Evil Santas, carnival bars and mummies: this Halloween Horror Nights house has it all!

The spooky season is upon us.

Believe it or not, Halloween is almost here, and that means the most iconicheme park halloween event – – Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights – – Coming soon. Recently, Universal Pictures released the trailer for one of the most anticipated movies of 2024, “Carnage 2”.

A sequel to 2018’s hit Slaughter Sinema, the new house follows a similar format. Each room is themed after a different fictional B-grade horror movie.

In the recent Sneak peek USA TodayUniversal Pictures has revealed the themes for the new film sequels, which include:

Carnival Murders: The story takes place during Mardi Gras, with the parade taking place just outside the window. Lora Sauls, Creative Development and Art Design, Entertainment at Universal Studios, describes the scene: “We’re in New Orleans, and these clowns are killing people. These clowns are amazing because they’re wearing clown masks, but when they take the masks off, their flesh takes the shape of the clown hat and the clown mask. As the scene goes on, the clowns become more and more carnal. They’re really disgusting.”
Heavy Metal Hall: Soules describes this metal-themed area as revolving around a teenager who “plays a record backwards, opening the gates to a hell of heavy metal hell rockers killing people with chainsaw guitars.” Definitely gives us some Stranger Things/Eddie Munson vibes.
The killer trio: The next area in Slaughter Sinema 2 combines Halloween and Christmas… in a very gory way. The story revolves around Santa taking all the bad kids on his list to the North Pole so Mrs. Cause can feed them to the elves.

Yes.

Soules described Santa’s bag filled with children to the media. “Our special effects team installed small actuators in the bag, and we heard the children in the bag. They were inside yelling, ‘Let me out! Let me out!’ You could see these bag-like arms swinging back and forth.”

Night of the Dead Clowns: Soules explained the origins of the house this way: “I remember in our brainstorming, we really liked the idea of zombie clowns. So, we wanted to put it in Slaughter Sinema. We were going to test it out.” Presumably, if the story – which revolves around the company Bzzzcon (which has appeared in other HHN houses over the years) dumping chemicals into a clown graveyard to bring clowns back to zombie “life” – proves popular, it could become its own house in the years to come.
Axe and Chain: Devil Bounty Hunter: The room revolves around two demon bounty hunters – one of whom is a demon himself – searching for a target in a bar.
Blood and Friendship: This section of the house is sure to delight fans of Jaws, as its story revolves around a summer camp where “an oversized shark swam into the lake” and “ate every child who jumped into the lake.”
Mummy Strippers Revealed: This might just be the craziest segment in the history of Halloween Horror Nights. As Soules explains, it revolves around club owners who “stole some merchandise from an Egyptian museum. They stole a sarcophagus and used it as a strip club decor. Well, the sarcophagus woke up and came back to life… and now anyone who enters the strip club is at risk of having their essence sucked out by mummified strippers, who use the essence to transform into beautiful creatures.”
Zibogs: Finally, this zone revolves around robots that want to take over human life… which, frankly, sounds downright corny compared to the child-eating holiday elves, zombie clowns, and soul-sucking mummy strippers.

With all this packed into one house, it’s no surprise that Carnage 2 is massive. “Most of our houses have nine to 13 scenes, but you can also tell they’re all very winding, and our designers did a great job making everything feel long,” Soules said.

Halloween Horror Nights, including Slasher Movie 2, opens at Universal Orlando on August 30 and at Universal Studios Hollywood on September 5. Stay tuned to AllEars for more coverage of Halloween Horror Nights 2024.