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Las Vegas — I flip a bend and see a determine in a cornfield. The grey sky is foreboding, a storm clearly on the horizon. Once I take a step ahead, I’m hit with a gust of wind and fog. Immediately, it’s now not a silhouette within the haze however a scarecrow, shrouded in hay, lurching towards me.
Solely I’m not on a Midwestern farm, and there’s no risk of extreme climate. I‘m in a warehouse in Las Vegas, walking through a maze called “Scarecrow: The Reaping.” I jump back and fixate my phone’s digicam on the creature, however that solely encourages them to step nearer. I‘m hurried out of the farmland and into a hall, where giant stalks now obscure my path.
(Michael Kirschbaum / For The Times)
(Michael Kirschbaum / For The Times)
(Michael Kirschbaum / For The Times)
Welcome to Universal Horror Unleashed, which aims to deliver year-round horrors and further expand theme park-like experiences beyond their hubs of Southern California and Central Florida. Horror Unleashed, opening Aug. 14, is an outgrowth of Universal’s standard fall occasion, Halloween Horror Nights, which has been working yearly on the firm’s Los Angeles park since 2006 and even longer at its bigger Florida counterpart.
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Like Halloween Horror Nights, there are maze-like haunted homes — 4 of them right here themed to varied properties reminiscent of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Exorcist.” Their extra everlasting standing permits for a larger manufacturing issue — assume disappearing partitions and extra elaborate present scenes — and they’re surrounded by brooding bars, a pop-up rock-inspired dance present and a bunch of unique walk-around characters. “Hey, sugar,” mentioned a younger lady as I close to the warehouse’s important bar, a wraparound institution themed to a big boiler. The actor’s face was scarred with blood, hinting at a backstory I didn’t have time — or maybe the inclination — to discover.
Horror Unleashed is opening simply on the cusp of when theme parks and immersive-focused reside experiences are coming into one of many busiest occasions of the yr: Halloween. The vacation, in fact, primarily begins earlier annually. This yr’s Halloween Horror Nights begins Sept. 4, whereas Halloween season on the Disneyland Resort launches Aug. 22. Horror reveals and movies at the moment are profitable year-round, with the likes of “Sinners” and “The Last of Us” enrapturing audiences lengthy earlier than Oct. 31. Tradition has now absolutely embraced the darker aspect of fairy tales.
A scene from the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” maze at Common Horror Unleashed in Las Vegas.
Texas Chainsaw Bloodbath on the Common Horror Unleashed.
A ugly second throughout the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” maze at Common Horror Unleashed.
“You can make every month horrific,” says Nate Stevenson, Horror Unleashed’s present director.
That’s been a aim of David Markland, co-founder of Lengthy Seaside’s Halloween-focused conference Midsummer Scream, which this yr is ready for the weekend of Aug. 15. When Midsummer Scream started in 2016, it attracted about 8,000 individuals, says Markland, however as we speak instructions audiences of round 50,000. “Rapidly, over the past 10 or 15 years, Halloween has become a year-round fascination for people,” Markland says. “Halloween is a culture now. Halloween is a lifestyle. It’s a part of people’s lives that they celebrate year-round.”
There will probably be challenges, a troublesome tourism market amongst them, as visits to Las Vegas had been down 11.3% in June 2025 versus a yr earlier, in response to knowledge from the Las Vegas Conference and Guests Authority. After which there’s the query of whether or not audiences are prepared for year-round haunts that reach past the autumn Halloween season to winter, spring and summer time. I entered Horror Unleashed for a media preview on an early August evening when it was 105 levels within the Las Vegas warmth. It’s additionally been tried earlier than, albeit on a smaller scale. Las Vegas was as soon as residence to Eli Roth’s Goretorium, a year-round haunted home that leaned on torture-horror and shuttered after a few yr in 2013.
However Common creatives are undaunted.
Frankenstein’s monster comes alive throughout a Common monsters maze at Common Horror Unleashed.
Greater than a decade, in fact, has handed, and Horror Unleashed is extra numerous in its horror choices. A maze themed to Common’s traditional creatures winds via a fortress and catacombs with vintage-style horrors and a mid-show scene during which Frankenstein’s monster comes alive. Authentic story “Scarecrow: The Reaping,” which started at Common Studios Florida, mixes in soar scares with extra natural-seeming frights, such because the aforementioned simulated mud bowl.
TJ Mannarino, vice chairman of leisure, artwork and design at Common Orlando, factors to cultural happenings outdoors of the theme parks in broadening the phobia scene — the success of reveals reminiscent of “The Walking Dead” and “American Horror Story,” which discovered audiences outdoors of the Halloween season, in addition to “Stranger Things,” which he says opened up horror to a youthful crowd. Theme parks are merely reflecting our fashionable tradition, which is craving darker fantasies. Common, for example, not too long ago opened a complete theme park land targeted on its traditional monsters at its new Epic Universe in Florida, and even Disney is getting in on the motion, as a villains-focused land is within the works for Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom.
An anxiety-ridden actor in “The Exorcist: Believer” maze at Common Horror Unleashed.
“We think our audience really wants this,” says Mannarino, noting theme park attendance surveys had been prodding the corporate to present horror a everlasting residence. And at Common’s Orlando park, Halloween Horror Nights begins earlier, starting in late August.
“Just a couple years ago, we started in August, and we were selling out August dates,” Stevenson says. “On a micro level, we’re seeing that, boy, it doesn’t matter if you extend past the season or extend out before the season — people are coming. People want it.”
The central bar, themed to a boiler room, at Universal Horror Unleashed.
Universal is betting on it, as the company has already announced that a second Horror Unleashed venue will be heading to Chicago in 2027. Smaller, more regional theme park-like experiences are once again something of a trend, as Netflix has immersive venues planned for the Dallas and Philadelphia regions, and Universal is also bringing a kid-focused park to Frisco, Texas.
There are antecedents for what Universal is attempting. Disney, for instance, tried an indoor interactive theme park with DisneyQuest, for which a Chicago location was short-lived and a Florida outpost closed in 2017. Star Trek: The Experience, a mix of theme park-like simulations and interactive theater, operated for about a decade in Las Vegas before it shuttered in 2008.
“I know there’s horror fans and Halloween fans who are always looking for something to do,” Markland says. “What [Universal is] doing is very ambitious and big, and so I’m nervous along with them. We’ll see how it goes. I’m sure people will go as soon as it opens and through the Halloween season, but after that, I don’t know. … They’ve definitely invested in Halloween and horror fans. They’re all-in.”
Horror, says author Lisa Morton — who has written multiple books on the Oct. 31 holiday, including “Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween” — is thriving in part because today it is taken more seriously by cultural critics. The genre also has metaphorical qualities — the struggle, for instance, that is life, art and creativity in “Sinners” or the underlying themes of PTSD that permeated the latest season of “The Last of Us.” That makes it especially appealing, she says, for today’s stressful times.
“I suspect that’s part of the reason horror is booming right now,” Morton says. “Everything from climate change, that we seem to have no voice in, and our politics, that don’t seem to represent us. Many of us are filled with anxiety about the future. I think horror is the perfect genre to talk about that. When you add a layer of a metaphor to it, it becomes much easier to digest.”
(Michael Kirschbaum / For The Times)
(Michael Kirschbaum / For The Times)
(Michael Kirschbaum / For The Times)
To step into Horror Unleashed is to walk into a demented wonderland, a place that turns standard theme park warmth and joy upside down. Don’t expect fairy tale-like happy endings. The space’s centerpiece performance is twisted, a story centering on Jack the Clown and his female sidekick Chance, who have kidnapped two poor Las Vegas street performers and are forcing them to execute their acts to perfection to avoid murder. The deeper one analyzes it, the more sinister its class dynamics feel, even if it’s an excuse to showcase, say, street dancing and hula hoop acrobatics.
A circus present at Common Horror Unleashed options numerous Las Vegas performers.
The area has an underlying narrative. Broadly talking, the warehouse is alleged to have been a storage place for Common Studios’ early monster-focused horror movies. That enables it to be plagued by props, such because the throne-like chair close to its entrance, and for nooks and crannies reminiscent of a “film vault” to be renamed a “kill vault.” One way or the other — horror loves a great thriller — the area has come alive, and don’t be stunned to be greeted by a vampire or a costumed swampland determine which will or will not be associated to the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
The aim, says Common creatives, is to present Horror Unleashed a little bit of an immersive theater really feel, one thing that may’t actually be accomplished among the many chaotic scare zones and fast-moving mazes of a Halloween Horror Nights occasion. However right here, company can linger with the actors and probe them to attempt to uncover the storyline that imbues the venue. One-to-one actor interplay has lengthy been a aim of these within the theme park area however usually a tricky components to crack, partially as a result of solid members are expensive and partially due to the problem to scale such experiences for 1000’s.
“As we’ve evolved this style of experience, we have given more and more control of the show to the actors,” says Mannarino on what separates Horror Unleashed from Halloween Horror Nights. “It’s less programmed. It’s less technology. I’ve had conversations with tech magazines, and they’ll ask me what is the most critical piece, and I’ll say it’s the actors. … The lifeblood of our all stories — we can build all of this, but it doesn’t go without the actors.
“It’s what really drives this whole animal,” he provides.
A darkish second in “The Exorcist: Believer” maze at Common Horror Unleashed.
It extends a bit to the mazes as nicely. Audiences ought to anticipate to spend about 5 to seven minutes in every of the 4 walk-through sights, however not like a Halloween Horror Nights occasion, the place company are rushed from room to room with out stopping, in Las Vegas there will probably be one devoted present scene per maze. Right here, teams will probably be held to observe a mini-performance. Within the “Exorcist” maze, for example, meaning witnessing a full exorcism, full with particular results that can have partitions give option to demonic specters. Within the ‘70s-themed “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” haunt, look out for a bloody scene designed to drench guests.
Universal Horror Unleashed
The mazes are intended to be semi-permanent. Stevenson says there’s no quick plans to swap them out within the close to future however hints that Horror Unleashed will probably be an evolving venue and, if all goes in response to plan, will look a bit totally different in a couple of years. Thus, he says the important thing differentiator between Horror Unleashed and Halloween Horror Nights shouldn’t be essentially the tech used within the mazes, however the prolonged time they’ll commit to unwrapping a narrative.
“When Universal builds a haunted house, the level of story that starts that out is enormous,” Stevenson says. “There’s so much story. All of our partners need that because they base every little nuanced thing off of that story. Unfortunately, we don’t always have the chance to tell that story, and all our fans tell us they want to know more story.”
A sampling of meals and drinks at Common Horror Unleashed, together with a bread dish with bourbon-laced cheese.
Tacos and a chainsaw-themed flatbread at Common Horror Unleashed.
Story percolates all through the venue. Flatbreads, for example, are formed like chainsaw blades. Desserts come on plates which are mini-shovels. Salad dressing is delivered in syringes. Prior to now, says Mannarino, nobody needed their meals to be performed with. ‘“Don’t do horrible things to my food!’” he says in mock exaggeration. “But now, people really love that.”
Little, it appears, is obscene, when day by day may be Halloween.
