Are You Afraid of the Dark— Yes

Halloween Horror Nights Day One

You know I’ve had a blast at Universal Studios before—one of the few reasons I’m willing to leave my house. Seriously, there’s a kegerator there. We’ve gone many times to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine—just not this time. It was Halloween Horror Nights. We were there for the moonlight and the fog-machine smell. I love costumes, haunted houses, and passing out—drunk—candy. I also love haunted amusement parks. My wife agrees with me on all fronts, except for the dressing up part. She’s also a bigger fan of eating the candy than passing it out. I’m convinced she buys two bags of our candy supply and eats the other before I notice.

I’ve had the pleasure of going to three of the top haunted amusement parks in the country.

Kennywood has Fright Nights. I know you probably haven’t heard of Kennywood, but it made the top 5. It’s home to one of the top ten wooden roller coasters in the world, The Thunderbolt. Kennywood is in Pittsburgh, which hopefully you’ve heard of, but if not, I’m sure you’ve heard of Pennsylvania. Busch Gardens Williamsburg has Howl-O-Scream. Busch Gardens Williamsburg is themed around European countries, just like Busch Gardens Tampa is themed around African countries.

But we’re here to talk about number one—the reigning champ, who’s been doing this for 29 years: Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights.

We made lame excuses to get out of work early. You might be thinking, “They took a nooner on a Friday. What’s the big deal?” Nope! We took a nooner on a Thursday—and took Friday off. This is the big leagues, nerds! If you start on a Friday, you won’t be as productive as we intend to be tonight. I realize I’m talking about being productive at an amusement park while skipping a day and a half of work, but you’ve got to have your priorities. My team at work said I could leave if they could finally meet my wife when she picked me up. Joke’s on them—that’s a terrible trade! We agreed and made the exchange. "Hello," said my wife—and away we go! Told you!

Our amusement park friends from the daytime Universal Studios trip were waiting for us at the hotel bar. The same friends—we don’t have many. We rushed to meet them before they drank the bar dry. We got there just in time to sit and enjoy a draft IPA. This beer needs a burger.

On the way up to the hotel room, we noticed this hotel was all about technology. Everything seemed overly complicated, and there was a rumor that robots brought up your room service. I’m not letting any robots know where my room is, thank you very much. Zombies and intelligent apes also need not apply. As we unpacked, my wife pulled a bottle of wine from our backpack. She looked at our friends and said, "I got us covered," while attempting to wink. Our friends responded by revealing that one of their bags was a cooler. It had a bottle of wine, a 12-pack of beer—and snacks.

Daytime stuff is for losers—or us on any other day—but it’s Halloween Horror Nights. Let’s do some nighttime stuff. It was Florida at 5 pm, but I’ve got a great imagination—plus beer. We had to wait in line to enter the haunted areas. I didn’t mind, because we had beer and Auntie Anne’s pretzels. I was smiling—cut to 5 minutes later. I was out of food, out of beer, and it was hot. Now, I was making the face I make when I pretend to do cardio.

They corralled us into the gate, and I showed them whatever they wanted. My wife handed it to me. That’s not my area, but the secret password (my ticket) worked.

Here’s why we came: Ten Haunted Houses. Was this a good time to tell everyone I’m afraid of haunted houses—and the dark?

The first one we hit was Stranger Things. We went there first because of its popularity—it’s in the algorithm. The house focused on the second and third seasons of the show. I binge-watched the whole thing, so who remembers what goes where? The parts I could compartmentalize made an impression on me, and they did a great job recreating them here.

Next up was Ghostbusters. We read it was gaining popularity, so I figured it would be a nice break from me being terrified because, you know, it’s a comedy movie, right? They got me distracted with all the cool effects, and I lost situational awareness. Got a few good jumps.

On to House of 1000 Corpses—gulp. It was rough in there. Were there 1000 corpses? Did I even want to know? There were certainly mannequins in there. Please don’t do the thing where one of the mannequins isn’t a mannequin but a person pretending to be a mannequin who jumps out and scares me—they did the thing.

Yeti: Terror on the Yukon had snow. That’s terrifying enough for a Floridian. Honestly, I think they just had the thermostat set to a decent temperature. I could picture my wife under four blankets. That was a fun stop. Still pretty scary, though.

We needed to get to Us before it got too crowded—the algorithm! For a movie that made me say, “Wait, what’s happening?” a lot, this house delivered. Creepy throughout.

Killer Clowns from Outer Space. I have no idea what this is.

Depths of Fear had an underwater theme. It was different, but still scary. It was the only one where someone managed to get around my wife to scare me. Yeah, I hid behind her the whole night.

Nightingales: Blood Pit. The name was scary enough. Did I even have to go in? It was dark by this point, so I started employing other strategies to keep my cool.

Graveyard Games was the jumpiest of the houses. Stuff kept popping out of nowhere. I had to use my main anti-scare tactic of dance-walking to get through it. It keeps me from focusing on the terror.

Universal Monsters was a scary rendition of all their classics. A well-done haunted house. Not like how they tried to create an Avengers-style cinematic universe. That fell apart after the first try. The Mummy was supposed to be chapter one.

Then it was on to dinner at the Universal Monsters Diner. At this point, I could speak about as well as a monster. "Arghbargah pizza bahgar," as my wife retells it. So, I ended up with a pizza—I’m sure it was delicious. I’m told we watched a fantastic water dancing show, which I remember for sure, and then we ended up on a bus.

“Can we order room service?”

“Beep-boop.”