powerful. (3* out of 5*)
7. An American Werewolf In London – We absolutely loved this house at HHN23, but the house this year seems to continually struggle in timing. We continue to walk through empty rooms or effects that just don’t seem to be working timely. Some of the scares seem to be missing at times and without them, the house isn’t very effective. (3* out of 5*)
8. The Purge – Does the actor that plays the barker ever work at this house? I know we’ve heard him during the first 2 weeks, but we’ve never actually seen him in place. Overuse of strobe here is still killer and a huge turnoff. (2* out of 5*)
9. The Walking Dead: The Living and the Dead – The house seems to have controlled the chlorine smell while walking in, but we missed the water walkers the times that we went through.We had a really good run through immediately following a cast change where we ended up being in the house alone. We are really curious why the house employs a disco/rave room at the end, prior to walking out. (2* out of 5*)

Scare Zones Scores and Ranks

1. Evil’s Roots – Week after week, this is by far the zone with the most scares. With the heavy use of fog and ambient lighting, it is almost impossible to see everything (or everyone) around you. Beware the man dressed as bush. (5* out of 5*)
2. Psychoscareapy: Unleashed – This zone continues to have new actors in it every time we visit. The wackiness and scareactor to scareactor interaction in this zone is brilliant.  (5* out of 5*)
3. HHN Icons – The Icons zone remains a highlight of the event as a showcase to the past with the characters that helped build Halloween Horror Nights into what it is today. This is another zone that continues to add new characters each week, with the Crypt Keeper being added this past week. Words cannot describe the brilliance of the actor that plays The Usher from our pictures below. He is the overall show stealer this year.  (4.5* out of 5*)
4. All Nite Die-In Double Feature – This zone continues to be a fan favorite, with the black and white set being a highlight of the event. Dr. Frankenstein is simply over the top as well as The Bride and Wolfman. Jason and Freddy seemed to be missing from the colored cast this past weekend, which may be due to crowding issues. Both casts are wonderful and rack up many scares for folks walking back and forth from Bill & Ted’s show. (4.5* out of 5*)
5. Scarytales: Screampunk – Some of the scareactors in this zone work harder than any others in the scarezones (Pinocchio and Cinderella from Cast A) and need to be seen. There are very few places to hide in this zone for the actors and they do a fantastic job at getting scares from folks through their limited surroundings. (4* out of 5*)

Special note: The roaming clowns in Springfield are absolutely killing it every single night. They get the most scares from folks on a nightly basis, hands down and deserve much praise as they are relentless in getting folks to scream and run.

While I don’t anticipate our rankings changing much next week, we will be providing our final scores as well as our MVP winners for each zone/house and overall choices for best performers in next week’s update.

Here is our ongoing video playlist from HHN25 and our pictures from week 4 of Halloween Horror Nights: