The latest house announced for Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights promises to show guests that “they are their own worst enemy.”
Based around “Us,” the hit film directed and written by Jordan Peele released in March, the big scares in the house will be “The Tethered” — doppelgangers of every person in America.
“It’s very exciting to know that fans of ‘Us’ will get to experience firsthand the terror of being stalked and tormented by ‘The Tethered.’ It’s been a lifelong ambition of mine to create a monster that would scare people on Halloween, so having ‘The Tethered’ join such esteemed company is a dream come true,” Peele said in a press release.
The house will trace the events of the film, starting in a carnival funhouse along the Santa Cruz boardwalk in 1986. In the present day, “The Tethered” will rise up “to murder their privileged doubles in a nationwide coordinated act of rebellion.”
As Peele has explained in a featurette included with film’s Blu-Ray release, one of the major themes of “Us” is First World privilege, with “The Tethered” meant to represent “the idea that what we feel like we deserve comes at the expense of someone else’s freedom or joy.”
“The idea that ‘we are our own worst enemy’ and the visuals around that notion are what made the story of Us so compelling, personal and exciting for our design team to translate,” said Universal Orlando’s director of entertainment creative Michael Aiello. “Surrounding our guests in that horrific world of duality Jordan Peele created is a perfect fit for Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights.”
“Us” joins an elite lineup of intellectual properties being showcased at HHN this year. Universal has already announced houses based on “Ghostbusters,” “Stranger Things,” “Killer Klowns From Outer Space,” and its own stable of classic monsters. Along with those based off original concepts, Universal has announced eight mazes so far.
That leaves two more left to reveal — along with all the scare zones spread throughout Universal Studios Florida.
The 29th edition of Halloween Horror Nights kicks off on Sept. 6. It will be the longest HHN ever, running 41 nights through Nov. 2.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the dates for HHN. The event runs through Nov. 2, not Nov. 4.
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