8 things to do at Halloween Horror Nights 2021

1. Have your heart melted by a monstrous love story

Styled as a Victorian story book, this classic maze on the upper lot weaves an original tale of a woman resurrecting her beloved against all odds. 

Each scene is introduced by a larger-than-life illustrated page. A running narration helps further characterize the heroine as she turns from a hapless damsel into a vampire-hunting steampunk scientist whom guests will be rooting for by maze's end. Impressive set pieces include an early scene where she digs her beloved out of a pile of burning rubble, and an enormous amount of burbling and zapping steampunk machinery.

2. Seek out glow-in-the-dark creatures in Pandora's Box

Uniquely unsettling sights await visitors inside the Curse of Pandora's Box maze—inspired by Greek mythology, but certainly not constrained by it. Liberal use of neon paint and black lights creates a supernaturally vivid world where monsters jump right off the walls (sometimes literally). The ouroboros, a serpent devouring its own tail, steals the show in a particularly gruesome scene where Medusa has turned ancient warriors to stone. In another, ravens (a bad omen in Greek myth) usher visitors into Hades, where they are judged by stoic skeletal figures. 

4. Attend a barbecue filled with suspicious meats

With flayed skins hanging from the ceiling, it’s clear why this maze might creep members out. You may even be offered your very own mask made out of human flesh, lovingly hand-sewn in front of you. The creep factor is further enhanced by the sickly sweet barbecue sauce smell that fills the hallways, as though the maze itself is trying to get you hungry. Scareactors here make clever use of knocking to draw your attention where it's needed—such as to the many captives here hoping to escape before they're part of the cannibal buffet.

5. Figure out which walls are haunted in an old house

High-end production values bring the creeps at this maze based on a hit TV series about a family moving back into a haunted house. The spacious corridors are appointed with the luxury wood finishes, light fixtures, and stained glass one would expect from a fine manor. Don't let that put you at ease, though—thanks to ingenious use of light, it's hard to know which of the house's walls are real and which ones conceal malevolent spirits. With no way to know where the next scare is coming from, no other maze makes you feel quite as vulnerable.

6. Witness an exorcism gone wrong

One of the scariest movies of all time has become one of the scariest mazes of all time. From the moment members see the green light shining down from the window of a possessed child's bedroom, the dread sets in and never lets up. The maze cleverly returns to the bedroom at different stages of the exorcism, letting the visiting demon show off all its powers. Keep an eye out for the possessed Ouija board on the left, just inside the entrance—easy to miss, but hard to forget.