Texas Chainsaw Massacre is coming to Horror Unleashed.
Previously, Theme Park Shark covered the sweeping announcement of the four houses that Universal revealed would be part of the inaugural experience at the new Las Vegas-based, year-round Halloween Horror Nights experience, Horror Unleashed, which is set to open on August 14th, 2025. As we draw closer to the venue’s opening, Universal has been revealing details about the houses, each of which has been previously featured at a Halloween Horror Nights of years past. To get future victims – I mean guests – acquainted with some of these fan-favorite houses, more information has been released, along with behind-the-scenes footage.
With a fan-favorite house like Scarecrow: The Reaping having been given the behind-the-scenes treatment earlier this year, Universal is continuing to lure guests in with new information on another house featured in the opening lineup of scare mazes at Horror Unleashed: Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
“Based on the 1974 horror masterpiece, “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. Their journey starts in a Texan cemetery – the first fateful stop – followed by an encounter with the Old Man at the dusty gas station featured in the chilling barbecue scene. As they enter the infamous dilapidated home, guests will come face-to-face with Leatherface and every member of his deranged family and their victims, as the terrifying sound of chainsaws haunts them at every turn.”
Texas Chainsaw Massacre has had a long and illustrious history at Halloween Horror Nights, going all the way back to the original Halloween Horror Nights event that was held in Orlando in 1991. Then called “Fright Nights,” the event featured a show called Chainsaw Massacre, held just outside of Sting Alley in the New York section of the park, where guests would watch brutal chainsaw murders.
Appearing subsequently in 1998 as part of Universal’s Museum of Horror: Unnatural History, in 2001 as part of the Nightmare Alley scarezone, and the Boogeymen show in the same year, as well as in one of its most famous incarnations during the 2003 All Nite Die-In event, these “appearances” of Leatherface and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were largely unlicensed depictions that used generic nomenclature to allow their appearances in the park.
It wouldn’t be until 2007 that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre would be named at the event, with Orlando hosting The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Flesh Wounds, and Hollywood hosting Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Back in Business, as both coasts shared the franchise as a major IP featured at their events as headliner houses.
The Hollywood Incarnation – Back in Business – was such a popular house that it not only won House of the year in its 2007 run, but returned the next year for the 2008 event. Featuring legendary effects like the “Chainsaw Plunge” in which Leatherface would plunge a chainsaw into a victim’s stomach and the “Face Peel” which is exactly what it sounds like, this house was packed with practical effects and illusions that made it the most popular house of the year.
While Halloween Horror Nights over the years have taken The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and moved scenes or concepts around to suit the high-capacity scare mazes featured over the years in Orlando and Hollywood, the version of this house that is slated for Vegas is doing things a little differently, using the unique layout and permanent fixtures of the Horror Unleashed venue to tell a story more in-depth and immersive than any scare maze or haunted house that Universal Creative has ever managed to produce.
Universal’s creative team has been working tirelessly to pull together a combined thirty-four years of bringing your deepest, darkest nightmares to life so that horrors like Leatherface and his deranged family can step into our reality; guests will be chased by chainsaw-wielding killers as they run through this maze in an unprecedented level of immersion and terror.
Universal’s Horror Unleashed is planned to open August 14th in the Area15 District, the famed 40-acre immersive art and entertainment district and events destination that has found its home just off the Las Vegas strip. Tickets are now on sale, and can be purchased [here].
Check back soon, as Theme Park Shark will continue to report on all the details released on Horror Unleashed, as well as theme park news from Disney, Universal, and theme parks from all across the world!
