Haunted houses ranked | Halloween Horror Nights 2025 at Universal Orlando
We ranked all 10 haunted houses from Halloween Horror Nights 2025 at Universal Orlando, including “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “Terrifier,” and everything in between.
Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) is upon us and with it comes 10 all new fully themed and realized haunted houses full of scares and surprises. Five of them are based on popular horror movies and television shows and five are completely original, sprung from the twisted minds of the HHN designers. Each year, we give you the full rundown on the houses and our rankings so you know what not to miss!
As always, we want to give a disclaimer: due to the nature of the haunted houses and how guests go through them, your unique experience will almost certainly vary from ours, based on your timing walking through the house, your familiarity with the franchises, and what scares you the most! But hopefully, these rankings will help you plan your trip and let you know what to look out for.
Now, without further ado, here are our official House Rankings for Halloween Horror Nights 33 from least to most favorite:
10. Grave of Flesh
Official Description: Welcome to your funeral, where things are about to go from bad to worse. You’ll enter your grave and then the underworld, where flesh-eaters who feed on the dead will hunt you for all eternity.
Our Review: Let’s start with what stood out in a good way about this house. Be sure you look up in one of the opening scenes to see what it feels like being at the bottom of an open grave. Also, at one point we entered an interesting looking MC Escher-like room with weird stairways. Those moments were cool but the rest of the house was a bunch of samey rock work and appearances by the flesh-eaters, these naked mole rat looking monsters with unclear motivations. Were they just eating flesh? Were they trying to torture us? Were we in hell? Are they aliens? Even the name of the house really felt uninspired. Some good scares here and there, but mostly I just left feeling like we had crossed a filler house off the list. Worth seeing if the line is short.
9. Hatchet and Chains: Demon Bounty Hunters
Official Description: In this Old West town, all hell is breaking loose. Red-hot lava demons are trying to possess everyone, melting everything in their path. Your only hope: Hatchet and Chains with their mystical weapons.
(Based on a section of the “Slaughter Sinema 2” haunted house from last year’s Halloween Horror Nights 33)
Our Review: This house was just kind of fine, honestly. It has a few fun set pieces, but a muddled story line that wouldn’t have been clear if it wasn’t explained to me ahead of time really hurt this one. It was a ton of fun to see another Slaughter Sinema segment turn into a full house, but this could have just been “demons attack a western town” and would not have needed the bounty hunters at all. I enjoyed the “outdoor” scenes and the use of height, but yeah, mostly this house was just fine.
8. Gálkn: Monsters of the North
Official Description: In a remote northern village, a wicked being rises from the dead, bringing a horde of monsters and demons from the fjords to wreak havoc on the townspeople. Try to escape the belly of the beast.
Our Review: This was a solid mid-range house that also suffered from a muddled storyline. I did really enjoy the use of space in the house, including what must be the biggest puppet I have ever seen at Halloween Horror Nights. This thing was almost 20 feet tall and definitely worth seeing in person! There was also good use of architecture and “outdoor” scenes that added scale to the house. Otherwise, this house was enjoyable, if a little forgettable.
7. Fallout
Official Description: Face your fears in post-apocalyptic L.A., devastated by nuclear war, based on the hit show and game franchise “Fallout.” You’ll travel into the vaults and be attacked by raiders alongside Lucy. You’ll escape to the wasteland and confront the bounty hunter, The Ghoul. You’ll even encounter Maximus with the Brotherhood of Steel and see T-60 power armor.
Our Review: This was my most anticipated house of the year and even though I walked through with a huge smile on my face just being in the world of Fallout, I couldn’t help but be kind of disappointed. I loved the easter eggs and references to both the games and TV show (including a special teaser for Season 2 at the end of the house), but something was just a little lacking. The decor was fun and fans of the show will have a lot to enjoy, but without getting the references and vibing with the world, this house fell a little flat.
6. El Artista: A Spanish Haunting
Official Description: In 19th century Spain, a tortured artist moves to an isolated country manor to seek inspiration. Instead, the art comes alive and possesses him. You’re about to be part of the permanent exhibition.
Our Review: The titular artist serves, more or less (mostly less), as the icon for HHN this year, and so expectations were high walking into the house. To begin, this might be the biggest facade I’ve ever seen at a Horror Nights House and the grand set design didn’t end there. Numerous massive rooms really made the house feel grand and allowed scares to come from unique places (I’m looking at you flying gargoyles.) Unfortunately, once again, the storyline of the house was hard to follow as they opted to use narrated journal entries throughout the house to explain what was happening but, as we learned in years past, you’re never near the journals long enough to hear everything you need to hear and of course there are people jumping out and distracting you constantly. This house felt like a high concept that could have come together a little better, but the amazing scenery and grandeur of the home does make up for it a good bit.
5. Five Nights at Freddy’s
Official Description: Get ready for the night watch at a creepy, abandoned pizzeria, where nothing is what it seems and possessed animatronics are lurking. You wouldn’t last one night at Freddy’s, let alone five. You’re about to be hunted by deadly animatronics Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy as you flee through creepy, abandoned hallways.
Our Review: Walking into Freddy Faz Bear’s Pizzaria and coming face to face with life size animatronics of Freddy and his friends was amazing. The puppets and costumes, some of which were created in collaboration with Henson Studios, were spot on and really fun to see animated. My complaints about this house were mostly about the lack of scares from the animatronics themselves. Big Furry arms came out of walls suddenly (and got me everytime), but the animatronics themselves were usually telegraphed a mile away and didn’t have the quick, twitchy movement to really make them pop. Also, no William Afton in the house as far as I could see. My guess is that they couldn’t or wouldn’t get the rights to use Matthew Lillard’s likeness in the house.
4. Jason Universe
Official Description: Come face to face with the iconic horror villain Jason Voorhees. Step into the terrifying world of this silent killer. Flee through the woods and into his sinister shack. Enter the summer camp where his gruesome legend began. Jason is back and nothing can save you now!
Our Review: Just to get it out of the way, the words “Friday” and “Thirteenth” appear no where in this house or the marketing for it. I’m forced to think that some strange licensing issue allowed them to mention Jason and show off some of this iconic looks and kills, but not actually name the series he is from. That having been said, this house is relentless and features nearly every incarnation of Jason, from hockey mask to burlap sack to mangled face (Sorry, Jason X fans but no cyborgs.) Clever house design meant that at some points it felt that there were six different Jason’s attacking and six more around the corner. The scares just kept coming, but it did start to get a little repetitive.
3. Terrifier
Official Description: Try your luck against Art the Clown in the Terrifier funhouse. You’ll witness his grotesque handiwork of torture and be exposed to the spatter of his victims. It’s a whole new level of gore! Nothing can prepare you for this grisly haunted house based on all three of Damien Leone’s Terrifier films.
Our Review: My least anticipated of the IP (Intellectual Property) houses and the one that surprised me the most with how much I enjoyed it. To begin, this house is gory to an extreme and uses a wide variety of smell effects that combined, can be literally sickening. But this house did feature one of my favorite scares of the night through the use of a mirror (or rather, lack there of) and had a good consistency of pop outs by Art and his victims. At the end of the house, you have a choice between a dry path or the “Symphony of Blood” path, and fair warning you will get quite wet down the latter. The dry path features some kind of annoying pulsing lights so, it’s up to you which you prefer. Also, be on the lookout for a GAT (guest activated trigger) big red blinking button you can press for an extra surprise.
2. WWE Presents: The Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks
Official Description: Go head-to-head with The Wyatt Sicks as they lure you through the ominous doorway to their shadowy realm. You’re about to meet your match. Enter the eerie arena of The Wyatt Sicks, where you’ll go through an ominous doorway into the maniacal minds of Uncle Howdy, Rambling Rabbit, Mercy the Buzzard, Abby the Witch, and Huskus the Pig.
Our Review: My second most anticipated house of the IPs and one that felt like such a treat as a fan of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) and the Wyatt storyline. The house recreates the iconic debut of the Wyatt Sicks on “RAW”, including the aftermath of their rampage backstage. We go through the Firefly Fun House (shout out to an Alexa Bliss cameo), and then into the dark worlds of each of the Wyatt Sicks. Bray Wyatt (and the Fiend) also feature prominently and the whole house serves as a touching tribute to his life and legacy. One of my top houses except I feel this house requires the most prior knowledge about the characters and story to really get the most out of it.
1. Dolls: Let’s Play Dead
Official Description: You’re about to become doll-sized and witness the unnatural creations of a twisted little girl. You’ll be hunted by burnt fashion dolls, toys she’s melded together and undead horrors in her dollhouse.
Our Review: Our number one house and for so many good reasons. To begin, you are shrunk down to the size of a doll and enter a doll house full of pitch perfect scenery and props that give the feel of actually being so small. I was not expecting the numerous unique and surprising scares, including coming from unique angles and from inanimate objects to coming to life. The special effects in the house were also varied and numerous, including smell, heat, and projections that all enhanced the experience. This house also included three(!) different guest activated triggers, two being the classic red flashing buttons that are hard to miss, and one unexpected one (hint, when you first walk into the house, try ringing the giant doorbell.) This house stands above the rest due to it’s creativity, execution of design, and both the quality and quantity of the little extras that make Horror Nights houses special. Dolls: Let’s Play Dead is a house to not be missed.
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That is hilarious! Dolls was my least favorite! Not one person that I was with found it remotely scary. Jason Universe and Terrifier were my favorites, with El Artista, Five Nights at Freddy’s, Galkn, and Fall Out being next.