Well before cinematic matches ever really became a thing during the pandemic, though a year following the phenomena that was “Broken” Matt Hardy and Brother Nero’s “Final Deletion” match at the Hardy Compound, WWE pit Bray Wyatt against Randy Orton in a “House of Horrors” match. The bout was WWE’s first foray into cinematic matches, though it didn’t make a ton of sense, as only half was cinematic and shown to fans in the crowd at Payback that year. It was explained in the lead-up that the match would start in the haunted house and somehow end in the ring.

The match came after the pair’s not-so-well received WrestleMania 33 bout where bugs were projected onto the mat, Wyatt’s attempts to scare his opponent. The efforts failed at ‘Mania, however, and Orton captured the WWE Championship from Wyatt, leading to the new match type that has yet to be replicated, only learned from and perfected into full cinematic matches.

Leading in to the House of Horrors match, Orton was seen pulling up to the house in the dead of night, though it was still light outside in San Diego, California when the match began. Orton and Wyatt fought through the spooky house until “The Eater of Worlds” pushed a refrigerator onto Orton and stole his vehicle to get back to the arena. A full match took place in between then and Wyatt and Orton’s “arrival” to the arena. Orton was attacked by Jinder Mahal and the Singh Brothers, and Wyatt hit a Sister Abigail to win the non-title match.

The match was, once again, not received well by fans, and as of this writing, sits at just a 3.19 rating with just 35 votes on Cagematch. The bout was seemingly not even rated by Dave Meltzer in the “Wrestling Observer Newsletter.”