Universal: 3rd Horror Nights house plagued by haunted artwork
The tale of Spanish artist Sergio Navarro, who lives in a haunted manor where paintings come alive, will be the basis for a haunted house at Halloween Horror Nights 2025 at Universal Studios, HHN creators shared.
The maze — named El Artista: A Spanish Haunting — is the third of 10 HHN houses to be revealed and the first of the year featuring original content. The reveal came during a panel discussion at a Spooky Empire event Friday. Also discussed — sometimes coyly — was an overall event theme — the use of “Five Nights at Freddy’s” — and the possibility of a stage show.
In the El Artista storyline, Navarro is having a career dip so he moves into a country manor for inspiration. It’s set in the 1880s.
“Unbeknownst to him, the manor’s grounds are infested by the spirits of artists that came before him and also moved to the manor, and there’s a deeper sense of evil rooted deep within the manor grounds that exists mostly inside the conservatory,” show director Ramon Paradoa explained. “This deep sense of evil overtakes Sergio’s mind, influencing his art, forcing him to paint these horrifying things that come to life.”
Paradoa discussed the look of the house and the special effects planned.
“We wanted to really run the gambit on the different kinds of creatures and attackers we can see within the environment of a ghost story. You have spectral entities, apparitions of ghosts that belong to the manor, the artists of the past,” he said. “But then we wanted to play with what if we had some creatures that were poltergeis t creatures, creatures that possessed Sergio … and came to life and used his artwork as vessels for themselves to have tangible bodies.”
The Pepper’s Ghost effect — a widely used illusion technique — will be utilized repeatedly in the house, Paradoa said.
“You’re going to physically see ghosts trying to burst through paintings, pushing through the canvas of paintings and you may or may not see ghosts walking through walls,” he teased. “That’s just some of the examples of how we’re really trying to push those boundaries from an effects standpoint, to make it feel like you were walking alongside Sergio, as this haunting is going from bad to worse.”
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As an overall inspiration for this year’s HHN, creators and designers looked to the roots of the horror genre, landing on gothic textures such as stained glass, vines and gargoyles, they said.
“As soon as you cross through those turnstiles you are going to be hit with those gothic tones and textures,” said Lora Sauls, assistant director of entertainment creative development and show direction at Universal Orlando.
“You are going to make your way toward the Music Plaza Stage and that tone and texture and maybe the characters that surround you, the scenic elements, everything is going to carry that theme all the way through your journey,” Sauls said. “If you chose to take that right down Hollywood Boulevard, that theme is still there in a different way but still taking on those tones, textures, environments, stained glass within that conservatory wall.”
Those tones will be repeated within the soundtrack and lighting across the theme park, she said.
The two previously announced houses are based on “Fallout,” a videogame and Prime streaming series, and Jason Universe, centering on the “Friday the 13th” villain. Halloween Horror Nights begins Aug. 29 at Universal Studios.
The Spooky Empire event ended with an audience-driven Q&A with the panel, and questions included the possibility of a stage show and inclusion of “Five Night at Freddy’s,” a 2023 film Universal has indicated via social media — without detail — would be included in HHN.
“We have officially announced that ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ will be part of Halloween Horror Nights on both coasts [including Universal Studios Hollywood],” said Mike Aiello, senior director, entertainment creative development at Universal Orlando. “We have not officially said how that will be part of the event, but it will be in the event.
“And what I can tell you, it’s going to be cool. It’s going to be fun. … The characters will look identical to how they appear in the Blumhouse ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ film.”
Aiello did not confirm a “Nightmare Fuel” show or other production but explained their purpose within the event, referring to house alternative as “palate cleansers.”
“We want to be able to present something that allows someone who maybe doesn’t want to get scared all night, that they can sit down and enjoy some level of spectacle within the event … anything that kind of breaks you away from the scare zones and the haunted houses, where we want to try and find ways that we can engage that guest,” he said.
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