Jason Voorhees has set up camp at Austin's House of Torment this fall, as the 40,000-square-foot Northeast Austin haunt swaps out one of its three attractions for a Jason Universe: Survive the Night maze built around the Friday the 13th mythology. The hockey-masked killer joins the haunt's existing lineup through November 8, giving Austin horror fans a licensed slasher alongside the venue's homegrown scares.
The addition comes after a long legal standoff over the character. The Friday the 13th franchise had been stuck in legal limbo since its 2009 reboot, according to The Austin Chronicle, until a legal agreement resolved some of the disputes over ownership of the character and mythos and gave rise to the Jason Universe initiative. That resolution, which Horror, Inc. formally announced in May 2024, opened the door for licensed live attractions, games, and merchandise built around the character, with the rights-holder working in partnership with original screenwriter Victor Miller and attorney Marc Toberoff, as reported by PR Newswire.
13th Floor Entertainment Group, House of Torment's parent company, struck an agreement allowing Jason characters to appear at the Austin venue, with the deal covering characters spanning Friday the 13th Part 2 through Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. The licensing arrangement extends to nine of the company's 15 nationwide markets, including Austin, a rollout Hoodline has also tracked at 13th Floor Denver's 17th season and at San Antonio's Jason Universe debut.
Three Houses, Three Distinct Moods
House of Torment visitors move through three sequential attractions this season: Return of the Abominations first, Jason's Realm second, and Beyond the Veil third, the latter featuring a cult holed up in a faded Victorian manor. The haunt swapped its middle attraction's longtime Torment '99 VHS retro theme for the Jason-themed zone this year, after running a cryptid concept in recent seasons.
Michael Faust, 13th Floor's performance director and House of Torment's general manager, described the first house as intense, the second as fun, and the third as dialogue-focused, per the Chronicle's report. Each house has its own lead: Kat Ford runs the first, Mark Pacina the second, and Rio Thorn the third.
Faust told the Chronicle that his team had already built camp scenes and cabins for an original concept before learning they would have access to the Jason intellectual property — meaning the sets were, by coincidence, nearly ready-made for Crystal Lake. It marks the first time House of Torment has featured a licensed property, after years of developing its own horror stories, including the Cursed City of Blackthorne.
From Scares to Performance
Faust has also pushed the haunt to change its performance approach, shifting from prioritizing scares toward entertaining visitors. He introduced dialogue workshops and scripts for performers that allow them to adapt the material in real time, and staff began bringing their own dialogue pages for scenes. Faust also introduced fake money for performers to use in mock muggings — a touch that apparently pays off, since one House of Torment actor received a real $20 tip from a guest, according to the Chronicle.
House of Torment reopened after taking a year off during the pandemic and has since been included on the Haunted Attraction Association's list of iconic haunts. The association certified a record 74 attractions across 27 states as Top Haunts for 2026 and estimates that commercial haunted attractions nationwide employ more than 100,000 seasonal workers, according to Morningstar.
A Slasher Who Has Worn Many Faces
Faust admitted he hadn't actually watched the Friday the 13th films until recently, having grown up instead on spookshows like Poltergeist, and said he generally preferred Freddy Krueger among slasher villains. His favorite entry in the series turned out to be Jason X, which sends the killer into space, while his favorite installment within the Jason Universe films specifically is Friday the 13th Part VI.
To get the details right, Faust leaned on Mark Pacina, a veteran House of Torment employee and in-house historian, who researched Friday the 13th lore on his behalf. That homework mattered because Jason's appearance has shifted dramatically across the franchise's films; House of Torment's maze features three distinct versions of the character, including Jason VII, the Jason Takes Manhattan-era look, and Jason III. Faust personally oversees screen accuracy for how the character appears across 13th Floor's different locations.
Part of a Bigger Franchise Revival
The haunted house tie-in arrives as the Friday the 13th franchise sees its first new story additions in over a decade, including an A24-produced Crystal Lake television series. At a San Diego Comic-Con panel in July 2025, Horror Inc. Vice President Robbie Barsamian announced that a new Friday the 13th sequel film and a console sequel game were also in active early development under the Jason Universe banner, according to IGN.
At select 13th Floor venues, including San Antonio and Denver, the Jason Universe attraction this year also introduced an interactive VIP Director's Cut feature, with a four-button control panel letting guests choose whether Jason panics, slashes, strikes, or stalks his victims — a touch Hoodline detailed in its coverage of Nashville Nightmare's own Jason twist.
Big Business Behind the Scares
House of Torment traces its roots to 2003, when founders Daniel McCullough and Jon Love converted a former Furr's Cafeteria at Northcross Mall into a commercial haunted house, building on a yard display McCullough had run in South Texas in the late 1990s, according to historical reporting from The Daily Texan. The haunt relocated in September 2016 to its current 40,000-square-foot home at 2632 Ridgepoint Drive in Northeast Austin, a move that doubled its footprint and added year-round escape rooms and a technical design facility.
13th Floor Entertainment Group itself was co-founded in 2010 by CEO Chris Stafford, who had launched his first haunt in Denver back in 2002 before leaving a 12-year banking career to grow the business full time, per BizBash. The company now operates 36 attractions across North America and has become, by that account, the world's largest Halloween-themed live entertainment company.
Nationally, Halloween spending is projected to hit a record $13.5 billion in 2026, with 74% of Americans participating and average individual spending of $115.14, according to the National Retail Federation. Industry operators have responded to rising real estate, labor, and inflation costs by turning to dynamic ticket pricing and off-season pop-up events, a trend the Los Angeles Times has tied to the broader push toward licensed intellectual property partnerships like the one now bringing Jason Voorhees to Ridgepoint Drive.
