25 years ago Universal Studios ran a little 3 night event called "fright nights." It was a modest event costing a mere $20 dollars per person, and included just one haunted house, a parade, a costume contest, and a special fireworks show. That little event over time transformed into what is the biggest, best, and most popular Halloween event in the United States today.
The first nine years of the event basically followed the same pattern as the first. 1-3 haunted houses, a parade, keep the rides open, a costume contest, and a fireworks show. Then in 2000, Universal changed the game on what a Halloween event could be, and Halloween Horror Nights would never be the same. Universal decided to build 5 haunted houses in 2000, but rather than just have them be a mishmash of five unrelated haunted houses, they set out to relate them in a way. To do this they created "Jack the Clown" the first and still most popular of what is now a long list of Halloween Horror Nights "hosts" or as they are really called "icons." Universal created an elaborate backstory for Jack, that he was a mass murdering clown setting up his carnival at Universal. All the houses that year had Jack tied into it somehow giving the event one overall cohesive theme. Fans ate up this cohesive theme idea and the events popularity would skyrocket as a result and never turn back.
In 2001, Universal created a new icon "Eddie" a chainsaw wielding maniac who also happened to be Jacks brother. Unfortunately due to 9/11, Eddie was scrapped at the last minute and Jack ended up returning as the events host that year, and even though Eddie never got his place at HHN, he is still popular in HHN lore among die hard fans and has appeared in scare zones in two separate years since.
In 2002, the icon was supposed to be "Cindy" the daughter of an owner of a morgue, with an interest in experimenting on dead things. Once again however, that plan needed to be scrapped as a string of Child abductions in Florida around this time led Universal to believe it would be in bad taste to have the icon be a child. So instead, her dad "The Caretaker" became the icon. Cindy would finally get her own house "The Orphanage" in 2010.
2003 would bring yet another new icon, the Director, a director of snuff films notorious for killing people in gruesome ways to entertain himself and others. Universal took a break from the icon idea in 2004, and fans were so upset that they went right back at it in 2005 with the Storyteller. Even over ten years later these four Icons (Jack, Caretaker, Director, Storyteller) are still known as the "core four" and remain incredibly popular among HHN fans and still always have a precense at the event. These years can be known as the golden years of HHN, as since 2005 Universal has not created a single icon that has been able to find the popularity that these four have to this day.
2006 was a "sweet 16" bringing together all of the core four icons together to all host the event. In 2007, Jack the Clown took the reigns yet again for the 3rd time as the event host. In 2008, Universal secured the rights to use "Bloody Mary," and so she became the icon of that year. It was the first time that a well known character, rather than an original creation served as the events host. In 2009, Universal came up with "The Usher", an owner of an old dilapidated movie theatre where the movies come to life. While a popular character, the Usher failed to resonate with fans as strongly as the core. 2010 and 2011 would bring FEAR and Lady Luck respectively, and mark a huge turning point in the events history yet again. FEAR and Lady Luck both were big flops as icons, neither were strongly liked by either die hard fans of HHN or even casual fans. Due to back to back flops, Universal went in a new direction with the event in 2012 and hasn't looked back since. With 2012 Universal opted to stop creating new icons, and stop creating an overall cohesive theme for the event, and put together more houses based on Movies and TV shows. Before 2012, HHN hardly ever had houses based on Movies or TV Shows, but every year since has seen a plethora them. It truly has been a new era of HHN. Even though it appears new "icons" are a thing of the past, the core four remain as popular as ever, and are set to return in their own scare zone in 2015, with Jack having his own show. Maybe one day Universal will return to creating new icons and a cohesive theme for the event, but with record crowds every year, for now they feel making houses off of popular Movies and TV Shows are what brings people in.
