The new Sinners haunted house will attempt a series of first-of-a-kind scares when visitors attend the opening night of a 1930s Mississippi Delta juke joint overrun by vampires during Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood.
The Sinners maze will be one of eight new haunted houses during the annual separate admission, after-hours event that runs on select nights from Sept. 3 through Nov. 1 at the Hollywood theme park.
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Halloween Horror Nights creative director John Murdy offered a behind-the-scenes tour of the new maze that pays tribute to the critically acclaimed blockbuster hit and most nominated movie in Academy Awards history.
“There’s multiple things in this house that are firsts for Halloween Horror Nights,” Murdy said. “When we sat down to work on this, we were like, ‘Wow, we really have to rethink what we do because it’s a really layered film.’ There’s certain things in the film that are super important that you can’t really do in a typical haunted house setting.”
The Sinners maze, based on the Southern vampire drama set in a racially tense era in the Deep South, will take over the former Walking Dead year-round haunted house during Horror Nights.
Consider this your spoiler alert if you’d rather be surprised by what awaits in the Sinners haunted house set in the Club Juke on the outskirts of Clarksdale, Mississippi, run by Smokestack Twins Elijah and Elias Moore, known respectively as Smoke and Stack.
Fans waiting in the Sinners queue will see the animated opening scene from the film about the transcendent and spiritual power of music.
Once inside, the first room will serve as a 90-second pre-show — the first of several Horror Nights firsts in the Sinners maze.
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A series of scenes will play out on and around the juke joint’s main stage where visitors are introduced to Smoke and Stack, blues musician Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore and a trio of vampires.
Preacher Boy will sing the Academy Award-nominated “I Lied to You” on stage before the vampires magically appear behind him.
“We see Remmick, Joan and Bert standing outside the club with their glowing eyes,” Murdy said. “We set up the notion that there’s vampires outside the club.”
A video display of Smoke and Stack will play in a doorway before one of the twins steps into the room and welcomes those waiting in the pre-show to Club Juke.
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Horror Nights visitors will immediately step outside the club and head into the woods filled with lurking vampires.
“In the movie, Cornbread the doorman wanders out into the woods to go to the bathroom,” Murdy said. “He sees all these weird silhouettes staring back at him with glowing eyes, and they’re whispering to him. We see and hear vampires all around us beseeching us to join them.”
Deeper into the woods, Mary will be laying on the ground with a vampire bite on her neck.
“Remmick has just fed on her,” Murdy said. “He’s covered in blood.”
Remmick’s vampire eyes will glow just like in the movie thanks to tiny LED lights attached to prosthetic eyebrows — another Horror Nights first.
“It’s a technology we invented just for this,” Murdy said.
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Remmick will appear to be in a trance after feeding on Mary’s blood.
“As you pass him, you immediately get attacked by Bert and Joan,” Murdy said. “You go a little further along and you hear Mary. She comes out and she’s got glowing eyes too.”
Visitors will emerge from the woods and head back toward Club Juke, where a real 1925 Model A Ford truck will be parked out front.
“We had to get it in here before we built anything,” Murdy said of the truck. “Everything had to be built around it.”
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Video displays in the juke joint windows will show revelers dancing inside the club. A pair of vultures will be sitting above the front door.
“It’s something that we noticed as we watched the film over and over again,” Murdy said. “Every time you see the Smokestack Brothers driving down the highway, if you look up in the sky, there’s always vultures circling them.”
Vultures will appear throughout the maze as Easter Eggs for fans of the film.
“When they land on a structure, it means death is coming,” Murdy said.
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Just inside the juke joint again, visitors hear Delta Grocery owner Grace Chow invite the vampires into the club and see the aftermath of that deadly mistake.
In a storeroom, Stack will be laying seemingly dead on the floor after a vampire bite by Mary.
“Smoke comes through the door with two pistols and shoots her repeatedly,” Murdy said. “She takes the bullet hits, but she doesn’t go down.”
Down the hall, a vampire version of Stack will be heard yelling “Let me out” from behind the storeroom door before attacking you in the very next scene.
Visitors will return to another recreation of the juke joint stage scene from the pre-show amid an epic vampire battle.
In another Horror Nights first, the battle scene will feature six live performers portraying Preacher Boy, Stack, Bert and Joan along with mysterious and magnetic dancer Pearline and Louisiana Creole hoodoo conjurer Annie.
“All this chaos is going on around you,” Murdy said.
The final Horror Night first in the Sinners maze will involve a flying stunt with Remmick dropping from the rafters and delivering a brief bit of dialogue before disappearing again.
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The final battle will take place just outside the club at sunrise with smoking and sizzling burned vampires on the ground. Visitors will find themselves in the middle of a battle between Smoke and Remmick.
“He’s burning up like he does in the film,” Murdy said of Remmick.
The 2025 “Sinners” supernatural horror movie was a commercial and critical success that brought in $370 million at the global box office and picked up 16 Oscar nominations.
The film won four Oscars for best actor (Michael B. Jordan), original screenplay (Ryan Coogler), cinematography (Autumn Durald Arkapaw) and original score (Ludwig Goransson).
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The Halloween Horror Nights 2026 lineup at Universal Studios Hollywood will feature eight haunted houses based on Stranger Things, Sinners, Evil Dead, Hellraiser, Ozzy Osbourne, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Killceanera and Dead Deader Deadest.
Halloween Horror Nights is not included with daily admission to Universal Studios Hollywood. Universal is selling an Early Access Ticket that provides entrance to select haunted mazes 90 minutes before Horror Nights officially begins each night at 7 p.m. Horror Nights season passes, front-of-the-line passes and VIP tours are also available for the event.