Thanks to the quirks of 2025’s calendar, Halfway to Halloween lands this year essentially on a weekend, giving enthusiasts the perfect excuse to extend their unofficial holiday’s celebrations. But for Halloween Horror Nights Orlando fans, in particular, it’s an especially much-needed source of solace in an otherwise-barren landscape; although we have received event dates, ticket sales – whether the single- or muti-night variety – are nowhere to be seen, preview-merchandise drops have failed to materialize, and there still isn’t even the faintest wisp of a haunted-house announcement. (Yes, while this is largely in keeping with last year’s marketing rollout, in which no haunt was revealed before the middle of May, it still stands out thanks in part to the lack of ticket sales, and in part because of that little development called Epic Universe, Orlando’s first new theme park since 1999, which has [understandably] been burning up much of the PR oxygen in the Universal room.)

In light of all this, we on the Horrors Untold team are expressing our gratitude for the fan-made mini-holiday’s arrival by assembling our own ideal ways of (eventually) ringing in Halfoween, HHN-style. We think you’ll agree that, by the time the weekend has come to a close and your personal festivities have wrapped up, you’ll feel readier than ever for your favorite horror event to kick off.

Wait, what is Halfway to Halloween, exactly?

First, though, a little history lesson on this weekend’s special circumstances (this is the blog extension of Horrors Untold, after all, a book that is dedicated to digging deep into the history [and lore] of Horror Nights Orlando).

Halfoween and its sibling, Summerween (which we’ll get to in just a moment), are, of course, entirely made-up modern entities, ones born, as the New York Times has so aptly put it, out of “social media’s insatiable need for content, retailers’ desire to drum up excitement in the dead zone of [the spring and summer months,] and an enthusiasm among certain people for ghouls and goblins so strong that it cannot be satisfied by one holiday a year.” They are, in short, an excuse for all and sundry to get just a slice of the fall earlier in the year – or, as Jason Blum, the head of Blumhouse Productions, himself put it in a recent press release, “The question we always ask ourselves is why can’t every day be Halloween?”

One, as such, could crassly cast these as a cash-grab on the part of certain purveyors of horror, but that doesn’t at all dispel or invalidate the fandom’s joyous reception of them – nor should it, just as the heavy retail undertones of, say, Christmas or, even, Halloween proper don’t ruin those majestic holidays. (There is even the argument to be made that it’s something of a modern reincarnation of Walpurgis Night, the occasion in certain parts of Europe when, according to centuries-old folklore, witches would herald the coming of spring and welcome otherworldly visitors just for the night [think of it as the earlier counterpart of All Hallows’ Eve]. Given that Horrors Untold’s original narrative was heavily informed by some of these very same traditions – more specifically, the end-of-year ones regarding Krampus – we on the creative team think there’s a lot of fertile ground to be mined here, as well.) Indeed, if anything, it seems that a growing number of businesses are jumping on the bandwagon, with Blumhouse currently running its second-annual Halfway to Halloween Film Festival (replete with extra goodies, including the ability to text with a M3GAN chatbot while in the theater) and Shudder, attempting to get in front of an ever-more-crowded field, having already devoted the month of April to new specials and series premieres.

And then there’s Summerween, the summertime extension of Halfoween that was inspired, of all things, by a 2012 episode of the Disney show Gravity Falls, in which the residents of the ficitious town decide to unleash their favorite holiday a few months early, putting a summer spin on all the traditional elements – think carved watermelons instead of pumpkins (or, as real-life practitioners have started doing, conducting nighttime horror-movie marathons outside, next to the pool). If recent trends, supercharged by social influencers, are anything to go by, it seems doubtless that Halloween Horror Nights fans will have a nearly nonstop string of diversions to keep them occupied right up until the dog days of August, when Universal’s hallmark annual event kicks off.

Speaking of which…

How to celebrate Halfway to Halloween for Halloween Horror Nights Orlando fans

Given all the specifics and peculiarities of HHN at Universal Orlando Resort, it only seems natural for the diehard enthusiasts to have their own special ways of celebrating Halfway to Halloween. Here are our humble suggestions for what those should be for this weekend’s festivities, and we additionally recommend paying attention to the order in which they’re presented – they’ve been specially arranged so that they can be stacked one atop the other, so that, by the end, you’ll have the ultimate, multi-layered Halfoween (or Summerween, if you wanna keep the party going until then) experience.

(It should go without saying that all these suggestions are above and beyond the usual, every-day-of-the-year activities that hardcore aficionados normally engage in, like listening to perennial podcasts, such as Fear and Beer, or hopping on Discord to pick apart the latest rumors or HNNightmares spec maps with other conspiracy theorists, like on HHN 365’s server [yes, we here at Horrors Untold are partial to these two, which is why we’ve repeatedly partnered with them since our book launched last October].)

1. Breathe in the fog

Our sense of smell has been described by scientists as the most primitive of our five, but that also helps explain why it’s one of the most powerful – there are few ways to instantly transport yourself to a different place or time, and taking in a particular aroma is chief among them.

All of which is why we here on the team have been known to stock up on scented candles while we’re at Halloween Horror Nights and burn them slowly and strategically throughout the year. All those stores at Universal do get deplenished sooner or later, though, and you might not have the room in your suitcase for such bulky souvenirs, anyway (hey – even those little candles tend to add up, and rather quickly), which is why it’s fortunate for us diehards that there are third parties who have stepped in and tried to scratch that particular theming itch. Both Magic Candle Company and Park Scents have Horror Nights wares on hand, and, even, Etsy can fit in with some more bespoke fragrances – and while how closely these smells hit to the real thing may vary upon your mileage, odds are still good that you’ll uncover a new favorite to get your horror heart racing before the fall.

2. Take in the music

There seems to be another growing market for theme-park superfans: music and soundtracks that come directly from the themed lands, and ambience videos that do their best to recreate the physical sensation of standing there, in the park, having the various sounds wash over you. (A goodly portion of Horrors Untold was written to these very same tracks, in fact.)

It should come as no surprise that HHN is well-represented within this burgeoning sub-genre, particularly since each event features its own custom music loop. The past several years’ worth, at the least, can easily be tracked down on YouTube, but you might not find a better or more authoritative collection of playlists than the one by our friends at Horror Night Nightmares over on Spotify, covering everything from the loops to the shows. Make that the first stop on your sonic journeyings.

And after locating the specific soundtrack for the specific year that you’re most pining for, you can then turn around and engage in another well-established practice within the community: endlessly debating and ranking which event’s musical roster was the best, or the most underrated, or the most over-hyped. You’ll be surprised by how easy it is to get sucked down into this rabbit hole – or how much more time on the clock it eats up, taking you that much closer to August and opening weekend.

3. Make a Halloween Horror Nights dish (or drink)

The culinary scene at Halloween Horror Nights has really undergone quite a transformation over the past seven years, and we couldn’t be happier for it – if the likes of Harry Potter and The Simpsons (or, over on the Disney side of the theme-park divide, Avatar and Star Wars) can alternatively up the theming ante and benefit from this wholly new front of immersion, then there’s absolutely no reason that Universal’s Halloween proceedings can’t do the same. It has gotten to the point where HHN feels almost like a food festival, replete with booths or kiosks that are fully decked out to one horror property or another and that regularly feature plates or drinks meant to land on everyone’s Instagram pages – last year, for instance, featured the Mini Stay-Puft S’more, a larger-than-life concoction hailing from Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, while 2023’s food roster was headlined by Dr. Oddfellow’s CarnEVIL Dog, which was topped with potato sticks, Kool-Aid pickles, and bubblegum mustard, all stuffed inside a confetti bun.

Not all of these, of course, are easy to recreate at home, but that’s all right – some of the now-classics will do just fine. For our money, this joint Pizza Fries and S’mores Fries recipe can’t be beat, particularly since the author in question decided to make a series of customizations at home. You can view the results in the video counterpart, showing the superior variances in action:

And if fries topped with either pizza or dessert options just aren’t your thing – a totally understandable situation – Universal itself has you covered with a series of horror recipes from its own official cookbook:

• Fried PB&J with Bananas Sandwich
• Mini Pumpkin Donuts
• Nachos Queso Fundido
• The Chance (an HHN-inspired cocktail)
• Grilled Street Corn

4. Plunge into Horrors Untold

With your senses of smell, hearing, and taste all fully engaged, now it’s time to send the most important one into overdrive: immersion.

We specifically designed Horrors Untold’s original story to unfold all around you as if you were slowly slinking into a scare zone, drawing upon the historic folklore of the Krampus and other dark denizens of Yuletide to lodge a sense of unease in the back of your skull. This, we figured, was the perfect state of mind to be in while reading about Halloween Horror Nights, and solving the series of puzzles and riddles that are scattered all throughout the book are meant to be the icing on the cake. Think of it as the ultimate in at-home immersive horror, a little slice of the event you can pack up and take with you wherever you go – and whatever the time of year you currently find yourself in, from spring and summer and beyond.

Halfway to Halloween (or Summerween, if you enjoy the heat more) seems to us to be the second-best period to crack open this experience, transforming your home – or the airplane as you fly down to Universal Orlando Resort, or the bus on the way over to the front gate – into an eerie hellscape full of shifting figures and cursed sigils. You can pick up your copy here.

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