The Las Vegas Chainsaw Massacre
Universal Horror Unleashed brings year-round horror to Sin City
Before I jump into today’s article, I want to share my latest Funworld column with you. The attractions industry is truly global as evidenced by Adeleh Basiri, a trailblazer from Iran who helped develop her country’s first major theme park. Read about this fascinating young woman and her compelling story.
Oh, the horror. I’m not talking about the maddening resort fees or the sky-high costs for what used to be the cheapo, loss-leader buffets that beckoned folks into casinos along the Las Vegas Strip. I’m talking about Universal Horror Unleashed, the new attraction that brings Halloween Horror Nights-like fun and mayhem to Sin City. I got to brave its four haunted houses and check out everything else on offer at the venue. I’m here to report it’s scary good.
Located at Area15, the immersive entertainment district located off the Vegas Strip, Universal Horror Unleashed (UHU) marks a bold move for Universal Destinations & Experiences and represents the company’s first foray into a new market with a standalone haunt experience. (It has plans to roll out more and has announced that it will also be unleashing horror at a Chicago location in 2027.) While UHU clearly takes its cues from the wildly popular Halloween Horror Nights at Universal’s parks in Hollywood, Orlando, Singapore, and Japan, the Las Vegas attraction is unique–and in some ways, better–in its own right.
For one, rather than sticking with the Halloween season, UHU will be open year-round. Instead of a temporary, pop-up event that’s retrofitted at a theme park, the dedicated space offers permanent haunted houses and other features. It’s also located entirely indoors, which means Universal’s horror-mesiters can control the environment (including the climate, which is a great thing in a city that regularly posts triple-digit temperatures) and deliver a compact, thematically consistent experience. The way that UHU presents its haunted houses is markedly different from Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) as well.
A Frank encounter
If you’ve been to HHN, you know the drill. Once you reach the front of the line at a haunted house, you join the conga line and proceed through a maze of corridors and sets en masse. With a steady stream of folks preceding and following you, the “scareactors” (the performers who lie in wait to scare the snot out of guests) may or may not time their assaults to draw the most snot from you. More often than not, I find that a ghoul comes out of hiding just ahead of me, or I hear the telltale scream of a good scare right behind me. It’s still disconcerting and curdles my blood, but there’s nothing quite like a direct, in-your-face confrontation.
UHU, however, controls entry into the houses by sending one small group at a time to face the demons within. Each house has a nicely themed queue that leads to a holding area where staffers dispatch a group of no more than five guests every 45 seconds or so. As a result, my posse and I had our own personal haunt experiences with perfectly synced scares. There were no other guests in sight. With no distractions, we were enmeshed in the worlds of the characters and their storylines, which is the very essence of themed, location-based, immersive entertainment.
And get this: In each house, the small groups are corralled into a space in which multiple scareactors perform a brief scene. For instance, my gang and I–and we were the only ones there–got to witness the moment that Frankenstein’s Monster is pumped full of electricity and comes alive. When he broke free of his restraints and started coming after us, we hightailed it out of there. It was quite a sight to behold and to be a part of.
“Everything that you do here has more depth of interaction with what we call that core environment,” says TJ Mannarino, VP of art and design for Universal’s entertainment division and one of UHU’s visionaries, explaining how the Vegas attraction distinguishes itself from HHN. ”Basically, the world that we’ve set is a place in which you can now come and play.”
There is a downside to the intimacy and deep immersion, however. While the crowds are considerably smaller at UHU compared to the throngs that descend on the parks for HHN, that doesn’t mean there aren’t lines for the houses. That’s because only a few guests are allowed to enter at a time. We waited about 20 to 30 minutes for each house. That’s a lot less than typical wait times at HHN, but it’s a wait nonetheless. I’d imagine guests would spend less time in line by avoiding weekends and visiting on Thursdays or Mondays (UHU is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays) and by arriving in the afternoon (the venue opens at 2 p.m.) instead of the evening.
Universal shows some styles
The Universal Monsters house, which is set in the gothic crypt of Van Helsing, also features appearances by a cadre of classic characters that established Universal’s horror movie legacy some 100 years ago and defined the genre. The Mummy, Dracula, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and others lurk in the crypt’s dank recesses. Of UHU’s four houses, this was the highlight for me.
I really liked Exorcist: Believer as well. It is more or less the same as the house Universal presented at HHN in 2023, which uses the 2023 Blumhouse sequel to the 1973 original film as its reference. The Vegas version does not include the haunting “Tubular Bells” song, however (perhaps due to licensing rights?), but its private audience, mini-performance does depict a brief exorcism ritual that is a real head turner (see the photo at the top). The supernatural vibe in the Exorcist house is quite different from the gothic feel of the Universal Monsters maze. And it’s distinct from the old-timey, Dust Bowl aesthetic presented in Scarecrow: The Reaping. The variety is intentional.
“We picked different horror environments,” Mannarino says. “We know people that love horror aren’t all into the same style of horror. Having that mix really makes the experience great.”
The Scarecrow house is based on similar houses that the parks featured at past HHN events. It represents the lone UHU maze devoted to original content conjured by the fiendish minds at Universal Creative. Set on an old farm, its largely monochromatic color palette establishes a creepy tone. The all too lively scarecrows that inhabit its cornfields are the stuff of nightmares (in a good way, mind you; that’s the whole point of UHU).
The least engaging house, in my estimation, is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It’s based on the iconic slasher movie and is the most gory and extreme of the four UHU houses. But it’s not nearly as graphic as many HHN houses. This Leatherface has nothing on the sadistic Art the Clown who is tearing up the Terrifier houses now at HHN in Florida and Hollywood, for example. The chainsaw-wielding guy seems more like a lumbering oaf than a threatening psycho killer.
A horror playground
There is plenty more to do beyond the houses at UHU. A large common area, which is themed as an abandoned horror movie prop warehouse, is filled with artifacts and scareactors who are only too happy to engage with guests. Some walk through the crowd, while others are stationed in sets scattered throughout the space. There are some Cirque-du-Soleil-esque acrobats in harnesses that soar above the guests, giving the warehouse some offbeat energy. HHN mainstay Jack the Clown and his sidekick Chance preside over a brief stage presentation and game show that include audience participation and brings some kinky, horror-infused, Vegas glitz to the proceedings. The demented clown also has his own bar that serves themed cocktails.
There are some tasty and creative dishes available for purchase as well at both sit-down and counter-service eateries. Which begs the question: Is UHU a horror attraction? Or is it a cool place to hang with friends in Vegas that features highly unique entertainment?
“I think it’s both,” Mannarino said when I posed the question to him. “We built a space where we want you to feel comfortable if you’re a horror fan, if you enjoy a little bit more of the darker side of life. There is no place right now, except for Horror Unleashed, that gives you this environment year round.”
Which raises another question: Will folks come to UHU year-round? Universal has a lot riding on that business proposition. Sure, Halloween has exploded in popularity. However, the company must be betting on the steady stream of horror films and TV shows that are released throughout the year and the proliferation of fans that can’t get enough of the genre, regardless of the season. It’s something of a gamble. But you know the old Vegas adage: The (haunted) house always wins.