I tracked my heart rate through the 10 haunted houses of Halloween Horror Nights. Here’s what scared me most.

ORLANDO, Fla. — When I told my fellow Halloween Horror Nights attendees that I’d never visited a haunted house before, they recoiled in mild panic. Why was I, an easily frightened amateur, willfully subjecting myself to a medley of gory visuals and jump scares? I figure someone has to blaze the trail for the scaredy-cat community. It might as well be me.

To be clear, I love horror movies. They’re not real, and I can close my eyes to escape them. Not so at a haunted house — and especially not at the annual fall event hosted by Universal Studios in Orlando, Fla., where terror overwhelms the senses and nefarious creatures invade your personal space.

Every year between Labor Day weekend and Halloween weekend, thrill seekers head to the theme park at nightfall to walk through 10 incredibly detailed haunted houses packed with actors in frightening costumes and scenes teeming with guts and decay.

I watched hundreds of videos of past Halloween Horror Nights haunts to prepare, watching people shriek and panic as mangled creatures leaped out at them. Yahoo social producer Eric Duran, a Halloween Horror Nights veteran, swears these scares are predictable and not too off-putting. He followed me through each of the houses, never once flinching. I had the opposite experience. One can never get used to having a snarling monster lunge toward your face as you try to navigate around it, no matter how many times it happens, even if they’re strictly banned from touching you. But that’s just my opinion.

To get a truly objective assessment of how spine-chilling each of these houses is, I tracked my peak heart rate at each stop to create a ranking of the scariest houses at Halloween Horror Nights 2025. To set a baseline, my resting heart rate is 73 beats per minute (bpm). Join me as I recount the darkest highlights of the scariest night of my life.

10. Hatchet and Chains: Demon Bounty Hunters

Heart rate: 109 bpm

In this experience, demons made out of lava start to take over an Old West town, and two otherworldly bounty hunters have to save the day. It smelled awful, which was impressive. I’m certain that the peak of my fear came when I was genuinely startled by a decaying thing peering around the corner, and it just wouldn’t go away because I just kept screaming and we were both locked in mutual screaming and amusement until I finally regained the ability to move.

9. El Artista: A Spanish Haunting

Heart rate: 112 bpm

I knew that the Gothic vibes of the home occupied by a tortured writer seeking inspiration would appeal directly to my creepier sensibilities. The art on the walls of this house, set in 19th-century Spain, starts to come alive, jumping out at passersby. I was so captivated by its beauty and the narrative, I almost forgot to get scared.

That is, until my bat ear headband got caught in something — maybe someone’s costume or a piece of gauze hanging from the ceiling —and I thought I had been captured by some malevolent-but-stylish ghoul. I doubled over in a hunched position that I maintained for the rest of the night.

8. WWE Presents: The Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks

Heart rate: 118 bpm

You can only be so scared when you’re creeping through a haunted house and come face-to-face with a massive WWE logo. I don’t really know much about wrestling aside from the fact that it’s dramatic, which I appreciate, but this house is based on a group of creepy characters portrayed by professional wrestlers.

I definitely hit peak bpm when one last creep in a grotesque mask and crappy wig unexpectedly lurched at me, causing me to involuntarily sprint out of the exit with my arms in the air in surrender like a frightened cartoon.

7. Dolls: Let’s Play Dead

Heart rate: 125 bpm

Guests enter the house of a maniacal little girl who tortures her toys, and we’re next.

“I’m not afraid of dolls,” I said, seconds before screaming in response to the abrupt screeching sound of a crying baby.

This was the least scary to me content-wise, but they still got a good shriek out of me when I ran into a giant piece of yarn that my brain, seized by fight-or-flight instincts, mistook for a snake.

6. Gálkn: Monsters of the North

Heart rate: 132 bpm

The main thing I remember from this house is that it had cult-y Scandinavian vibes and the best air conditioning in the entire park, which lulled me into a false sense of security. Looking back at the footage of my walkthrough, I can’t really tell what monsters scared me at the end — definitely some cruel beasts with vengeful growls — but they made me scream, then laugh, then scream again. What more could a gal ask for?

5. Grave of Flesh

Heart rate: 132 bpm

I was never more afraid moseying through this underworld-inspired house than when our tour guide warned us at the entrance that it was going to emulate the sensation of being buried alive — not one of my favorite pastimes! It did smell like dirt, but thankfully, I didn’t touch any. The flesh-eating monsters that lurked around nearly every corner were definitely spooky, but no match for my claustrophobia.

4. Fallout

Heart rate: 132 bpm

This house lulled me into a false sense of bravery. It’s based on Prime Video’s adaptation of a video game about a postapocalyptic wasteland that’s been devastated by nuclear war and clearly exists for its fans. I haven’t seen the show, so I was a little lost when it came to the narrative.

Oftentimes, the scares were tired-looking adults screaming at me, which was exactly the vibe I was serving back to them. I’m pretty sure what got my heart pounding the most was seeing the eerie skeletal character known as the Ghoul and thinking of the actor who plays him — my longtime crush Walton Goggins.

3. Five Nights at Freddy’s

Heart rate: 142 bpm

I wrongfully assumed this haunted house would be gentle because it’s based on a movie I’ve seen that’s essentially about a demented Chuck E. Cheese. Alas, I learned quickly that I don’t really know myself because I was absolutely paralyzed with fear the whole time. If you’re not familiar with Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria from Five Nights at Freddy’s, it’s full of possessed animatronics that haunt you through its abandoned hallways.

A brief musical performance interlude made me feel safe, but I lost my mind again when characters started jumping out near me — even the objectively unscary Josh Hutcherson look-alike and the little pink cupcake with eyes. The constant fog made me tear up, and I got so overwhelmed I nearly fell to my knees.

The peak of my terror came after I realized that my constant swerving and flailing flung my expensive microphone off my shirt and into the unknown. Happy ending, though: Our tour guide was able to track it down. Kenneth, you deserve a raise.

2. Terrifier

Heart rate: 143 bpm

Eric and I spoke with a handful of fans outside the gates of the theme park, and they were far and away most excited to see Art the Clown. The sadistic, black-and-white demon clown is the main character of the vomit-inducing Terrifier movies, and at this mecca for horror lovers, he was the belle of the ball.

I was extremely nervous about this torturous funhouse for several reasons. One, the movies are objectively gross, so I could only imagine how the gremlins at Halloween Horror Nights might up the stakes in real life. Second, there were two ending options: a dry one and a wet one.

I didn’t really want to get wet, but I’m an intrepid journalist and I had to investigate. Though it wasn’t the “bloodbath” I was expecting, both of my portable chargers got soaked and died forever. May they rest in peace in the Universal Studios garbage can.

The house was also insanely stinky. I had to plug my nose walking through the bathroom scene. I absolutely lost my mind when a dying person leaped out of a mirror and lunged at me, but other than that, I was more disgusted than scared. I know Art! He’s one of the biggest original horror characters to emerge over the past decade. I was kind of starstruck.

1. Jason Universe

Heart rate: 151 bpm

Inspired by the greatest hits of the lengthy Friday the 13th film franchise, I came face-to-face with killer Jason Voorhees over and over and over again at the scariest house of the night.

He jumped out at me more than a dozen times, and no amount of anticipation and situational awareness could steady my heart rate before sending me to the next hallway packed with hockey-mask-wearing freaks. I kept anticipating that I was near the end, then running into another batch of stab-happy summer-camp rejects. I thought I was going to die there and they’d have to drag my body back to the display at Grave of Flesh, which is the highest compliment I could possibly give.

I came to Halloween Horror Nights in search of adventure and left obsessed with the rush you get when the fear dissipates into your body, replaced with that high-flying feeling of pure adrenaline.

I was still so freaked out when I woke up the next morning, I did the only thing I knew would give my brain the exorcism it needed: I headed straight to Magic Kingdom at Disney World to hug Winnie the Pooh.