By Brittany Cravatta
Photo caption: From left to right: Tabitha, Brittany, and Sarah waiting in line for the Stranger Things House 2018
Hi, my name is Brittany Cravatta.
Friendship is something that is hard to come by nowadays, but I’ve heard that if someone has at least one or two really close friends that love you dearly, then you are a very fortunate individual. Luckily, I have three amazing girlfriends whom I love to the moon and back and I know that the feeling is mutual on their end too. It eventually became a tradition that once a year my friends Sarah, Tabitha, Ashley, and I would take a weekend vacation together. Our planned weekend trips guaranteed that we would at least see each other once or twice a year since we all went to different schools. This ritual helped us maintain the close friendships that we still have today. This year, we all decided to take a weekend trip to Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights, and I wanted to share the experiences that we had while we were there.
This year, HHN was 80’s themed and featured multiple different scary houses that were themed after horror movies that were popular in the 80s or set in that era. They had about ten houses total, and we were capable of experiencing all of them.
When we entered the park, the smell of fresh food filled our nostrils while the loud roar of the Rip Ride Rockit was heard. One of the best houses on the first night was called Universal Monsters. This house included all of Universal’s classic monster characters such as Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, and many more. The jump scares made us scream and the atmosphere itself really gave me feelings of anxiety. During one point, we had to walk through pitch black darkness for about 30 seconds, but this felt like an eternity. The funniest part was when the Wolf Man came out of nowhere and scared all of us so bad that we just sprinted out of the house as fast as we could while simultaneously laughing. While we were all pretty terrified in the moment, all of us found it hilarious at just how unexpected it was.
We all agreed that Ghostbusters was the best house in the whole event. The house wasn’t the scariest, but Universal Studios did a very good job turning a comedy movie into something mildly scary. The Ghostbusters house was intended for the fans of the movie and so the set design and environment of it was a little more light hearted and fun. All of the characters such as Peter Venkman, Egon, Winston, and Ray made an appearance at least once, and all of the ghosts and monsters had jump scare cameos. Much like Universal Monsters, the special effects in Ghostbusters was spectacular. Towards the end, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man made a cameo as the Ghostbusters theme song played. I remember all of us dancing to the song while exiting and a Slimer attempted to scare us, but we were having way too much fun to be scared.
Another house I want to highlight is the Stranger Things House. This house was based on seasons two and three of the iconic Netflix series. Like Ghostbusters, the house itself was not that terrifying and was intended more for the fans to have the opportunity to experience it rather than to scare people. Sarah thought that the house was boring, but that’s because she hasn’t watched the show. Although I agree with her that it lacked in its horror elements, I thought it was probably the most detailed throughout event. Every important scene and character from the show made an appearance.
The last house that I wanted to highlight from the weekend is the Us house because it was one of our top favorites. For those who don’t know, Us is a horror movie starring Jordan Peele which recently released in early 2019. Even though none of us saw the movie, we thought the house had many intense moments. The horror elements and special effects well put together and Universal managed to hire multiple scare actors that looked extremely similar to each other, much like the film. The end of the house had us all clinging to each other for dear life. We walked through a dark room full of mannequins and only three out of 20 of them were scare actors. Not knowing which ones were real and which ones were fake and that any of them could possibly pop out at us was stressful.
No matter what we do, I always appreciate the time that I spend with my closest friends. As we grow older and our lives change, it gets harder and harder to spend some quality time with them. Going on these trips with them gives me something to look forward to every year, and I can’t wait to see them again during the holiday season.