Halloween Spooktaculars, Enter if You Dare!

by
​Marilyn Roy

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Halloween Jack o'Lantern, Photo Courtesy of Image by Jana V. M. from Pixabay

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table of contents

​Halloween Festivities
      Neewollah in Independence, Kansas
      Festival of the Dead in Salem, Massachusetts
      Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in New York City
      Headless Horseman Hayride in Ulster Park, New York
      Spirit of Halloweentown in Helens, Oregon
Haunted Houses
      Bennett’s Curse in Baltimore, Maryland
      Erebus Haunted Attraction in Detroit, Michigan
      Spookywoods in Greensboro, North Carolina
      Dent Schoolhouse in Cincinnati, Ohio
Amusement Parks
      Knott’s Scary Farm in Buena Park, California
      Halloween Horror Nights  at Universal  Studios in California and Florida
      Sacramento Scream Park in Sacramento, California
      Spooky World in Salem, New Hampshire
      Halloween Haunt at Kings Island Amusement Park in Kings Island, Ohio
      HalloWeekends at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio
      Thrillvania in Dallas, Texas

Spook up your October with haunted houses, scary theme parks, and other Halloween activities across the country. You'll find some of the ones we think are more notable, but not too macabré, below. 

 

Halloween Festivities

Neewollah in Independence, Kansas

Independence may have spelled Halloween backward since 1919, but they aren’t backward about celebrating it. With over a week’s worth of festivities, you can enjoy parades, a pageant, music, and a chili cook-off.

Festival of the Dead in Salem, Massachusetts

The Festival of the Dead features a collection of events that includes the Haunted Happenings Grand Parade, Salem Witches’ Halloween Ball, an Annual Psychic Fair, and a Witchcraft Expo. You can view classic horror films or a film festival. Horror film actors attend the event, and speakers present lectures about the city’s history and other related topics.

Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in New York City 

Greenwich Village celebrates Halloween with a combination parade and party. It features floats, circus performers, and bands.

Headless Horseman Hayride in Ulster Park, New York

The Headless Horseman Hayride sits on 65 acres surrounding a 1793 Hudson Valley mansion. Visit the ten haunted buildings with actors, stunt people, monsters, fireworks, and illusions. Enjoy a magic show and an escape room. Daytime activities target children under nine years of age.

Spirit of Halloweentown in Helens, Oregon

For Halloween, Helens celebrates the movie Halloweentown filmed in the city. They light the Great Pumpkin in the city plaza. You can also enjoy parades, haunted tours, movies, parties, and people and pet costume contests.​

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Haunted Houses

Bennett’s Curse in Baltimore, Maryland

Bennett’s Curse features four haunted houses in one building.

• Experience Hades in The Underworld haunted house. Enter the portal and experience a world filled with vampires, demons, monsters, and other evil creatures.
• The Legends of Halloween haunted house includes all the expected Halloween creatures ready for a frightening encounter. You face down witches, werewolves, mummies, ghosts, scarecrows, giant spiders, a living forest, and a haunted cemetery.
• Dante Alighieri’s Medieval view of the afterlife from The Divine Comedy or Dante’s Inferno comes alive in the Inferno 3D haunted house. As one of the souls visiting Dante’s vision, you will use 3D glasses from the moment you enter the Gates of Hell. You will confront fallen angels, demons, and other monsters as you visit the circles of Wrath and Violence, Gluttony, Heresy, and Greed.
• Dr. Nolan Taylor and his twin sister, Bonnie, run the Ravenbrook Asylum. They oversee a population of the most criminally insane, and an equal state of insanity has overcome the staff. You find yourself committed to the asylum and allowed to wander its halls. Beware as you encounter its inhabitants.

Erebus Haunted Attraction in Detroit, Michigan

The four-story Erebus haunted house portrays the science lab of Dr. Colbert, a time travel researcher. He used his employees as time travel subjects. However, travelers were seen as potential infections in the different time periods. So, he needed new volunteers. The haunted house allows him to use you and other visitors in his experiments.
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Spookywoods in Greensboro, North Carolina

Spookywoods occupies a converted Christmas tree farm that provides a unique setting. It features individual buildings that are part of the town of Kersey Valley. Besides the haunted houses, Spookywoods offers a Maize Adventure, zip line tours, escape experiences, ax throwing, and daytime family activities.

Dent Schoolhouse in Cincinnati, Ohio 

This old haunted schoolhouse comes with the legend of missing children murdered by the janitor. Without proof, the story seems more fiction than fact, but you can take the tour and judge for yourself. Travel through the classrooms, cafeteria, and basement, then enjoy the Monster Midway, escape experiences, axe throwing, and food.

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Amusement Parks

Knott’s Scary Farm in Buena Park, California

Knott’s Scary Farm transforms into a berry-scary home of over 1,000 horrifying creatures. They hide in the fog and dwell in every corner of the park. Beware as you try to escape from haunted mazes, watch sinister shows, and experience other attractions. Knott’s Scary Farm isn’t recommended for children under 13.

Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios in California and Florida

Universal Studios offers Halloween Horror Nights in both California and Florida. Haunted houses and scare zones spring up all over both parks. The scare zones are outdoor areas with costumed characters and ghoulish themes. Attend the live stage show if you’re brave enough, and chow down on the horror-themed refreshments. Halloween Horror Nights isn’t recommended for children under 13.

Sacramento Scream Park in Sacramento, California

The Sacramento Scream Park features the Louisiana Crypts, the Blind Asylum, the Skull Ripper Haunted Mansion, and the Monster Midway.

• The New Orleans-style Louisiana Crypts house a witch who cursed the city and its inhabitants. As you explore the grounds and its secrets, you will find yourself in swamplands and dilapidated crypts.
• Escape the Blind Asylum if you can, or your entrapment may turn you into a permanent patient. Are the horrible scenes reality or imagined? Where are those voices coming from? Are they in your head? Do you need to take some meds?
• Break out of the Victorian Skull Ripper Haunted Mansion. The Skull Ripper Haunted Mansion owner plans to play a cat-and-mouse game with you until he grows tired and disposes of you. He filled the rooms with fear-inducing, nightmarish experiences and traps. Don’t listen to the deceptive voices, or you won’t escape this labyrinth.

Spooky World in Salem, New Hampshire

The 80-acre Spooky World amusement park started in 1991 in Berlin, Massachusetts, featuring haunted houses, celebrities, shows, and a haunted hayride. It moved several times before its current location in Litchfield, New Hampshire. The park hosted a real horror-glam wedding and has expanded the haunted hayride to one mile. Set on New Year’s Eve in 1947, Asylum 47 becomes the newest attraction. It uses actors and animatronics to haunt you.

Halloween Haunt at Kings Island Amusement Park in Kings Island, Ohio

Halloween Haunt features scare zones, mazes, shows, costumed creatures, and rollercoasters. At the Hotel St. Michelle maze, you encounter spirits, while searching for the manager’s missing daughter. The Pumpkin Eater scare zone encompasses a haunted town where the residents turned into demons. Then, relax with food and enjoy the Monster Rock show at the Festhaus. At the Boo Blasters on Boo Hill adventure, explore the haunted Boo Hill castle as you try to capture the evil Boocifer. You will face ghosts, ghouls, and goblins. You will carry a Boo Blaster as you travel through the hallways, graveyard, and dungeon, collecting points as you hit targets. If you beat other visitors, you capture Boocifer. Halloween Haunt isn’t recommended for children under 13.

HalloWeekends at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio

Located on Lake Eerie, HalloWeekends at Cedar Point Amusement Park offers the Haunting of Eerie Estate, the CornStalkers 2.0: Revenge of the Pumpkin Heads corn maze, and the indoor haunted mazes Bloodbath and Fearground freak show. Kids can enjoy daytime fun, trick-or-treating, and a costume contest. They provide costumes to children who don’t have one. You can also enjoy roller coasters, other rides, shows, and food.

Thrillvania in Dallas, Texas

The 50-acre Thrillvania includes three haunted houses, animatronics, and pyrotechnics.
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• Baron Michael Verdun, a psychopathic werewolf, built the haunted Verdun Manor on the Voodoo Bayou in 1901. The Baron and his vampire wife, Lady Cassandra, turned visitors into human-animal hybrids. Local residents murdered the couple and set the manor on fire. Will you enter the Baron’s mansion?
• Find your way through Lady Cassandra’s House of Clowns labyrinth, but beware of the mad clowns controlled by a brain Baron Verdun created and hid in the maze.
• On Sam Hain’s Trail of Torment, meet Sam, a victim of Lady Cassandra. Sam now tries to entice visitors, who he can make his victims. Can you escape Sam’s trap.

Do you have other Halloween festivities, haunted houses, amusement park celebrations that you'd like to add to the list? Add them in the comments below. We'd especially like to see more for sensitive children and those under 13.
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