NEWS: why Halloween is becoming premium

0:07 Coming up, your weekly roundup of news from around the haunt industry. Welcome to the show. I'm Philip. On the HAN Show, we bring you the haunt news, information, and education you need to prepare for Halloween. On Tuesdays, we bring you a roundup of news from haunts worldwide. Read more about these stories and so much more in our free weekly newsletter. Subscribe at the link in the show notes. And as always for the News Roundup, I'm passing it off to Daryl. Here's a message from Philip Hernandez, publisher of the Haunted Attraction Network. This one's late, sorry about that. I spent the weekend in Orlando covering Halloween Horror Nights 35 and it took a few days to publish everything. Whatever you think of Universal, Halloween Horror Nights is the world's largest Halloween event and this year the haunt industry built a big piece of it. I walked all 10 houses and I ranked Ozzy Osbourne, Prince of Darkness and Hellraiser as the best. John Cook's Plague Production worked on both. That's the same studio that debuted as a first-time vendor at Transworld in March. And it also built The Conjuring Beyond Fear at four Six Flags parks in three months, which I wrote about for the in-park this week. The haunt industry vendor is now building a flagship product with two of its three biggest park chains in the country. And that means the mainstream audience's palate is becoming more sophisticated.

1:31 Another story from the weekend is Who's Buying? At HHN this year, the premium tier is sold out first. Premium Scream Night, a capacity capping event at $ 339 a head, sold out on both of its dates. The RIP Guided Tour at $ 469 is sold out outright, and the only way left to buy that experience is a private booking for $ 5, 000. Food is a premium product too. I ate all 33 items, averaging $ 11. 64 a piece, And my tab at regular prices would have been $ 304. 79. As I write this, HHN Hollywood opens tonight with general admission, an express sold out for opening night and several RIP tours gone as well.

2:13 Six Flags is making the same premium bet with The Conjuring Beyond Fear, a 20-minute low-throughput upcharge while playing the value side at the same time. It just ran its biggest annual pass sale and 196 of its 448 Halloween experiences are scare zones and live entertainment included with admission. We've been tracking both sides of the K economy since July. And this is what a serving both looks like. A low gate for the pass holder and scarcity on top for the guest who wants more. 13th Floor is running the Haunt scale version with its Jason walkthrough in nine cities and a limited director's cut add-on for the premium guest.

2:54 Operators of both hands have learnings here. If you want to see how the top houses put it together, I toured Hellraiser and HR Blood and Guts with the work lights on through Universal's daytime unmasking the horror tour, room by room, with the tricks you can't see at night. Also this week, Tim Curry, the original Pennywise, has passed away at 80. Movie Park Germany added the first Jason Universal haunted house outside the United States. Mickey's Not So Scary added a Captain Barbarossa, a Captain Barbossa show, and Haunted Mansion meet and greets. Camelback Resort is turning into its Pocono Water Park into a toxic outbreak haunt. Party City is back for Halloween inside 700 Staples stores. and Six Flags is moving its headquarters to Arlington, Texas. Here's what you need to know this week. Halloween Horror Nights 35.

3:46 Which houses to skip and which to prioritize? Halloween Horror Nights 35 is open at Universal Orlando in Orlando, Florida, and this year's Infernal Carnival of Nightmares runs 10 haunted houses. We walked all of them at the Premium Scream Night, and the gap between the best and the rest is wide this year. Our ranking runs best to worst with a read on which houses are worth the wait and which you can skip if the lines get long. One caveat up top, a weak HHN house is still a strong night out. Follow the links in our show notes to read the full story. Our ranking, Ozzy Osbourne, Prince of Darkness is number one, followed by Hellraiser. Number three is Jack and Oddfellow, Chaos and Control. Number four, H.R.

4:31 Blood and Guts presents A Halloween Frighttacular. 5, Evil Dead Burn, and 6, Cybergoria, followed by 7, Sinners, Stranger Things 5 in 8th place, Invasion, Alien Abduction in 9th, and Madland's Caged Cannibals. We also toured each of the event's scare zones. Follow the links in our show notes to see a video. Additionally, learn the history of this year's Halloween Horror Nights theme, Infernal Carnival of Nightmares, as told by puppets in the downtown Clowntown scare zone. They chronicle the history of conflict and partnership between Jack the Clown and Dr. Oddfellow. Halloween Horror Nights Premium Scream Night. What it's like and whether it's worth it. Premium Scream Night is the priciest and most exclusive way into Halloween Horror Nights, and after doing it this year, the pitch holds up. We at the Haunted Attraction Network attended the August 27th preview at Universal Orlando and walked out having seen everything in a single night.

5:29 The premium screen night is a separately ticketed, limited-capacity preview held before Halloween Horror Nights officially opens. Universal is running two in 2026 on August 27th and October 19th. Admission includes select food and non-alcoholic drinks and free parking, and the event runs from 6.30pm to 2am. For $ 399 and up, Premium Scream Nights is worth it if your goal is to do everything without the lines, or if you want a calmer first look before the full crowd nights. With capacity capped, the in-park boards show 5-minute waits in operating houses and rides for much of the night. If you do go, a few tips from our night. Arrive early, since you may get in before the posted start. Do the haunted houses first, and save the scare zones for after dark, when they play best. Eat throughout the night or push food later since the booths were busiest early in the evening. Plan your route and you can really clear the whole event. For everything else this year, see our Halloween Horror Nights 2026 guide, our Know Before You Go, the tickets guide, and our ranking of all 10 haunted houses.

6:33 Unmask the horror tour at Halloween Horror Nights 35, a lights-out look inside three houses. The best way to appreciate the Halloween Horror Nights house is to see it in the dark with a scare actor lunging at you. The second best way, and maybe the most fun, is to see it with the lights on and nobody rushing you. That's the whole pitch of Behind the Screams Unmasking the Horror. It is a daytime, guide-led walkthrough through the event's haunted houses with the work lights on and the scare actors off the clock. This means you can stop, study the sets, ask how the effects work, and take photos, none of which you can do at night. The three-house tour starts at $ 99 and has been available since August 21st. The six-house tour is $ 199 and started August 28th. Both include a buffet-style lunch and the three-house version also came with exclusive photography access and the commemorative pin. Hellraiser Lights On Tour The house is built from the first three films, Hellraiser, 1987, Hellbound Hellraiser 2, 1988, and Hellraiser 3, Hell on Earth, from 1992. From the first room that recreates the movie's very first shot to a bloody gauntlet and a finale where Cenobites can lunge at guests from every angle, view our Lights On walkthrough guide by following the links in our show notes. for room-by-room details, with the movie history that each set is quoting and the craft you never noticed at full speed. H.R. Blood & Guts presents a Halloween Fright-Tacular Lights-On Tour. If Hellraiser is the house that wants to unsettle you, H.R. Blood & Guts is the one that wants to make you laugh while it does it.

8:02 This is a love letter to late-night TV horror crammed with more references than you can catch on a single nighttime run. The house is the sequel to H.R. Blood and Guts' original house from 2011, and many of the room feature nods to past HHN lore. The house's Cult of the Pumpkin Lord section gives a nod to Slaughter Cinema, the anthology-style house Universal ran in 2018, and specifically its movie Pumpkin Guts. about a disfigured son who turned his father's pumpkin patch into a field of victims carved into jack-o'-lanterns when the room opens up for the pumpkin lord pulled from 2021's wicked growth, Realm of the Pumpkin House. In the schoolhouse resurrection section, a room of pumpkin-headed pupils ties back to the Terra Queen, an icon from Halloween Horror Nights 15. Read our Lights On walkthrough guide for a room-by-room tour with the jokes and deep-cut callbacks the house is built on. John Murdy breaks down Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood Sinner's House from a flying vampire to a 1925 truck. John Murdy, creative director of Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood, walked through the event's Sinner's Haunted House with the lights on, and let out how his team turned one of the most decorated films in Oscar history into a maze full of firsts. The house's showpiece recreates the film's big battle.

9:17 Murdy's team decided they needed a real stunt performer, so they brought in a flying company of the kind that rigs Peter Pan on Broadway and hid a large winch system behind the sets. He can jump off, land right in front of you, take a swipe at you, and then fly up to disappear into the darkness, said Murdy on the tour. HHN Orlando's desserts tie each treat to a house, starting with an Aussie Chocolate Bat. Halloween Horror Nights 35 at Universal Orlando does not stop at the mazes. The event's dessert cart is themed just as carefully, with each suite built around one of this year's houses or icons. We got a look at the first of several of them, with the standout is the Universal made chocolate bat with the late Ozzy Osbourne's name on the box. The product comes as a three ounce molded milk chocolate bat with raspberry filling. The joke writes itself, you bite the head off the bat and the raspberry inside runs like blood.

10:06 This is a direct wink to the 1982 concert moment that followed Ozzy for the rest of his life when he bit the head off a bat thrown onto the stage. Other desserts each point back to a specific maze, including the Hellraiser Chocolate Lament configuration, the Evil Dead Burned Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake, Killer Clown's Cotton Candy Cocoon Rice Treat, and Jack the Clown Sugar Cookie and the Stranger Things Pie. This is the first taste rather than a complete list. Universal revealed the entire spread ahead of the event, which we track in our Halloween Horror Nights 35 Food Menu Guide. Haunted Mansion's new meet-and-greet characters are full of jokes at Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party has pulled a handful of characters straight out of the Haunted Mansion for 2026, and they came ready with new material. The new meet-and-greets near the party's welcome area put guests face-to-face with two of the mansion's residents, the all-new ghost Lady Fermata and the mansion's very-much-alive steward, Blair Lockwood. Lady Fermata is stationed in a vine-covered platform in a flowing white and blue ground, working the crowd behind a lace fan.

11:09 Her bit leans hard into ghost buns and improbably modern dating. A short walk away, Blair Lockwood introduces himself as the chief steward of the haunted mansion, one of the manor's very few living residents. He is dressed in the mansion's signature dark green and purple under a green striped tent, and he greets guests before hurrying them along to the first candy stop of the night. His humor runs to self-deprecation. View our video of these Haunted Mansion character meet and greets for ghostly one-liners and deadpan humor. Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party runs on select nights from August 7th through October 31st at Magic Kingdom. For the full rundowns, see our Disney World Halloween 2026 guide. Captain Barbossa commands a new pirate show at Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party has a new pirate show for 2026 and Captain Hector Barbosa is running it. The Pirates of the Caribbean villain storms the Adventureland stage from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, claims the festivities as his own, and renames them Captain Barbosa's Buccaneer Bash before drilling a crowd into a proper pirate crew. Barbossa's musical takeover is a mix of live sea shanties, comedy, and audience participation, and it runs several times a night. There is no published schedule for this nearly 20-minute show, but it plays several times a night, slotted in between the other acts between 7pm and midnight, which means catching it is a matter of being in Adventureland at the right time. Jason Universe Goes International.

12:34 Movie Park Germany adds a Jason haunted house for 2026. Movie Park Germany is bringing Jason Voorhees to Europe. The Bottrop Theme Park has added a new Jason Universe haunted house for its 2026 Halloween Horror Festival. The first time the Friday the 13th licensing program has placed a haunted attraction outside the US. The Jason Universe house is built around Jason Voorhees, whom the park describes as one of the most famous slasher killers in film history. brought back in what it calls a truly terrifying new take on the character. The festival runs September 26th through November 8th. 22 event days under the motto Legends Never Die. The park builds the lineup as Europe's biggest Halloween horror festival with nine haunted houses, four scare zones, and more than 300 monsters. New alongside Jason this year is a live show, Phobia, the live horror game show, where guests face their fears in a game show format. Day tickets start at € 34. 90 and time slot tickets for the horror houses are sold online on top of park admission. going on sale in mid-September.

13:36 Full dates, details, and tickets are on the park's official Halloween Horror Festival page. Green-tagged, Six Flags moves HQs, and Disney patents ride aversions. Six Flags is moving its corporate headquarters from Charlotte to Arlington, Texas, with the transition complete by March 2027. CEO John Reilly framed the move as concentrating our personnel, processes, and decision-making in one office to improve coordination among the new executive team. This is an efficiency of time. The pure money play would be to stipends and no office at all. A turnaround built on live entertainment rollouts, reinstated park presidents, and new layers of communication need people in one room because the ideas that matter tend to happen outside the meeting. Meanwhile, Disney filed a patent application for a system that let guests flag the specific ride moments they cannot handle, then warns them before those moments arrive, swaps in a milder effect, or changes the ride in real time. Real-time ride changes are a long way from any show system, but the intent search is well past ADA. Heat, loud noises, confined spaces, and vertigo keep people out of parks without qualifying as disabilities, and only Disney can build the moat that brings them in.

14:45 The pushback is that opt-out design can become dumbed-down design, and the homogenized park eventually sends a pendulum back towards the biggest, fastest, and tallest. The Curse of Camelback turns a Pocono water park into a toxic outbreak haunt this fall. Camelback Resort in Tannersville, Pennsylvania is giving its summer water park a very different second season. The Pocono Mountains destination is launching a new Halloween haunt, The Curse of Camelback, that transforms Camel Beach Mountain Water Park and the mountain around it into the site of a fictional chemical outbreak. It runs nights Thursday, September 17th through Sunday, November 8th. premise plays off the setting. In the story, crews use explosive chemicals to excavate the mountainside and aquatics teams treating the pool for Labor Day crowds accidentally mix two substances into something toxic. A glowing green gas now pours out of Kahuna Lagoon, mutating anyone caught in the mist, and the military is moved in to contain it. A few surviving staff have gathered at the base of the Sun Bowl lift to organize rescue parties and guests are cast as the volunteers heading uphill into the containment zone. The experience is built as a journey rather than a single maze.

15:54 Guests board the mountain lift and ride up Camel Beach, then move through the abandoned emergency response camp, fog-filled water park attractions, chemical spills, barricades, eerie tunnels, and maze-like paths, coming face-to-face with mutated characters and scares along the way. Magic of Jack-O-Lanterns returns with Paulus Verdes with 10,000 pumpkins for 2026. Magic of the Jack-o'-lanterns is back at South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verdes, California for 2026. A family-friendly all-ages Halloween walk lit by more than 10,000 hand-carved pumpkins. It runs select nights September 18th through November 1st and tickets are on sale now. New for 2026 are a whimsical circus, a Dia de los Muertos tribute, and an under-the-sea journey, plus a synchronized pumpkin light show that lights up the trail every 30 minutes. Towering inflatables, interactive activities, and photo opportunities fill out the rest of the walk.

16:47 This is a family outing rather than a scare event. Halloween season is almost here upon us, and haunts around the country are announcing their dates, new additions, special events, and more. To help you manage the myriad of updates, the Haunted Attraction Network has compiled comprehensive guides to the top haunts in the U.S. and theme park events around the world. Bookmark the important pages for reference and check back often as updates as new information is released. Our guides include Fall Food and Drinks 2026, Halloween Candy 2026, Fright Fest 2026, Not Scary Farm 2026 Guide, Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Hollywood 2026, Kennywood Phantom Fall Fest 2026, Alton Tower Scarefest 2026, Halloween TV Specials, Dollywood Harvest Festival, Cedar Point Hello Weekends, Spirit Halloween Locations for 2026, Netherworld Haunted Houses, When Do Haunted Houses Open in 2026, The Best and Scariest Haunted Houses in America, Halloween Horror Nights, Disney Halloween, Fright Fest, Hello Scream, Orlando Halloween Events, Halloween Time at Disneyland, Haunted Houses in California, Halloween Horror Nights, Haunted Houses in Texas, and Halloween Horror Nights Ticket 2026.

18:04 Follow the links in the show notes to view all of the guides. Party City is back for Halloween 2026, online and inside Staples. Party City is open for Halloween again, its first spooky season since the chain went bankrupt and closed all of its company-owned stores at the start of 2025. The full Halloween assortment lives online at PartyCity.com, where the store is carrying its usual deep costume selection for 2026. Adults, kids, baby, plus-size, horror, Disney, and even pet, and inflatable costumes, along with decorations, props, and party supplies. The site invites shoppers to order online or pick up at a store near you. In person, Party City looks different than it used to. Rather than reopening standalone big box stores, the brand has returned as a shop and a shop inside more than 700 Staples locations nationwide. The in-store assortment is party decor, tableware, gift bag, costume accessories, and favors, plus latex and foil balloons inflated with helium while you wait, alongside Staples same-day print services for invitations, banner, yard signs, and posters. In other words, the staple shopping shops are a party supply stop, not a return of the old Halloween costume superstore. For a head-to-toe costume, the website is still the place. Target's pulled Halloween clown costume draws renewed backlash. Target has removed a children's Halloween clown costume from its Hide and Eek boutique line and apologized after critics said the product and its promotional image evoked blackface and minstrel caricature. The item was the Kids Glows Under Blacklight Circus Clown Halloween Costume. It sold for $ 25. It paired an orange and black circus

19:37 clown bodysuit with a black mask featuring an exaggerated wide toothy grin, a top hat and gloves. Target's promotional image showed a black child modeling the costume. After shoppers began circulating screenshots of the listing, critics said the mask exaggerated features and the promotional photo recalled characters from Jim Crow-era minstrel shows. In a statement posted to its corporate newsroom on August 24th, the company apologized. As a company, we know we got this wrong and we are deeply sorry. The costume is offensive and should never have been part of our assortment. It is no longer available for sale. We know this is especially hurtful for our black guests, team members and partners. Removing the costume is an important first step and the company is looking closely at how this happened and what needs to change to ensure this won't happen again. The company has not said who designed the costume or how it was approved. Dunkin's 2026 Fall Menu Brings Back Pumpkin and Adds a Tiramisu Collection. Dunkin rolled out its 2026 Fall Menu nationwide on August 19th, bringing back the Pumpkin Spice Signature Latte, adding a new tiramisu-inspired drink collection, and launching a breakfast built with creator Alex Earle. The pumpkin lineup includes the Pumpkin Spice Signature Latte, Hot or Iced, Pumpkin Cloud Dunk-A-Latte, Pumpkin Pie Coffee Chiller, and Nutty Pumpkin Protein Latte. The new Tiramisu collection includes the Tiramisu Cloud Latte, the Tiramisu Shake and Espresso, the Tiramisu Marshmallow Matcha, and the Tiramisu Protein Latte. The Earl-y riser meal pairs Duncan with creator Alex Earl in her

21:09 go-to order, a shake and espresso with sugar-free vanilla and almond milk, a sausage, egg, and cheese hash brown wake-up wrap, and three munchkins. It ties the Earl's Netflix reality series, Earl Meets World, which begins streaming on September 4th. Hi-Chews Halloween Mystery is back with a secret flavor to guess. Hi-Chews is turning its Halloween candy into a guessing game. The brand's Halloween Mystery Mix returns in 2026 with three known flavors and one secret mystery flavor hidden in every bag, so the fun is as much about figuring out what you are chewing as it is about the candy itself. The known flavours this year are Green Apple, Orange Creamsicle and Cotton Candy. The fourth is a cat. It's a brand new mystery flavour disguised in an all-white tulip. Never before revealed taste that fans have to identify for themselves.

21:58 To match the theme, I Choose Mascot, Chuby, gets a Frankenstein's Monster makeover on the packaging. Surrounded by creepy crawlers and a mad scientist setup that plays up the mystery inside. For the rest of this year's mystery treats, see the full lineup on our 2026 Halloween Candy Guide. Pabst Blue Ribbon's new Jason 12-pack folds into a wearable Friday the 13th mask. Pabst Blue Ribbon has a Halloween trick up its carton. The brand is teaming with Jason Universe, the Friday the 13th label from Reitzholder Horror Inc., and a fall collaboration whose 12-pack is die-cut so the box itself folds into a wearable Jason Voorhees hockey mask. The pack wears the franchise's look a bloody machete streak, and a Friday the 13th style logo, and the front panel pops out into the mask, eye, and mouth holes included. The mask carton is only the start, and a broader Jason Cross PBR line rolls out in September while supplies last.

22:52 The collaboration adds apparel, glassware, bobbleheads, cap handles, tackers, and koozies, all carrying the crossover branding. The whole promotion runs from September through Friday, November 13th, a fittingly on-brand end date across retail, events, and social. A24' s Backroom starts streaming on HBO Max September 25th. A24' s Backroom, the studio's highest-grossing films of all time domestically and globally, makes its streaming debut exclusively on HBO Max in the U.S. on Friday, September 25th. It then debuts on HBO Linear on Saturday, September 26th at 8 p.m. Backrooms stars Truettel Egiophore, Renata Rinesby, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, and Lukita Maxwell. The film is directed by Kane Parsons and written by Will Sudig, based on the series by Kane Parsons. The premise? A strange doorway appears in the basement of a furniture showroom, leading to an endless network of interconnected rooms where time bends, and the only thing scarier than getting lost is the scent that something is lying in wait. The original Halloween trilogy returns to AMC Theatres for three nights in September. The original Halloween trilogy is headed back to the big screen. John Carpenter's Halloween, 1978, Halloween II, 1981, and Halloween III, Season of the Witch, 1982, returned to AMC theaters in three consecutive nights, September 4th, 5th, and 6th, presented by the upcoming Halloween the Game. The screening leads into the game's September 8th launch. Tim Curry, the original Pennywise, has died

24:25 at 80. Tim Curry, the actor who first brought Pennywise, the dancing clown, to the screen, died on Tuesday, August 25th at his home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles. He was 80. His manager, Marcia Hurwitz, confirmed the death of variety in A Cause Was Not Given. Curry's career ranged widely from Dr. Frank Converter in the Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1970 Thrive through decades of film, stage, and voice roles. For horror fans, one role stands out, Pennywise in the 1990 miniseries of Stephen King's It. It became one of horror's more widely recognized clown roles, and it stood as the definitive screen version of the character for more than two decades. Some upcoming events August through October 20-26, Creepin' Real Expo in Santa Ana, California, September 11-13.

25:12 And that's all for the news this week. Today's episode was produced by me, Philip Hernandez, with reporting by Daryl Plunke, post-production by David Swope. This Haunt News Update is a production of the Haunted Attraction Network, and you can sign up to our weekly newsletter at hauntedattractionnetwork.com. Support for this episode comes from Gantam Lighting and Controls. Until next time, haunters, stay scary. This is a Haunted Attraction Network production.