When Universal first revealed the four founding-day haunted houses at Horror Unleashed, its first-ever year-round attraction, a tried-and-true veteran of Halloween Horror Nights, the company’s theme-park annual event, would be forgiven for stifling a yawn; after all, all four of them have not only been featured in one park or another over the years, but a number of them have done so just recently.

What’s becoming increasingly clear, however, as the company continues to reveal details on these mazes (and their attached experiences) as we inch ever closer to Horror Unleashed’s opening in August, is that none of these will be a straight port from either Universal Orlando Resort or Universal Studios Hollywood. In the case of Scarecrow: The Reaping, the only original entry on the Nevada roster, that means the occasional extra encounter, expounding on the story – and the production values – as, say, a dust storm kicks up outside the dilapidated farmhouse that guests are waiting to get inside of.

And, now, we have our first taste (no pun intended) of what to expect in the form of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its associated culinary and theatrical offerings – and they’re enough to get us excited to be chased all over again by a genre-defining masked slasher.

What to expect in Horror Unleashed’s version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Right away, in the very beginning of its press materials, Universal says that this Sin City version of one of the most-utilized horror properties in HHN history will be different from all the previous haunts it has created:

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre haunted house will bring to life the original film for the first time in a linear sequence, placing guests in the footsteps of the victims as they face horrifying iconic scenes and characters.

But that’s not to say that the designers are shackled to a beat-for-beat “book report,” as some in the Horror Nights community have taken to calling such adaptations – they are also taking the opportunity to veer off-script and explore some areas that aren’t in the 1974 movie, fleshing out certain environments that are, essentially, just around the corner from what’s seen on-screen. In this way, the company is employing something of a hybrid approach, lifting certain sections from its straight-up recreations from previous years across both coasts (as we saw in 2012, 2016, and 2021) and fusing them with original material, which it had offered before in interstitial stories that slid in between the first and second Texas Chainsaws (2016 and 2021). Think of it almost as a patchwork of all eight previous mazes, one that will be infused with new sets and, presumably, scares. (For a brief rundown on what those eight earlier houses entailed, please see our Texas Chainsaw primer.)

While this angle does make it more likely to convince those HHN diehards who have seen it all to open up their wallets and book a flight to Las Vegas, the real reason behind the move probably has far more to do with an entirely different audience:  first-timers to any Universal horror experience, as it’s far easier – and far more motivating – to sell a straight-up recreation of one of the most influential genre films of all time than it is to, say, explain the novel multiversal approach that HHN Hollywood took just four years ago, uniting all nine different iterations of Leatherface from all nine different movies in one original narrative with a brand-new setting. By this point, it seems doubtless that this is precisely the slice of the audience that the company is going after – and the one that’ll determine whether Horror Unleashed is an out-of-the-gate success or an experimental failure.

What to expect in Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s attached entertainment area

As noted before, each of Horror Unleashed’s four houses will have an immersive area attached to it in which visitors will be able to enjoy themed food and drinks or experience additional scares – sometimes both, it would seem, at the same time.

Previously, the company had listed a “film vault populated by all manner of serial killers and slashers”; now we know that this Texas Chainsaw-adjacent zone is called Kill Vault, that it’s filled with “rusty knives and machetes,” and that its inhabitants will specifically include a “strange surgeon” who lurks “in the shadows, attempting to lure their next victim as they interact with everyone in sight” – a nice reinforcement of the character encounters Universal wants to pack its new attraction with (attendees will even be able to pry “haunting backstories” out of each of the performers). Furthermore, the (sub)section here that is devoted to food and beverages will be entitled Rough Cuts, and it’ll serve up “‘chainsaw’-carved small plates”; patrons will be able to sit back and take in “a variety of show moments” as they enjoy the gastronomical offerings.

It’s a nice appetizer, as it were, for the main course of information that’ll hopefully come sometime within the next three months, leading right up to the August 14 opening of Universal Horror Unleashed.

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