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Everyone’s entitled to a scare on Halloween, and the Halloween Attraction Association is in the business of delivering as many as possible throughout the season.
The HAA represents professional haunted attraction owners, operators, designers, vendors, enthusiasts, and artists who have turned the business of fright into a multi-million dollar industry with its own trade shows, experts, suppliers, magazines, educational seminars, and events. It’s an organization dedicated to all the haunt attraction owners and enthusiasts, many of whom spend millions of dollars on state-of-the-art special effects, audio-animatronic creatures, Hollywood-quality makeup and masks, costumes, lighting gear, sound equipment, and other products to ensure their customers have a frightful experience.
So much so that it’s directly inspired the horror genre itself. Not only is Halloween-set horror popular this time of year, but one of the holiday’s most popular pastimes – haunted attractions- has also directly inspired the genre and served as an immersive backdrop to the terror. Many were even filmed in actual working haunted attractions.
The best October pairing may arguably be visiting a local haunt then relaxing with a horror movie. Find yours today!
This Halloween, we’re saluting the HAA and our local haunts with five horror movies set in haunted attractions.
Haunt
A college co-ed group looking for thrills and chills find themselves instead fighting for their lives when they enter a Halloween haunt in Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ (Heretic, 65) Halloween slasher movie. The haunt and its masked killers are the main attractions in this visually inventive slasher. Gorgeous, crisp cinematography that highlights the production design and great killer masks that evoke retro Ben Cooper, Inc. style costumes elevate the simple setup of this straightforward holiday-themed affair. And Beck and Woods certainly don’t skimp on the gore when it comes to culling this unlucky herd one by one.
Hell Fest
Gregory Plotkin’s Halloween slasher sees a masked killer using a Halloween scream park as his slaying grounds, committing murder in plain sight under the guise of Halloween fun. That’s bad news for the group of friends targeted by the psycho; the patrons think their terror is all part of the event. Hell Fest uses a requisite holiday pastime- the haunt attraction- as the center stage for this slasher that seeks to retool the definition of “Final Girl.” Plotkin delivers a no frills slasher without any meta layers, putting the Halloween revelry front and center. Hell Fest features costumes, props, and scare actors from Netherworld Haunted House, one of the nation’s largest haunts, for that added Halloween authenticity. It was also filmed at Six Flags White Water during the off season, converted into the film’s Scream Park.
Hell House LLC
A group of friends works to transform an old hotel into a Halloween haunt attraction in time for the season. An unexplained accident on their first night in business results in 15 attendees and staff members’ tragic deaths. Over a decade later, a documentary crew ventures there to answer what happened on that fateful night. Written and directed by Stephen Cognetti, this faux-documentary style horror movie brings tons of thrills and chills. The maze-like setup of the home and the subtle details enhance the spooky tone of this movie. This place is seriously haunted, and it’ll instill a deep fear of clowns. It was also filmed in an actual haunted attraction: Waldorf Estate of Fear.
The Houses October Built
A group of friends who are traveling to Halloween haunted houses all over the country in search of something truly scary finds more than they bargained for in this found footage horror movie. It’s atmospheric and immersive in the realm of Halloween haunts, made more so in that director Bobby Roe shot at real haunted attractions across Texas and Louisiana to lend a real documentary feel to the horror. Diehard haunt fanatics can look for The 13th Floor, House of Torment, TerrorPlex, and more to serve as set pieces of terror. While it ends on a rather anticlimactic note, The Houses October Built yielded two sequels.
Ghoulies II
For those seeking fun over scares this Halloween season, this sequel expands its tiny demonic chaos to a carnival, where they take up residence in the haunted funhouse attraction “Satan’s Den.” That it takes place almost entirely within the haunt means a sequel that emphasizes practical effects and its setting, of which the Ghoulies make full use. Ghoulies II was written by Stuart Gordon’s long-time writing partner, Dennis Paoli (Re-Animator, From Beyond), and directed by Albert Band (Robot Wars). It stars Phil Fondacaro (Willow, Troll), Sasha Jenson (Halloween 4, Dazed and Confused), and Royal Dano (The Dark Half, Killer Klowns From Outer Space) as the humans encountering the wacky ghoulies’ shenanigans set in a carnival attraction that evokes childhood nostalgia and spooky fun.
HAA features a 1,200-member network of haunted attractions, giving you plenty of options worth visiting this season.
