This story contains spoilers for the content displayed and/or performed at the event.

1. El Artista: A Spanish Haunting

Displaying stunning paintings and detailed sculptures, the attention to detail and aesthetic appeal of this house. The highlight of the expansive mansion was the courtyard, detailed by scare actors camouflaged between draping wisteria, a central fountain, a moving gargoyle statue on the ceiling, and more of the 19th century Spanish architecture mimicking the experience of a museum tour—a ghostly one at that.

2. Jason Universe

I’m not a fan of repetitive motifs in horror; yet, the use of multiple actors as Jason turned every corner into an opportunity for jumpscares, ensuring you walk out the house with a racing heart. A clever take on the camp setting of the “Friday the 13th,” this house ended in the woods with different Jason scare actors coming out between them, reaching out to deliver a truly terrifying experience. For the other jumpy people who walked through the house, it’s clear “evil doesn’t stay dead,” but we stay alert.

3. Terrifier

Gore, comedy, water effects, and more, this funhouse was a circus of emotion. It was a great representation of the work from HHN actors, delivering us with a frightfully fun Art the Clown that’s unnerving and entertaining for the entirety of the house. The warning of a wet “bloodbath” that’d teased fans by taking the right, wet path at the end was not enough to hold runner-up in my ranking. The set itself was enough of a bloodbath, showing cut open corpses and intestines hung like garlands, all while playing cheery music throughout. The story juggled multiple settings beautifully, including a Clown Cafe, Cupid’s Pitch Love Canal, and a rainbow maze of flashing Christmas lights. The wait was long for those spending hours in line to enter, but not as long as it took for Universal to hear fans’ pleas to add the Terrifier series to HHN. Just like the Jason house, this adaptation of a popular horror franchise was a killer execution.

4. Five Nights at Freddy’s

As for the best house entrance, FNAF takes the cake—not to be confused with the infamous “Mr. Cupcake” sold at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. We see the animatronics Bonnie and Chica on a vibrant, upbeat stage featuring beloved frontman, Freddy Fazbear, singing in the center. Moving through the pizzeria with victimized children and animatronic hands reaching out, it was easy to forget I wasn’t actually fearing for my life. The giant puppets were unsettling and anxiety-inducing in the ways HHN should be, leaving you dying for more.

5. The Horrors of The Wyatt Sicks

Another house starting off with a bang—or in this case, a flash—showcases a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) themed arena, putting the audience center stage. The array of lights turns on and off sporadically, pairing with hazy fog and threatening scare actors for an ominous beginning to the twisted journey into Bray Wyatt’s mind. Jumpscare after jumpscare, the disturbing characters inside taunt you into some great scares, and the careful attention to detail put this house near the top rankings.

6. Gálkn: Monsters of the North

Chilling in more ways than one, the scare actors hiding left and right and creeping you through a maze of snow give this house the perfect balance of fear and awe we horrorheads look for in the houses. Entering the second section through the skeleton of a hard-to-miss three eyed Nordic horned creature was as exciting as seeing the Tyrannosaurus Rex moments before a drop on River Adventure, or the lively King Kong animatronic bust on Skull Island. Having escaped the belly of the beast, I would only place this house in the bottom half of the rankings from a rushed experience (having to cram the last two houses in the five minutes before closing) and would love to revisit a similar scare-monster experience that Horror Nights always reigns supreme in.

7. Hatchet and Chains: Demon Bounty Hunters

Briefly included in last year’s Slaughter Sinema 2 (a haunted house drive-in theater for B horror films), the house was visually rich with Old Western features, trails of blood, hunting motifs, and even a moving train to develop the story of why the frightful lava demons torment the small cowtown. That being said, the style is as memorable as a tumbleweed rolling by, and not menacing enough in the totality of the event.

8. Dolls: Let’s Play Dead

Successfully executing the idea of living through a doll’s perspective, the dollhouses’ large-scaled props shrink you down and toys with you in a way unique to the other nine. It also stands out in the interactive environment made possible with guest-activated triggers, tricking you through a toybox of mistreated dolls from their twisted owner’s playtime. As playful as the illusion was, the house was one of the shorter scares and more kitsch than grotesque.

9. Fallout

Being the shortest of the houses and having not followed the Fallout universe before entering, I didn’t connect with the story or find any details worth the hours waiting in line. Though clearly containing carefully crafted elements like the rubble of supplies and Super Duper Mart decor, the lack of scares also make it fall short to the other, more impressive houses.

10. Grave of Flesh

Though the idea of a haunted house sitting you in your own grave sounded intriguing, the house lacked the fear factor which HHN is known for. With a pungent flower smell, chintzy masks used by actors, and repetitive scares, the house underperformed to last place in total rankings, leaving a terrifying amount of room for improvement.