ORLANDO, Fla. – The 35th edition of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando will be a battle royale... Or will it?
Some of HHN’s creative team unveiled a first look at the event at MEGACON Orlando on Saturday.
The theme? Infernal Carnival of Nightmares, aka ICON.
“You know we love to bring back an icon in an anniversary year,” said Lora Sauls, assistant director of entertainment creative development and show direction.
This year, we are getting double trouble — Jack the Clown and Oddfellow, two of the biggest icons of HHN, are returning, and this time they are working together to bring new levels of fear.
Exactly how long that will last is anyone’s guess. After all, these two have a history, and that will be on display in their new haunted house, which the team also unveiled Saturday: Jack and Oddfellow: Chaos & Control.
And the titular characters came out for a brief cameo.
It all begins with Dr. Oddfellow, a powerful occultist who used a traveling circus as a cover to harness dark supernatural forces tied to the Zodiac. Everything he built was rooted in control, from the performers he manipulated to the rituals he carried out behind the scenes.…
— Michael Aiello (@Michael_Aiello) March 21, 2026
But again, these guys may be partnering to tell Jack’s story and terrorize guests with new heights of fear, but they are not friends.
“Who would win in a battle?” asked Charles Gray, Senior Show Director of Entertainment Creative Development. “Jack and Oddfellow are two sides of the same coin... But it lands on an edge.”
As guests journey through the house, the story will twist from Oddfellow’s point of view to Jack’s, and at the end, guests will emerge from the house to see how their collective vision has affected the world.
However, Michael Aiello, the senior director of entertainment creative, left fans on Saturday with a tantalizing maxim.
“As we’ve learned about this process, a fear divided is a fear deluded,” Aiello said.
The event is set to take place on select nights Aug. 28 through Nov. 1. More details are on the Halloween Horror Nights website.