{"id":1038054,"date":"2026-09-02T03:14:36","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T03:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1038054\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T03:14:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T03:14:36","slug":"peek-inside-halloween-horror-nights-bloody-good-sinners-and-ozzy-osbourne-haunted-houses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1038054\/","title":{"rendered":"Peek inside Halloween Horror Nights\u2019 bloody good \u2018Sinners\u2019 and Ozzy Osbourne haunted houses"},"content":{"rendered":"

A stake through the heart. A throat that\u2019s been ripped open by some ungodly creature. A woman in a snazzy purple dress lying lifeless on the bar. Playing cards scattered across the floor. Broken tables and whiskey-slicked glasses. Bottles of Old Crow Beer lining the wall. And blood. Everywhere. Something seriously wrong happened in this room\u2014and things will only get worse for the souls who make it out of here alive. Welcome to \u201cSinners<\/a>,\u201d the new, meticulously designed haunted house<\/a> at this year\u2019s Halloween Horror Nights<\/a>, which runs from September 3 to November 1 at Universal Studios Hollywood<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only was it a massive hit,\u201d John Murdy, Halloween Horror Nights\u2019 veteran creative director, explains of the film Sinners, during a behind-the-scenes, lights-on preview of this year\u2019s event. \u201cBut it was also incredibly critically acclaimed to the level of 16 Academy Award nominations, which is a record\u2014and just unheard of for a horror or horror-adjacent movie. So we knew we needed to treat this film differently than how we\u2019ve treated other properties.\u201d<\/p>\n

How Murdy and his team, which includes art director Chris Williams, treated Ryan Coogler\u2019s juggernaut started, like a lot of projects at HHN, by collaborating with the artists who brought these films to our screens themselves. \u201c[Coogler] very much wanted to be a part of Horror Nights,\u201d Murdy says. \u201cWe worked with his producers and music department through this process. That\u2019s what we always try to do: work directly with talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
\nPhotograph: Tim Lowery for Time OutThe exterior of Club Juke at \u201cSinners\u201d <\/p>\n

\"The
\nPhotograph: Tim Lowery for Time OutThe sign for Club Juke at \u201cSinners\u201d <\/p>\n

And walking into \u201cSinners,\u201d you can tell. Before even entering the proper haunted house, fans queue in a recreation of Club Juke, complete with an old-timey piano, an actor performing \u201cI Lied to You<\/a>\u201d and, of course, a dude shredding on guitar and another doing his thing behind turntables in a recreation of the film\u2019s famous time-travel sequence that showed how blues influenced rock and hip-hop and other genres. Meanwhile, a host revs you up for the frivolity of the night ahead.<\/p>\n

\"The
\nPhotograph: Tim Lowery for Time OutThe full stage at \u201cSinners\u201d <\/p>\n

\"The
\nPhotograph: Tim Lowery for Time OutThe Ford Model A outside Club Juke at \u201cSinners\u201d <\/p>\n

Once inside, though, things quickly go south as you\u2019re chased by vampires (sometimes from above, with a nifty scare coming from two glowy-eyed members of the undead hovering overhead) in and outside Club Juke, hoping to make it to the next morning. The level of detail is impressive, with Murdy pointing to a truck that\u2019s parked outside the joint. \u201cThe movie is set in the \u201930s,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause all of the people who are going to be attending Club Juke tend to be like sharecroppers in the Jim Crow South, they wouldn\u2019t have had new cars. They would have had cars from the \u201920s. This is a real Ford Model A,\u201d he notes, explaining that it was used in the park by \u201cLaurel and Hardy\u201d walkaround characters back in the day. \u201cSo we had to know exactly where it had to land, and then everything got built around it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That attention to detail extends to choreography too. That aforementioned bloodbath \u201cinvolves six live performers on multiple levels,\u201d Murdy says, creating a scene for guests that he calls \u201cabsolute chaos\u201d and \u201creally cool\u201d that still moves the carefully plotted story forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cJack, whatever we do in this house, there\u2019s one scene we have to do: I want a giant bat to bite the head off your father.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Elsewhere, in the shadow of \u201cFast & Furious: Hollywood Drift<\/a>\u201d (which officially opens September 16), lies another notable new haunted house: \u201cOzzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness.\u201d When meeting with Ozzy\u2019s son, Jack, to first discuss this project toasting the late, great frontman, Murdy had one demand. \u201cI said, \u2018Jack, whatever we do in this house, there\u2019s one scene we have to do: I want a giant bat to bite the head off your father.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
\nPhotograph: Tim Lowery for Time OutThe entrance to \u201cOzzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Platform
\nPhotograph: Tim Lowery for Time OutPlatform 666 at \u201cOzzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness\u201d <\/p>\n

That moment does indeed unfold in this spectacle, in which you enter the crypt-esque, stone facade of Osbourne Station and board a train\u2014of the crazy<\/a> variety, naturally\u2014while evading various things going bump in the night. For fans of the Black Sabbath singer, there are a ton of Easter eggs to behold: the tattoos on his fingers spelling his name that he inked himself as a teen, callbacks to his time as a boy in post-World War II Birmingham (including a replica of a photo his wife, Sharon, provided for this project), nods to his killer Black Sabbath run and solo albums like Bark at the Moon (think werewolves and mad-scientist chemistry sets with bubbling neon liquids), an insane asylum and both his Christian upbringing and embrace of his Prince of Darkness moniker.<\/p>\n

\"The
\nPhotograph: Tim Lowery for Time OutThe mad scientist\u2019s lab at \u201cOzzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Ozzy\u2019s
\nPhotograph: Tim Lowery for Time OutOzzy\u2019s portrait at \u201dOzzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something I worked out with Sharon,\u201d Murdy says, showing an image of the singer folding his hands for prayer above the text \u201cGod bless Ozzy Osbourne\u201d and noting that he had meetings with her about the project every two weeks or so. \u201cThe very end. This is a very personal house for all of us involved. We knew Ozzy. We loved him. We wanted to do something to honor his legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Merch
\nPhotograph: Tim Lowery for Time OutMerch for Halloween Horror Nights 2026 <\/p>\n

This year\u2019s onslaught also boasts a bunch of other haunted houses themed around everything from Hellraiser and this year\u2019s Evil Dead Burn to the final season of Stranger Things and the \u201980s curio Killer Klowns from Outer Space. (Oh, there\u2019s also one dubbed \u201cKILLcea\u00f1era: Music by Slash\u201d featuring an original score by the guitarist.) And that\u2019s not to mention the return of The Purge stunt show, a Terror Tram led by Terrifier\u2019s Art the Clown, a whole lot of \u201cscare zones\u201d and interactions with characters from the likes of Obsession. \u201cDoing Horror Nights is the equivalent of making eight horror movies at the same time,\u201d Murdy admits. And honestly, it\u2019s hard to argue with that.<\/p>\n

Halloween Horror Nights<\/a> runs\u00a0select evenings from September 3 to November 1. Tickets cost $77 to $107, depending on the night; with Express Pass add-ons, options range from $249 to $399. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A stake through the heart. A throat that\u2019s been ripped open by some ungodly creature. A woman in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1038055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,10336,2961,224,5337,10337,1072],"class_list":["post-1038054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-categories-things-to-do","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-news-city-life","tag-things-to-do"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117199273714788648","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1038054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1038055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1038054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1038054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1038054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}