Tour Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights’ houses with the lights on
USA TODAY’s Eve Chen received a less spooky look inside some of the haunted houses at Universal Studios Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights.
- Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights features a new haunted house based on the WWE group, the Wyatt Sicks.
- The house fulfills a long-held dream of the late wrestler Windham Rotunda, known as Bray Wyatt, who created the characters.
The Wyatt Sicks’ members look like they were made for Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights, with creepy masks and imposing frames that would fit any haunted house. This year, the WWE group got their own on both coasts.
Universal Orlando Resort’s version of WWE Presents: The Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks opens with a sea of carnage. Someone appears to have gone on a killing spree backstage, at a wrestling match. Fans will recognize the scene as mirroring the Wyatt Sicks’ debut on WWE “Raw” last year, while newcomers will just know they’re in for something disturbing – right up late Windham Rotunda’s alley.
“This was one of Windham’s ultimate goals and dreams is to have a house at Halloween Horror Nights,” his younger brother and fellow wrestler Taylor Rotunda told USA TODAY. “I mean, he said that in 2008 before he even created the Bray Wyatt character. I’m like, ‘What are you even talking about? How are you going to pull that off?’”
The former WWE champion, who most fans knew as Bray Wyatt, loved horror and leaned into the dark side throughout his career, both in the Wyatt Family wrestling stable and later solo as the Fiend, a masked horror character in its own right.
As it so happens, Mike Aiello, Universal Orlando Resort’s senior director of Entertainment Creative Development, is a lifelong pro-wrestling fan. When he excitedly posted about the Fiend’s debut in 2019, Windham sent him a direct message, and it began a years-long conversation about horror, wrestling and collaborating.
Then unexpectedly in 2023, Windham passed away at age 36.
“It was a shock. It was horrible,” said Aiello. But it wasn’t the end.
Windham’s legacy lives on through the Wyatt Sicks and their house, which is unlike any other in Halloween Horror Nights history.
Who are the Wyatt Sicks?
The Wyatt Sicks are a wrestling stable whose characters were born of Windham’s imagination. They were first introduced years ago, as puppets on “Firefly Fun House,” a series of WWE promo videos he created, leading up to the Fiend’s debut.
They include Uncle Howdy (who’s portrayed by Taylor) Ramblin’ Rabbit (who’s portrayed by former Wyatt Family member Eric Rowan), Mercy the Buzzard (who’s portrayed by Dexter Lumis), Huskus the Pig Boy (who’s portrayed by Joe Gacy), and Abby the Witch (who’s portrayed by Nikki Cross). Taylor said Windham handpicked each one.
When the group debuted as fully realized characters last summer, Aiello said it was like “a haunted house on live TV,” with each member emerging from the dark, surrounded by bloody bodies. This was the spark that reignited the discussions that would make Windham’s dream a reality.
The Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks
Universal Orlando’s house takes guests into the group’s TV debut, through the Firefly Fun House and rooms inspired by each Wyatt Sicks member, as well a cabin representing the Wyatt Family compound.
“Walking through that section was very emotional for me, in the best possible way,” Rowan recalled. Both Windham and their other teammate Jonathan Huber (who was known as Luke Harper and later Brodie Lee) have since passed away. “It brought a smile to my face, you know. It made me sad, all at once.”
Like the other rooms in the house, it’s full of Easter eggs, including a white sheep’s mask like the one Rowan wore in the Wyatt Family. In another room, a grandfather clock is set to 7:13, a nod to the Wyatt Family’s main roster debut in July 2013.
“This isn’t just a simple wrestling story. That’s not how my brother’s brain worked,” Taylor said. “Go through it 100 times, and you’ll see something new every time, I’m sure.”
“I was so locked in at looking at all the details,” Lumis said. “I saw a poster. It looked like a retro poster of Dexter Lumis vs. The Miz, and then I looked to my right and there’s like a dead Miz corpse, and I just lost it laughing.” Lumis actually worked at Universal Orlando for years while training to become a pro wrestler and said he attended many Halloween Horror Nights, never imagining he’d be part of a house.
Guests encounter scareactors portraying each Wyatt Sicks member and The Fiend, but not Bray Wyatt.
“I did not want any actor playing Bray. Fiend is in there, but there’s a mask. That’s a whole different persona,” Aiello said. “But Bray, who is the closest to being Windham, that was a mandate that I put on our team as well, that we’ll only use video that he did while playing these characters. We’ll hear his voice. We’ll do pictures on the wall.”
Windham is also represented by a lantern in a gently rocking chair, like the iconic prop he carried as Wyatt, which the Wyatt Sicks carry on.
For the fans
Their fans, who are known as Fireflies, are part of the Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks, too. At matches, they shine the lights on their phones like fireflies in the dark. In the house, they’re represented as starry lights, a firefly painting (Windham was an avid painter), and a full-size Firefly scareactor.
“It was mind-blowing to make the Fireflies a physical being,” Taylor said with a smile.
The Fireflies are a big part of Windham and the Wyatt Sicks’ journey.
“This is like the first time in my career – and I’ve been doing this for 20 years – to where when our music hits, when we walk out together, I have goosebumps,” Lumis said. “With this particular iteration of my character and working with these people, these special people in this group, you really feel like something is watching over you, and I believe it’s Windham and I believe it’s Jon, and they’re proud of us and the crowd can sense that.”
Fans can also feel it in the house.
“It really strikes an emotional chord, unlike any Halloween Horror Nights house we’ve ever done before,” said Ramon Paradoa, show director for Creative Development at Universal Orlando. As a fellow wrestling fan, he poured extra love into co-creating the house with Aiello and Senior Scenic Designer Nick Collins in partnership with WWE’s Director of Character Development Rob Fee.
“Obviously, structurally, it’s a scary haunted house, but so many people exit the house in tears and just emotionally overwhelmed by what this house means and the tribute to Windham and these characters and his genius,” he said. “We’ve never had an experience like that.”
For everyone
The house isn’t just for existing fans, though.
“It’s complete horror,” said Rowan, a huge horror fan himself.
Paradoa said it had to be understandable and enjoyable for guests who aren’t familiar with wrestling. “My biggest goal was for the uninitiated to come out of the haunted house and go ‘Wow, I want to learn more about those characters,’” he said.
There are plenty of jump scares, including a moment in the house when the Fiend and Uncle Howdy simultaneously pop out at guests from both sides, symbolically reuniting Windham and Taylor.
“It really is like he’s with me every step of the way, not only in this, but in the WWE and everything that we do as a team and a group that he’s really, really with us,” Taylor said.
And they have many more of Windham’s stories to tell.