Our SeaWorld Orlando Howl-O-Scream 2026 house reviews are here! We braved every haunted house this year to see which ones delivered the biggest scares, best theming, and most memorable experiences.
I Know What You Did Last Summer: The Final Catch
Going into I Know What You Did Last Summer: The Final Catch, our group was split. Some of us were already familiar with the movie, while others were walking in with absolutely no expectations.
Before you even enter, the area surrounding the house immediately establishes where you are. It’s the Fourth of July in a seaside town, and something about it feels oddly welcoming. Unfortunately, the queue itself is just that: a queue. There’s no additional storytelling while you wait, which feels like a missed opportunity considering how strong the theming becomes once you’re inside. The first scene drops you into a seafood market, and that’s where the house immediately begins to shine. The set is incredibly detailed, and between the props and scare actors, it’s easy to understand what’s happening even if you’ve never seen the movie. For fans, though, there’s another layer entirely.
Easter eggs and nods to the film pepper the house, and the nostalgia ended up being one of our favorite things about the experience. A hallway filled with missing-person posters is one we desperately wanted more time to take in, along with countless little details that are nearly impossible to catch in a single walkthrough. The ship area was easily one of the visual standouts. The set itself is impressive, but we especially loved the ice effects used throughout the scene. We really appreciated just how much work went into creating this house.
And then there’s the Fisherman. Most of the scares in this house genuinely caught us off guard. During our first walkthrough, the Fisherman got one member of our group so badly that she ended up crouched down and temporarily unable to move. That unpredictability follows you throughout the entire experience, but it’s especially effective toward the end. By the final portion of the house, it genuinely feels like you’ve been dropped into a horror movie. The Fisherman seems to follow your every move, and the experience grows increasingly frantic as you try to escape him. The final encounter is pure terror and gives the house the ending it deserves.
The sound design deserves some credit here, too. The music is used extremely well to establish individual scenes and move the story forward. Fans of the movie will recognize another layer of the experience, but you don’t need any familiarity with the film to understand what’s happening. Lighting works equally well. The spaces around you remain dark enough that it’s easy to lose yourself in the experience, while important props, actors, and set pieces are highlighted exactly when they need to be. Transitions between scenes are nearly seamless, with the music, lighting, sets, and performers working together rather than feeling like a collection of unrelated rooms.
The scare actors also help sell the world. Instead of encountering nothing but monsters waiting to jump from dark corners, you’ll find a mixture of teens, townspeople, and, of course, the Fisherman relaying the story for you. We loved that.
One area where the house struggled for us was accessibility. A couple of sections were particularly difficult to navigate with a wheelchair. We made it through, but guests using mobility devices may find some of the tighter spaces challenging. Ultimately, I Know What You Did Last Summer: The Final Catch was a house we immediately wanted to experience again. Horror fans should have a great time whether or not they’ve seen the movie, but franchise fans will find a lot to love here. What makes this house work best is how immersive it is. The nostalgia gets you through the door, but the sets, performers, music, and relentless presence of the Fisherman make you feel like you’ve stepped directly into the movie.
Scares: 5/5
Theming: 5/5
The Rave Yard
Unlike most of this year’s newer houses, we knew exactly what we were walking into with Raveyard. As a returning house, we’ve partied with these zombies before. We weren’t necessarily counting down the days to get back inside, but we’d heard some of the sets had changed this year, so we were interested to see what was different. And yes, we’re happy to report one improvement before you even get inside: the gate is already open. Last year, guests had to physically swing it open themselves. This year, you can simply walk through and enter what looks like an abandoned graveyard. Among the tombstones and garden statues, you’ll eventually discover an open crypt practically begging you to investigate. Because apparently hearing bass thumping from inside a suspicious crypt is an invitation. The premise of Raveyard is delightfully simple: you’ve stumbled upon a graveyard, heard the distant sounds of a party and, against all reasonable judgment, decided to investigate.
Inside, you’ll discover that the dead aren’t exactly resting peacefully. They’re raving. The crypt entrance sets the tone immediately. Keep your eyes open here and see if you can spot the banana raver before they spot you. From there, Raveyard is less about outright terror and more about atmosphere. Blacklights, neon costumes, strobes, and thumping dance music transform the crypt into an undead nightclub. The scareactors blend into the environments surprisingly well, especially when the lighting makes it hard to tell who, or what, is actually alive. One of our favorite rooms features a large statue surrounded by dancers. It’s probably one of the house’s most effective concepts because you’re left looking around, trying to figure out which figures are scenery and which might suddenly move. The outdoor graveyard also has some fantastic garden statues, while a crypt wall filled with skeletons is another visual highlight. Plenty of punny little details are scattered throughout, too. Costuming and makeup are particularly well suited to the environment. Bright neon elements pop underneath the blacklights, giving the performers an appropriately undead-raver appearance. You’ll encounter everything from zombies to what can best be described as drunk kids and Valley Girls who apparently continued partying straight into the afterlife.
The performers certainly commit to the concept. They’ll dance, interact with the environment, and occasionally pop out at you, but this is where Raveyard struggles somewhat as a haunted house. It’s simply not very scary. Most of the scares are relatively easy to anticipate, and we didn’t encounter one this year that particularly stood out. The house maintains roughly the same level of intensity from beginning to end rather than building toward a larger finale. The music is obviously a huge part of the experience. A steady rave beat follows you through the crypt and ties everything together nicely, although we would have loved to hear the soundtrack lean much more heavily into the ’90s. Give us an undead ‘90s rave, and we’re there.
Strobes are used heavily throughout the house, and the performers do a good job of using the flashes to their advantage. Guests sensitive to flashing lights should definitely keep that in mind. The music can also get loud – as you’d expect from a rave. One change we particularly appreciated this year was the amount of fog used in the graveyard. Last year’s fog became overwhelming for us at times and could make breathing difficult. This year’s lighter use still gives the cemetery plenty of atmosphere without completely swallowing the space. Accessibility was otherwise excellent during our visit, particularly compared with some of the tighter houses we’ve experienced. We also want to note we got lost an absurd number of times in this house. Directions are not the clearest.
Ultimately, Raveyard isn’t the house we’d recommend to someone looking for the biggest scares of the night. But that might also be exactly why it works. Between more intense houses, Raveyard acts as a surprisingly good palate cleanser. It’s colorful, ridiculous, energetic, and easy to understand. You can walk in, enjoy the music, admire the neon undead, and maybe get caught by a jump scare or two without spending the entire walkthrough bracing for what’s around the next corner. For guests who love Halloween events but aren’t particularly fond of intense scares, this may actually be one of the easier houses to tackle. Raveyard’s strength has always been its theming. It knows exactly what it is: a dance party where everyone else just happens to be dead. Is it terrifying? Not really. But sometimes you need a little rave break before somebody starts chasing you with a hook again.
Scares: 2/5
Theming: 4/5
Everything Must Stay
We went into Everything Must Stay almost completely blind. From the name and what little we knew beforehand, we expected some kind of open house.
We were excited to see what SeaWorld had done with the concept, although the exterior doesn’t exactly scream haunted house. The entrance simply looks like the front of a regular home and is fairly underwhelming – especially since the facade isn’t drastically different from what we saw here with Water’s Edge Wellness Center last year. Then you step inside. A real estate agent greets us with cookies and invites us to look around the house…with one important rule: don’t touch anything. Seems reasonable enough.
At first, Everything Must Stay feels almost strangely welcoming. It’s well-lit, familiar, and incredibly immersive. The kitchen could be your kitchen. The bedroom could belong to someone you know. The toys, stuffed animals, and everyday clutter feel like things you might have found around your own house growing up. And that’s precisely what makes it creepy. Instead of just dropping you into darkness and throwing monsters at you, the house lets that familiarity do some of the work. Something isn’t quite right here, and the farther you wander into the home, the more apparent that becomes. The kitchen and playroom stood out to us, especially the toy collection. Stuffed animals play a memorable role here as well, although we’ll leave it at that because some of the best moments in Everything Must Stay are much better experienced without knowing they’re coming. We also desperately wanted more time to explore the bathroom and bedroom. There’s an impressive amount to look at throughout the house, and not everything is conveniently placed at eye level. Look at the walls. Look toward the floor. Look above you. Actually, maybe don’t. The house is particularly good at getting you to focus on something unsettling and then using that distraction against you. Dolls and objects that seem to have minds of their own give the entire experience a very traditional horror-movie feeling. One particularly sneaky rabbit got us especially well. Unlike some houses where you start to recognize where the scares are coming from, Everything Must Stay kept us guessing. We genuinely didn’t know what we’d find in the next room.
The scare actors contribute heavily to that feeling, occasionally delivering messages that left us with goosebumps. Interestingly, the lighting isn’t particularly dark—and it doesn’t need to be. You’re touring someone’s home. Seeing the rooms clearly makes the experience more effective because the horror hides among things that initially seem ordinary. The house falls short in its storyline. We interpret it as arriving to tour a house whose owners aren’t particularly interested in leaving—or letting go of — their belongings. In fact, we’re not entirely convinced they realize they’re dead. At least, we think so. The title Everything Must Stay starts to make more sense as you move through the house, but it doesn’t clearly communicate who these occupants are or what happened to them. The farther we traveled through the house, the more questions we had. Thankfully, the scares and environments are strong enough that the somewhat discombobulated storyline doesn’t ruin the experience. If anything, you start to feel like the main character in a horror movie who made the spectacularly poor decision to keep exploring a house after getting about 37 signs it’s time to leave. Eventually, you make your escape through the garage. The scares there can be somewhat hit or miss, and the house doesn’t necessarily build toward a huge finale, but we still walked out both disturbed and impressed.
Accessibility was also excellent during our walkthrough. We had no significant trouble navigating with a wheelchair, and we didn’t encounter particularly troublesome lighting or sound effects.
Everything Must Stay ultimately feels like a great middle-ground house. We’d almost call it a “safe house” for horror fans: creepy enough to deliver genuinely good scares without relying on overwhelming darkness, relentless strobes, or extreme sensory effects. Just don’t mistake “safe” for predictable. The storyline could use a little more clarity, but the scares are where Everything Must Stay earns its place. Its greatest trick is convincing you that you’re simply walking through an ordinary family home.
Scares: 3/5
Theming: 4/5
The Dark Net
It didn’t take long for Dark Net to win us over. The story takes place in a futuristic city facing a catastrophic energy crisis. As conventional power disappears, desperate cyborgs discover an alternative fuel source: human blood. SeaWorld describes a world where machines are feeding on machines, humans are caught in the middle, and black oil and blood have become increasingly interchangeable. The story actually begins before you enter. The facade features propaganda-style imagery surrounding the city’s oil shortage, immediately establishing that something has gone very wrong. From there, you enter what initially feels like a sprawling junkyard filled with the discarded remains of this collapsing technological world.
Within the first couple of rooms, we realized this would be one of our favorite houses of the night. Dark Net does environmental storytelling exceptionally well. You don’t need someone to stop and explain what’s happening. The scareactors, props, and increasingly disturbing environments tell you everything you need to know as you move deeper into the city. And those props are insane. Cybernetic components and destroyed machines litter the space, and scenes are packed so densely that one walkthrough isn’t nearly enough time to take it all in. One area filled with various parts was particularly impressive, and we’d happily spend considerably more time there just looking at how everything was constructed. The surgery room was another standout. By this point, the house has moved well beyond simply showing you a dystopian city. You see the consequences of what’s happened here, including destroyed cyborgs and the gruesome relationship between machinery and human bodies.
That’s where Dark Net becomes unsettling. Interestingly, this wasn’t necessarily the house that made us jump the most. Its horror comes from the concept itself. You’re a human walking through a world where humans have suddenly become a viable energy source. And everything around you is hungry. The scareactors are heavily involved in selling that idea. Instead of waiting for guests to pass before delivering a jump scare, they feel like inhabitants of this collapsing world. Some interact directly with guests, while others help communicate what’s happening around you. Costuming is excellent, and the cyborg designs fit seamlessly into the industrial environments. Technology is everywhere without feeling gimmicky. Instead, it feels physical, dirty, and broken, and less like polished science fiction – and more like technology has been ripped apart, rebuilt, and forced to survive however it can.
The lighting is equally effective. It gives you enough visibility to appreciate the tremendous amount of work that went into the sets while still allowing the performers and environments to deliver scares. The house also feels surprisingly long. That’s a compliment. We never found ourselves anticipating the exit. Instead, Dark Net continued opening into another scene, then another, with each environment contributing something to the story. Even so, when we finally escaped, our biggest complaint was somehow that we wanted more. The finale gives the experience the escalation it needs, with the intensity increasing as you approach the end and a final scare sending you back out into Howl-O-Scream. Accessibility was also good during our walkthrough.
We didn’t encounter significant problems navigating with a wheelchair, nor did darkness or lighting create major issues. Like any haunted house, guests should expect sudden loud sounds. We walked into Dark Net divided on whether we’d even like it. We walked out collectively calling it one of the best houses of the night.
The scares are good. The sets are incredible. But the storytelling is what makes Dark Net one we’d immediately line up to experience again.
Scares: 4/5
Theming: 5/5
The Crawl Space
Of all the houses at Howl-O-Scream this year, Crawl Space may have had one of the grossest premises. The previews had us expecting slime, giant slugs, and a claustrophobic environment. The story is simple enough: somewhere beneath the city, an infestation of flesh-eating slugs and their acidic slime has gotten completely out of control. We expected disgusting, but what we got felt strangely empty.
The entrance to Crawl Space resembles a sewer opening, but little happens outside to suggest what’s waiting below. The entrance itself is fairly basic, with a simple curtain separating you from whatever is inside. Once you enter, scareactors try to warn you not to continue. Then they warn you again. And again. “Don’t go in there.” “Go back.” “You shouldn’t be here.” We understand the intention, but the repeated warnings don’t really add anything to the story. Instead of building suspense or giving us clues about what happened below the city, the dialogue quickly feels repetitive. Obviously, we ignored them.
Inside, the sewer environment itself works. The house feels like one continuous underground tunnel system, and the overall setting is easy to understand even if you haven’t read the official backstory beforehand. Unfortunately, that environment also highlights one of our biggest problems with Crawl Space: there’s just not enough in it. Large portions of the house felt surprisingly empty, with open spaces and a noticeable lack of props. The props that are present can be wonderfully gruesome and detailed, including the unfortunate remains of people who apparently encountered the infestation before us, but there simply aren’t enough of them to fill the environments.
More importantly, where are all the slugs? For a house built entirely around an infestation of flesh-eating slugs, we expected to be surrounded by them. Instead, many of the slugs are surprisingly small and easy to miss unless you’re actively looking for them. We actually started calling them Hidden Sluggies. We were expecting giant creatures, slime, and the feeling that something disgusting was crawling through the tunnels with us. Instead, we encountered multiple performers carrying stuffed slugs. We’ll admit it: that made us laugh.
Crawl Space still has some genuinely good ideas buried inside. The monitor room was easily our favorite area and one of the few places we wanted additional time to explore. There’s also a clever effect where something appears to drip from the ceiling onto guests below. It’s a small touch, but it’s exactly the kind of gross sensory element we expected to encounter throughout the entire house. If Crawl Space had leaned further into effects like that, it could have been wonderfully disgusting.
The biggest missed opportunity, however, is right there in the name. Crawl Space should feel claustrophobic, but it doesn’t. One member of our group struggles with claustrophobia, and even they didn’t feel uncomfortable here. The pathways are wide, the rooms feel open, and there are few moments when the environment makes you feel trapped underground with these creatures. Ironically, all that empty space makes Crawl Space one of the easier houses we’ve navigated with a wheelchair.
The scares didn’t fare much better during our walkthrough. There were long stretches where very little happened, and we never encountered a scare that genuinely got us. Despite having creatures that could theoretically attack from practically anywhere in a sewer system – above you, underneath you, inside pipes, or behind walls – the house doesn’t take full advantage of that potential. Even the finale left us confused because there isn’t really one. We simply walked out, and our collective reaction was essentially, “That’s it?”
That’s what makes Crawl Space particularly frustrating. The concept isn’t bad. In fact, we think it’s one of the more interesting concepts among this year’s houses. A claustrophobic sewer overrun by flesh-eating slugs secreting acidic slime sounds absolutely disgusting in the best possible way. You can glimpse that house here. The monitor room works, the gore looks great, the dripping effect is clever, and the sewer environment gives the experience a cohesive setting. It just feels like they ran out of time or the props got lost in the mail.
Scares: 1/5
Theming: 3/5
Crawl Space had everything it needed to become the gross-out house of Howl-O-Scream. More creatures, more slime, tighter environments, and additional sensory effects could have transformed these tunnels into something genuinely uncomfortable. Instead, we spent most of our walkthrough waiting for the infestation to begin, and then we walked out.
After experiencing them all, our SeaWorld Orlando Howl-O-Scream 2026 house reviews show just how strong the lineup is this year, with several original concepts that really surprised us.
Overall, this year’s haunted house lineup offered a great mix of concepts that played nicely into Howl-O-Scream’s “Stuck in the ’90s” theme. I Know What You Did Last Summer: The Final Catch was our clear favorite, bringing a familiar horror story to life with strong scares and atmosphere. Dark Net was easily our biggest surprise, while Everything Must Stay proved that SeaWorld’s original concepts can hold their own alongside a recognizable IP. Even with the noticeably sparse Crawl Space and lighter scares of Raveyard, there was enough variety that no two houses felt alike. The overall scare level was moderate, but the environments and storytelling gave us plenty to take in. We’d love to see posted wait times and more atmosphere added to the queues next year, though the pacing between groups once inside the houses was handled particularly well. We had a great time opening weekend and media night!
Is Howl-O-Scream worth the money? In our opinion – very much so.
Howl-O-Scream 2026 Reviews
Looking for something specific? Jump straight to our reviews from SeaWorld Orlando Howl-O-Scream 2026:
