Here at Nerdist, it’s pretty safe to say that Halloween is one of our most favorite times of the year. Festive, creative and sometimes scary, Halloween is a favorite holiday of many and there’s nobody who does October 31 quite like Halloween Horror Nights. This year I had the opportunity to travel to Orlando, FL for the opening night of HHN24 and the experience was exciting and elaborate, to say the least. The mazes were inventive, the actors and guides were exceptional and even the scare zones on the street were top notch.

This year the featured mazes in Orlando included a tribute to the John Carpenter classic Halloween, a preview of sorts of the upcoming feature Dracula Untold, a reimagining of El Rey network’s first scripted show From Dusk Til Dawn: The Series and making its triumphant return, The Walking Dead: End of the Line, which is also the largest maze Universal Orlando has ever built. Alien Vs. Predator also introduced some action and science fiction into the evening featuring “scaractors” who tower above the average person to play the fearsome Predators.

One of the things I love about Universal Orlando are the original mazes. This year there were three, including Giggles & Gore Inc, a scary clown assembly line (SERIOUSLY?!?), Dollhouse of the Damned, and my personal favorite, Roanoake – Cannibal Colony. Roanoake tells the story of the lost colony of Roanoake and suggests that perhaps the Virginia colony didn’t survive because the towns people ate each other in a blood-soaked, grizzly way.

As a horror fan, I would recommend Universal Halloween Horror Nights to anyone looking for a terrifying experience complete with high production value and scares galore. HHN 24 runs in Orlando until November 1 and in Los Angeles until November 2.

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What sort of spooky things are you planning for Halloween? Make sure you stay up to date with all our Halloween coverage by following #Nerdoween on twitter!