Halloween Horror Nights is known for pushing creative boundaries, and its latest addition is set to give fans an even more immersive Obsession experience.
Earlier this month, Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood creative director and executive producer John Murdy announced that Nikki from Obsession will appear during the 2026 event. Murdy has now revealed more details about the character’s interactive presence at Universal Destinations & Experiences’ popular after-hours event, saying the concept came together “very late in the game for us in terms of our development.”
How Nikki will appear at Halloween Horror Nights
During an Aug. 8 panel, Murdy teased the version of Nikki that fans will encounter. The character will be based on her final appearance in Curry Barker’s film, which features both Nikki (Inde Navarrette) after Bear’s (Michael Johnston) twisted wish corrupts her agency and autonomy, and the real young woman trapped inside her own body by the curse. Murdy confirmed that, at Halloween Horror Nights, guests will interact with Nikki before the “wish” is undone.
Murdy previously compared the experience to an interactive “Where’s Waldo?”, with Nikki appearing at different locations throughout the park. Fans quickly connected the concept to the roaming Art the Clown experience from the event’s 2025 Terrifier collaboration.
“It’s similar to Art last year, where we created this thing to activate areas of the theme park you would never expect to see a performer in. That included our retail store,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We’ve identified a number of different locations where she can appear. You never know where you might encounter her.”
Unlike Art, who was portrayed by a team of “scare actors” for the first time in the event’s history, Nikki will be performed by traditional actors. Murdy wrote the dialogue using material pulled “straight from Curry’s” film, and the performers will select guests to engage with.
“Normally, our scare actors don’t speak,” Murdy explains. “But it seemed really important to give Nikki the authentic voice Curry gave her in the film. So I took all of the dialogue from the film, and put together a creative treatment that I sent to Curry.”
Guests who want to interact with Nikki will need to monitor USH’s social media accounts, including its Instagram Story, where a password will be shared. The password will trigger interactions with the performer.
“It encourages our guests to find Nikki, and if they give her the password, they might get something,” he says.
That “something” will include the One Wish Willow phone number that Bear calls while attempting to modify his wish.
“I love the scene where Bear tries to call the customer service department, and when I was reading about the making of the film, I realized that Curry did that voice,” he says. “I’ve asked him to record a special message for our fans as if he were the customer service rep from One Wish Willow. So it’ll have a phone number on it, and they can call the number and get an exclusive message from Curry.”
An interactive performance based on the film
As part of the park’s standard protocols for day and nighttime characters, Nikki will have a production assistant acting as her handler. The handler will accompany her throughout the park and help ensure the safety of performers and guests.
Murdy has also adapted lines from Obsession to let the character and performer control their interactions with attendees.
“Curry’s dialogue can be used to engage or disengage a guest,” Murdy says. “She has so many great lines like, ‘No, no, no, no’ from that dinner sequence, or she can say, ‘I thought we were having a nice time,’ and just turn and leave.”
The last-minute addition was initially inspired by a fan who sent Murdy “a video of an interview that Curry did about how the Halloween season was coming, and how Nikki would be the No. 1 costume.”
The conversation between Barker and the journalist eventually turned to Halloween Horror Nights. The event’s mazes have become badges of honor for many horror filmmakers and television creators, as well as markers of pop-culture relevance. When Barker revealed that he attends the event every year, Murdy decided to create something for him.
After contacting Focus Features, Murdy arranged a call with Barker and pitched an idea based on something the filmmaker had mentioned in the interview.
“He expressed a desire to see her in the event this year, and I combined it with what we used to do with the password to create a new activation for our fanbase,” he says. “He was very much in favor of the idea, and that’s what we’re in the middle of developing.”
Navarrette, who was recently announced as part of the cast of Marvel’s upcoming X-Men movie following her breakout performance in Obsession, also said earlier this summer that she hoped to see Nikki at Halloween Horror Nights. The actress said she wanted to attend dressed as the character, following the example of performers such as Us star Lupita Nyong’o, who have appeared in costume as part of the event.
Halloween Horror Nights revives its password system
When Halloween Horror Nights begins on Sept. 3, the Nikki experience will also echo the event’s 2011 collaboration, the “Eli Roth’s Hostel: Hunting Season” maze.
“I was doing Hostel with Eli Roth, and Eli really wanted the girls that lured the guys into the ‘art show’ — which is just a torture chamber in Hostel — as part of the house. I’m like, ‘Well, they really need something to do, something interactive with the guests.’ Eli kept everything from Hostel, so he had all the business cards for Elite Hunting, which was the secret society in the film.”
To create the interactive elements, Murdy developed a password system and shared the password on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“It was this Easter-eggy underground thing for the real big fans,” he tells THR. “I just started tweeting passwords every night and saying, ‘If you give the password to the girls in front of Hostel, you could get something in exchange.’”
Murdy later brought the concept back in different forms for collaborations involving properties such as Ghostbusters and Insidious. Although the system was shelved several years ago, dedicated Halloween Horror Nights fans have repeatedly asked when it would return.
The developing Nikki experience reflects a broader effort by Halloween Horror Nights to follow the fast-changing horror landscape. Murdy says the current moment belongs to a 24-year-old filmmaker who turned a $750,000 independent film into a record-breaking box-office success.
“It’s like New Hollywood in the late ’60s into the early ’70s, but now it’s the YouTube kids stepping into the arena,” Murdy says, while discussing the horror resurgence that the after-hours event has capitalized on over the past decade. “I think it started with Get Out. That was the first moment where everybody was like, ‘Whoa.’ Sinners falls into that big time, but then there’s the double whammy of Obsession and Backrooms, which feel [tonally] different from Sinners and Get Out.”
What else is coming to HHN 2026
For Murdy, following changes and trends within the horror genre is central to keeping the bicoastal event fresh and expanding its audience. Alongside Nikki, Halloween Horror Nights 2026 will feature the Evil Dead Burn house, including an animatronic talking head for the first time.
The “Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness” maze will pay tribute to the late rocker’s life and discography. It will feature a “Crazy Train” and a giant bat that bites the head off the Black Sabbath frontman.
The Hellraiser queue will include a giant puzzle box “like a pastiche painting with all the different levels of hell” and a center circle that “disappears while you’re waiting in line and electrifies, before you see Pinhead in a circle doing lines from the film,” according to Murdy.
For the first time, the Sinners house will also use Water World stunt performers for a floating air stunt. A flying rig will drop the Irish vampire Remick into the scene long enough for him to hover while delivering his now-iconic “Sammie” line.
Nikki is the latest example of Halloween Horror Nights’ ongoing push to expand the event’s possibilities. The event will also begin its 35th anniversary celebration at Universal Orlando Resort in Florida on Aug. 28.
“always pushing to see where we can take the brand next,” says Murdy.
