Halloween Horror Nights is the marquee event of the year at Universal theme parks around the world. Horror has become so integral to Universal’s theme park identity that it is opening Universal Horror Unleashed in Las Vegas later this month, and even includes an entire Dark Universe land in the new Epic Universe theme park. So, that begs the question: Could Halloween Horror Nights come to the new theme park?
Ever since it was announced Epic Universe would get a land full of Universal’s classic monsters (the same monsters that make regular appearances during Halloween Horror Nights), fans have wondered if Epic Universe might become part of HHN. Ahead of the upcoming print edition of SFX Magazine, Universal Orlando Resort Creative Director Lora Sauls opened up to SFX on CinemaBlend about whether such a thing might happen. While she didn’t discount the possibility, she also made it clear it it’s not on the roadmap right now. Sauls said…
I’m gonna say this. Nothing is out of possibility. Everything could be eventually. It’s the best way I can put that. There’s a possibility for anything to happen. I just think right now, Epic just needs to live as Epic for a while. Epic needs to live and breathe. And then eventually, there could be all kinds of things that happen in Epic, but we’re gonna let it breathe for a minute.
It certainly makes sense to let Epic Universe “breathe.” The park is brand new, and thousands of people are showing up every day to experience the park in its “normal” mode for the first time. You want to give people a chance to take in everything that’s there now before jumping in and changing things around.
And Halloween Horror Nights in 2025 is shaping up to be an incredible event on its own. With houses dedicated to Fallout, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and Terrifier, and even a WWE house, this year’s event is setting a high bar.
That said, the opportunity to bring together Dark Universe and Halloween Horror Nights seems too perfect to ignore forever. As great as HHN is, there’s only so much that can be done to transform Universal Studios Florida, a traditional theme park most of the time, into a haven of horror for a couple of months. Dark Universe is built to bring the scares. And being able to experience something like Monsters Unchained, one of the best rides at Epic Universe, alongside other HHN events, would be amazing.
While there’s no guarantee in this statement that anything related to HHN will ever happen at Epic Universe, it also doesn’t shut down the idea entirely. It’s rare for anybody in the theme park world to ever say “never” to anything, because minds can always change, but to me, this feels much more like a case of waiting for the right time to pull the trigger.
The only question is how long Universal will want to let Epic “breathe.” Could we see something HHN-related as early as next year? It might come down to simple attendance numbers. If Epic Universe continues to see enough new guests every month that HHN isn’t seen as a necessity, we could see things remain as they are for the foreseeable future.
