We visit Halloween Horror Nights in Hollywood!

We can 100% confirm that like previous years, Halloween Horror Nights in Hollywood for 2023 was absolutely amazing! This annual event at Universal Studios transforms the park into a nightmarish wonderland, featuring haunted mazes, scare zones, and live entertainment. With Hollywood’s iconic backdrop, it’s a must-visit for horror aficionados seeking a chillingly immersive experience. Here we rank all of the mazes on offer in 2023!

The maze: From New Year’s Eve to Thanksgiving, your favourite holidays to celebrate with your friends are going to hell. ‘Tis the season to scream in this holiday nightmare. The scarier, the merrier.
Our review: As this maze wasn’t based on a movie, game or TV show, we didn’t think it really ‘fit’, but we were wrong – it was absolutely incredible. It brought some of our favourite holidays to life in the most horrific ways possible. Sure, it’s pretty easy to portray Christmas and Halloween as horror-days but portraying Valentine’s Day, St Patrick’s Day and even Thanksgiving as macabre, bloody and downright weird takes real talent. 

The maze: Band together with your squad to resist Vecna’s gruesome curse as you take on the scariest season of Stranger Things yet.
Our review: We had thought about skipping this one if the lines were too long, but we’re so glad we didn’t. It was AMAZING. You really felt like you were INSIDE the show, and the live actors and effects were spot on. While the show might be losing a little steam, this maze showed why it became so popular in the first place.

The maze: Two missing girls have been found with no memory of what happened to them. But wherever they went, the ultimate evil has returned with them.
Our review: THIS WAS SO GOOD. Even though we’re huge Exorcist fans, we’re yet to see the new film but that didn’t feel like it really mattered as this walk through was so well done. All the mazes really upped their ‘smell’ game this year, and this maze did it to perfection. The inclusion of poop and vomit stenches really added to the experience, as gross as they were!

The maze: Chucky, the serial killer doll, is back for a new gorefest! He’s hijacked his own haunted house with all kinds of bloody hijinks. You and your friends must try to survive his ultimate kill count.
Our review: What’s not to love about Chucky? The red-headed little freak is in top form in this maze, and there is blood, cheesy jokes, and even more blood. It’s fun to walk through and see Chucky clocking up the kills, but it loses points for the fear factor – it’s non-existent.

The maze: An ancient curse rises in a new setting: an LA apartment building. The Book of the Dead is about to unleash unimaginable horrors on you and your scream squad. Evil has come home.
Our review: Big fans of the recent film starring Aussie Alyssa Sutherland, we had high hopes for this one, and while it’s pretty bloody great … literally, it also felt like it was holding back a little. Still, we really enjoyed it.

The maze: You and your squad must stay silent if you want to survive Clickers and more as the gritty world of Naughty Dog’s video game comes to life.
Our review: We LOVE the video game and the TV show, and this maze did a good job in bringing them to life, but it wasn’t nearly scary enough. In both the game and the show, you never know what’s around the corner! The tension created in the game by not knowing if or when Ellie and Joel are going to run into a clicker or huge bloater makes it such a winner for us, but this maze just didn’t deliver. Points for looking amazing though!

The maze: Ten cuidado! With La Muerte as your guide, you and your scream squad must try to survive three terrifying legends: the blood-sucking Tlahuelpuchi, owl-faced witch La Lechuza and bone-ripping El Silbón.

Our review: It was OK. I mean, it wasn’t bad and it wasn’t great either. Those who have a bird phobia or an aversion to pork may find it scarier than most, but it felt pretty repetitive and a little uninspired.

The maze: Descend into the catacombs, where you and your squad will face a new horde of monsters: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Phantom of the Opera, the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Invisible Man.

Our review: Again, this one was just o’right for us. Not amazing, but it’s filled with classic monsters, so it’s definitely worth a spin through.

Universal absolutely knocked it out of the park with the Terror Tram this year. Particularly terrifying if you don’t like bugs, on the tram experience, tour guide Larry Larva and his bug-headed exterminators are out to get rid of human pests once and for all. And frankly, who could blame them. It’s a fabulous stroll through the Universal backlot at night being chased and terrified by human-sized blowflies and other crawling nasties with chainsaws who are determined to make all guests drop like flies. The highlight for us was walking through Jupiter’s Claim, from the set of Jordan Peele’s amazing film Nope. From the actors, to the soundtrack to the set itself, it’s just so well done. Throw in some scissor wielding, jump-suited freaks from Us who torment you along the way, and we were in absolute heaven. SO. MUCH. FUN.