Orlando, FL — H.R. Bloodengutz is a fictional late-night TV horror host created for Halloween Horror Nights in 2011, and his first house in 15 years is open at Universal Studios Florida on select nights through November 1. In the story, he has escaped prison after 15 years to air the Halloween movie marathon he never got to show, and each room is one of his movies.
I walked the house with the lights on, and my room-by-room tour of the H.R. Bloodengutz house has every scene and callback.
Who Is H.R. Bloodengutz?
H.R. Bloodengutz is the on-air name of Larry Kurtzberg, who hosted WKNB’s Midnight Horror Show in the 1970s, according to Universal Orlando’s blog. A creature-feature host is the late-night TV personality who introduces cheap horror movies and cracks jokes between the commercials, in the line of Vampira, Elvira, and Svengoolie.
Universal’s blog says the Midnight Horror Show started out popular and lost its ratings as Bloodengutz screened more violent films. When the producer told him the show was canceled, he kidnapped and tortured the producer and broadcast one last holiday movie marathon. He was arrested and locked in the Carey Penitentiary for life.
The 2011 House: Holidays of Horror
H.R. Bloodengutz Presents: Holidays of Horror ran at Halloween Horror Nights 21 in 2011, and it was that last broadcast as a haunted house. The video that played in the queue showed what he did to his producer.
“In the first house, he was kind of a sympathetic character because [his show] was taken from him, and he wanted revenge,” said Nick Collins, the house’s scenic designer.
The Feaster Bunny originated in that 2011 house, and Universal Horror Unleashed in Las Vegas built its Feaster Grievings event around the character from April 1 through May 2, 2026.
The 2026 House: A Halloween Fright-Tacular!
H.R. Bloodengutz Presents: A Halloween Fright-Tacular! is one of 10 houses at Halloween Horror Nights 35, and it sits in Sprung Tent 2 at Universal Studios Florida. It runs at the Orlando event only.
The story picks up 15 years after the first house, with Bloodengutz out of prison and back at the WKNB studio to air his favorite straight-to-TV Halloween movies.
“Shortly after the events of the first haunted house, the studio went under and was left abandoned,” said Ramon Paradoa, the show director. “So when [Bloodengutz] returns to re-engage the studio and present this new marathon, he’s having to kind of work with the old, shoddy equipment and piece it together as much as he can.”
Between the movies you walk through living rooms in Carey, Ohio, where Paradoa said the decor carries “little Easter eggs and nods to the film that’s coming.”
I saw these rooms on Universal’s Unmasking the Horror tour, the daytime, lights-on tour of the houses:
- The Legend of Horseless Hollow: a Sleepy Hollow riff in which a man chases his runaway horse through a barn full of carved pumpkins.
- A Monsters’ Night Out: a tiki bar with a kraken for a bartender, a mummy waiting on a round, a mermaid, and a werewolf sipping a pina colada. It’s my favorite room in the house.
- The Grayscale Graveyard: a black-and-white zombie movie set in a graveyard, with the set, costumes, and makeup all in shades of gray.
- Pumpkin Guts and the Pumpkin Lord: two callbacks to earlier houses, Slaughter Sinema and Wicked Growth: Realm of the Pumpkin.
- Conjure the Funk and the Creepy Schoolhouse: a Ouija board scene that turns into a disco, and a room of pumpkin-headed pupils.
- The Madness of Dr. Pumpkin Spice: a mad scientist’s lab in orange light, with a pumpkin-spice smell pumped into the room.
I ranked the house fourth of the 10 in my ranking of every HHN 35 house. It’s the funny one in this year’s lineup, with more references than you can catch in a single nighttime run.
“We’d always wanted to bring him back, it just never seemed like the right time,” Collins said. “And then it all kind of dovetailed in to be perfect for an anniversary year.”
Who Plays H.R. Bloodengutz?
The actor who played Bloodengutz in 2011 came back for the new house’s queue video, and Universal’s blog doesn’t name him. Paradoa said the team is “working with the original actor again.”
The video also introduces two new characters, fellow prisoners from the Carey Penitentiary who now work as his production assistants. Bloodengutz wears his prison uniform with a few pieces of his old costume that he found in the abandoned studio.
“Now, he’s a little more grizzled, and he’s just out to have a good time,” Collins said.
Event dates and ticketing
This year’s Halloween Horror Nights is a separately ticketed event at Universal Studios Florida, on select nights from August 28 through November 1, 2026. My guide to every HHN 35 house, scare zone, and show has the full lineup, and my ranked HHN 35 food guide has prices and booths. For tickets, visit UniversalOrlando.com/HHN.
