Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights is back in action. The 2025 edition of the after-hours fright fest remains intense and just may have gotten ickier.

Among the trends spotted on Friday, opening night, were a resurgence of puppetry, the returns of a lagoon show and chainsaw-driven walkaround characters, more in-house screen use than ever (mostly positive), plus splattering effects that we’ll continue to cope with by reassuring ourselves that was only water. It’s only make-believe. Repeat, repeat.

Thanks to an R.I.P. Tour provided by Universal Orlando , the Sentinel wandered through all 10 haunted house mazes on night one. Here are quick, not-too-spoilery impressions.

Dolls: Let’s Play Dead

What we saw: It’s the tried-and-true theme park scheme of being shrunken down to the size of

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