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…