A possible preview of the rumored graveyard house…

Posted on by danryan25

In recent weeks there have been loads of rumors of the yet unannounced houses coming for HHN29. Many of them probably true and many of probably not so true but one that keeps coming back is a house based within a supposed graveyard. So here at HHNU we thought we’d look into why a possible graveyard house might have some substance to it!

Photo courtesy of Horror Night Nightmares .com

It all dates back to 2017 and before we start a big thank you for the tip-off by our reader Eric. Eric, who is based in London, has had some dealings with Universal’s PR department in London. And for about 4 years now, Universal has done big marketing pushes for HHN in the U.K. which usually sees either a press preview, a media blitz or even a presentation by Universal to the various media outlets in London.

The one we should be concerned with is the summer push they did for HHN in the London of 2017. According to Eric, that once the media push had been finished in central London, a number of Universal staff, many for whom had flown in from the US, wanted to visit Highgate Cemetery in their own time.

So what is Highgate Cemetery and why does it attract millions of visits each year?  And why would Universal staffers want to visit it?

Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the Cemetery. It is notable both for some of the people buried there as well as for its de facto status as a nature reserve and how peculiar and interesting some of the many graves have been left. Then there was the police reports of a vampire… yep actual sightings were reported!

According to newspaper reports from the late 1960s and early 1970s, many people living around the Highgate area alleged that a vampire was stalking the cemetery. It caused a media frenzy with one group alleging they had caught the vampire within its coffin and had driven a wooden stake through its heart. There were also police reports of voodoo, satanism and even a live exorcism was performed in the grounds! Literally not making this up.  The events also inspired a movie, Dracula AD 1972 which was made by Hammer Studios and starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

dracula_ad_1972_poster_06.jpg

For more information you can go here to the wiki page for the Highgate Vampire.

To show that Universal did visit the grounds of this cemetery HHN’s own Mike Aiello shot a number of videos.  And again, thanks for heads up last week by our HHNU reader Eric.

 

 

 

As this was the summer of 2017 it would have likely been too late to add a Highgate Vampire house to the 2017 slate of houses but it would be perfect timing for its addition to the 2018 or 2019 lineup with a great original concept house based on this strange urban legend.

So there you have it. Are we onto something? Could this be the genesis of the idea for HHN29? Let us know your name thoughts in the comments!

Remember, these are just rumors and nothing is FACT until Universal officially announce the houses!  All we know for sure right now, is that HHN29 is going to be AWESOME!