Halloween Horror Nights have been using smells within their houses for years. These pungent and peculiar scents are manufactured off-site and installed within the houses to give us guests that extra sensory level punch to our guts when visiting these hyper detailed sets.
Aiello and Co use an office out back that is rarely used to select their pongs of choice, whereas Murdy at Hollywood likes to use an empty soundstage when selecting what fowl odors he likes to place strategically throughout the mazes of the West coast. So we at HHNU thought we’d open the HHN Archives and have a look at what we think are the 5 best worst most disgusting HHN smells ever!
- “Soured Pine”
Back in 2013 we had a house created from the rebooted version of the Evil Dead. It came complete with the long running/tracking shot to the house’s door, just like in the movie, the scene featured faux pine trees in a forest section with strobe lights and oodles of fog. The smell may have been familiar to many as it featured Amanda aka Boston White from Dis After Dark’s favorite scent, that of the pine smell from the park’s only original attraction E.T.’s queue area but with a “soured” hint to enforce the horror of the scene.
2. “Pea Soup & Vomit”
Our editor Chris Ripley was interviewed by Fox News last year where he told the news channel his most dreaded smell ever was the vomit scent from inside The Exorcist house. He told Fox:
“…You walk through the recreated house shown in the film and into the scene where the possessed girl is vomiting. The walls are covered in pea soup, mattresses are hanging from the ceiling with vomit covering everything. A barf smell is even infused into the air while hearing a convulsing sound. It’s absolutely terrifying…I loved it!”
HHNU’s Senior Writer Scott covered the Hollywood event for HHNU last year and said that the vomit smell was like Orlando’s… just 100 times stronger – ugh gross!!
3. “Feces” (yep!)
For this heinous crime against noses (and eyes too for this one!) we have to go waaaay back to 2003’s event at Islands of Adventure for the debut of an iconic HHN franchise: ‘PsychoScareapy’.
The house would feature a now infamous scene set in a bathroom area which had a scareactor painting faux feces onto the tiled walls with a similar smell pumped into the room (the poor actor!). The smell and visually demonstration worked well to send guests running from the house and probably heaving too. The scene has been recreated since but not to the same toxicity as the original scent. Damn, I think I can still smell this!
4. “Burning Flesh”
For our next installment we hop over to 2007’s PsychoScareapy: Home for the Holidays, which was one of the many sequels to 2003’s house and it also featured a now legendary smell of epic proportions.
Disney all year round will pump cotton candy or popcorn scents into the air to make you comfortable or to spur you into buying some of their sugary snacks – Universal doesn’t. So instead of gingerbread and chestnuts roasting on a open fire we got burning human flesh at 2007’s Home for the Holidays.
An escaped inmate from Shadybrook had broken into a house and placed some of the home’s mother into the oven. Gingerbread shapes had been taken from her back, cooked in the oven and were being eaten by the inmates. How festive!
5. Clowns 3D: Music by Slash
Over on the West coast John Murdy used a great trick to lure guests in with a clever trick using smells. At the opening of the twisted Clowns 3D maze, musician Slash created a soundtrack that complemented the smells. Guests would enter into an ice-cream factory and would be soothed by the smells of vanilla, strawberry and chocolate before a key-change on the soundtrack and plumes of vomit smell would be pumped in to coincide with the arrival of the maniacal hosts of the maze. Afterwards guests would never have the urge to eat ice-cream ever again!
So there you have it, our top 5 worst/best/most gross smells ever! Do you agree with us? Let us know in the comments!
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