Halloween Horror Nights 2023

[BatCom]

Press release went out to media today for HHN 2023.

Sep. 7 - Nov. 5

For the first time in USJ history, a unique branded daytime event will be held for Halloween: "Hahaha! Halloween Party" mostly focused around the previously announced Pokemon dance party + unique meet n' greets.

Three houses this year:

1. Chucky's Carnival of Chaos (First 3D house at USJ)
2. Universal Monsters: Legends of Fear
3. Resident Evil: The Extreme+

Two ride overlays:

1. Sadako's Curse: Dark Horror Ride (Space Fantasy)
2. Hollywood Dream x Ado

The press release also promises the "biggest variety of scare zones" in the park's history.

 

[BatCom]

Speaking personally, this year is a pretty hard sell. Jurassic Park being down hurts. The daytime "event" seems like pretty thin marketing and is just a dance party + meet n' greets most of which were there last year.

Nothing really new in the houses either. All three IPs are reused from 2022, this is the third Resident Evil house and the eighth (!) Chucky house at USJ. The Monsters house is also likely a complete repeat from last year.

For those unfamiliar with HHN in Japan, the event is marketed heavily around dance parties. They are insanely popular here and people go absolutely nuts for them. Generally speaking, Halloween in Japan has more of a "zany/kooky" feel than a straight horror, scary feel. With the rise of TikTok dance trends and other related social media BS, it kind of feels like houses and scare zones are falling more and more to the wayside at HHN in Japan.

HHN at USJ is not separately ticketed, but honestly if the events are going to be this low effort I would rather they start upcharging for it and do something more unique.

 

[malice]

Sad that Hamikuma isn’t returning this year. His merch flew off the shelves and the show/character was a big hit with the crowd.

 

[BatCom]

Sad that Hamikuma isn’t returning this year. His merch flew off the shelves and the show/character was a big hit with the crowd.

He is indeed returning, didn't mention in the OP. The Hamikuma dance party is probably the single biggest draw of HHN these days for most people.

 

[Wesker69]

It sounds great to me. I'd love to go... but I do have to point out that they've been doing Resident Evil for longer than 3 years. Hell, the SZ was done as far back as 2010-2012 time frame (Orlando got an RE house in 2013).

Chucky sells. And the crossover Hello Kitty merch is amazing.

I don't have an issue with the event being a big dance party. It helps alleviate the fear temporarily. Also, the Orlando event was always a big Halloween party with live bands during the early years. Hollywood's event was also mostly shows too.

I'm curious to find out the SZ themes because I absolutely LOVED their Cyberpunk Universal Monsters one. The killer toys didn't look bad either.

 

[Galactus]

Speaking personally, this year is a pretty hard sell. Spider-Man and Jurassic Park both being down hurts the park a ton. The daytime "event" seems like pretty thin marketing and is just a dance party + meet n' greets most of which were there last year.

Spiderman closes at USJ in January doesn't it? Shouldn't it be open during HHN?

As far as the houses go, how do they compare to ones at USF or USH? Are they similar length and production value?

 

[Viator]

Fascinating to see ADO blowing up as she is for Japan to warrant her to be the predomiment artist for Hollywood Dream's overlay--even going as far as to have unreleased and new content be on the coaster.

 

[Jerroddragon]

Resident Evil must do well, its at the event every year

 

[BatCom]

Spiderman closes at USJ in January doesn't it? Shouldn't it be open during HHN?

As far as the houses go, how do they compare to ones at USF or USH? Are they similar length and production value?

My bad you’re right. I was thinking of the “campaign” starting in July. Edited my post.

I’ve only been in a couple houses here but IMO they feel pretty budget compared to HHN Hollywood which is the only other event I can compare to. One difference though is that the houses are open all day, not just during HHN hours since the park closes so early.

 

[Jake S]

Does anyone know (@BatCom , maybe?) if Horror Nights in Japan is an every day of the week thing? A weekends-only thing? Trying to figure out which day we should be purchasing tickets for.

 

[Galactus]

Dejikii says that it'll be open every day but if someone knows better please correct me! At least I'm hoping that's the case since I'm going Monday-Thursday and I'd have to do a rescheduling if it means I miss HHN.

 

[BatCom]

New look at the Pokemon Halloween dance party from a new USJ commercial

 

[BatCom]

HHN pop-up event/experience happening in Shibuya in Tokyo Aug 17-19.

I think this might be a first, anyway cool to see some USJ presence in Tokyo.

 

[BatCom]

So this is the HHN experience in Tokyo

I was hoping to see Shibuya Scramble turned into a scare zone, but no, just more TikTok dancing.

 

[BatCom]

Today is opening night for Halloween at the park, here's a video of the new Pokemon characters making their debut as part of the daytime stage show.

 

[Jerroddragon]

DJ Gengar....no other park can compete with that.....close the rest down. USJ has won

 

[BatCom]

One nice thing about HHN this year is that scareactors are finally able to show their faces again, the last two years all scareactors had been wearing decorately made masks of some kind.

 

[quinnmac000]

I find it absolutely genius the marketing USJ did collabing with Ado (Top charting Japanese artist for 2023) for a song and then using that song, bringing back a super popular character (harimuka) and creating a dance to promote HHN via tiktok/instagram. They definitely are hitting peak young audiences