I Spent One Night at Freddy’s
And all I got was this stupid photo.
When Universal Studios Orlando announced their lineup for their 2025 Halloween Horror Nights haunted houses, there seemed to be something for everyone. Classics like the Jason Universe saw massive positive reception, as well as new age cult classics like the Terrifier series. For primarily younger horror demographics, however, one name immediately stuck out like a sore thumb: Five Nights at Freddy’s. This haunted house would allow parkgoers and fans alike to step inside the world of the video game (though, this and the Fallout haunted house were mainly inspired by their adaptations) and see its elements up close in person for the first time. Fully moving animatronics on the main stage, the security office, the kitchen, and maybe even the man behind the slaughter himself. Anyone who was there in the series’ early days, especially little kids, had the same collective thought back in the day: it would be so cool to go to a real-life version of this place. You know, preferably without the haunted animatronics and risk of being shoved into a springlocked Freddy Fazbear suit, but you get the gist. This was quite literally a dream come true for so many fans, young and old. So when I found out I’d be going to Universal Studios Orlando right in the nick of time, I knew I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.
We arrived at the city walk at around 4:30 from our shuttle (Epic Universe is great, by the way. Definitely go there.) and stopped for some dinner beforehand. Picking whatever the first place we saw was, we ended up at The Cowfish, a strange fusion restaurant combining sushi and burgers in their signature dish dubbed the “burgushi”. None of this plays into the Five Nights at Freddy’s part of this story, but it’s important to me that you know this. Across from the restaurant was one of Universal Studios Orlando’s many stores, where they had a Freddy Fazbear decal right in the window alongside plushies of the main four inside. They meant business, and knew exactly what many young people were there for.
Advancing to the haunted houses through the Halloween Horror Nights gates leading to the main park, we followed the signs leading us to the haunted houses. The line for the Five Nights at Freddy’s haunted house was held in what I assumed was the former sound stage of many Universal productions. As it turns out, the whole of Universal Studios Orlando’s studio lot theming is actually ripped from Universal Studios Hollywood, in which parkgoers can go on a tour of their real studio lots. So many iconic films were produced at that location in those very sound stages, and we were being held in a crowded replica full of tired, overheated, and possibly drunken Five Nights at Freddy’s fans.
After about an hour of standing around and slightly moving forward, we exited the sound stage in the final lane of its crowded line. Expecting to have been met with an entrance to the fictional 80’s entertainment center, we were instead shocked to find… another line. This one did not appear nearly as packed as the sound stage line, though not for lack of trying. This line stretched out and wrapped around multiple other sound stages outside the one we had just come from, and the sweaty Florida heat almost made this wait harder to bear. It took nearly ANOTHER hour before we found ourselves in the final lane of what we hoped was, dear God, the final line. Thankfully, we could see the residual glow of the neon lights through the back entrance we were being fed into. I hoped that in spite of the near two hours we waited in that sweaty, cramped, fatigued line that maybe, just MAYBE this haunted house would have been worth it. And before us, there it suddenly was.
This was the only photo I could capture before they threatened to kick me out. We walked through the entrance, past the animatronics (singing “Talking In Your Sleep” by The Romantics like in the film), through the main office, past the kitchen, being jumpscared all the way throughout.
And then, it was done.
We were disappointed to say the least. I mean, all that waiting for THAT? We definitely set our expectations too high. I feel like any Halloween Horror Nights veteran would have known what to expect from the haunted houses at this point, but to someone new, ESPECIALLY following such a long line, it just felt a lot cheaper and quicker than we had expected. Then again, that’s kind of the fun of the franchise even from just the first game. My mind keeps going back and forth on if this was a waste of time or exactly what it needed to be, but to be honest, I’m overthinking this. It’s kind of in a Five Nights at Freddy’s fan’s nature to sweat the little details and go absolutely crazy trying to figure things out, and I’m not gonna be that guy. I’m not even going to complain about a lack of Golden Freddy representation—though the guy who will is probably out there somewhere, waiting with bated breath for you to ask him. In any case, it was both really cool to see one of my childhood fantasies finally realized in a material sense with the Five Nights at Freddy’s haunted house at Universal Studios Orlando, and something I’ll probably never go to again.
If you want to explore a haunted house of your own while at home this Halloween, come check out our title selection on our sister site Galxy.tv! Live in the moment with the found footage film 8213: Gacy House, as well as the chilling 100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck. Happy Halloween, everyone!