Image via Complex Original
Some people enjoy leisurely strolls through "haunted" corn mazes drizzled with fake cobwebs, or hayrides driven by dads in questionable zombie makeup that wouldn't make a 5-year-old break a sweat.
That's not us. We prefer our scares vivid and elaborately imagined, disturbing situations designed to reduce patrons to trembling heaps. Lace up your running shoes, and leave the kids at home—these are the 10 Most Extreme Haunted Houses in America.
Related: 10 Places in NYC That Are Definitely Haunted
Related: Green Label - 10 Scariest Haunted Houses in America
10. The Dent Schoolhouse
City: Cincinnati
Address: 5963 Harrison Ave.
Website: frightsite.com
Price: $20
Scariest Feature: A murderous janitor who needs more blood to mop up
Borrowing from A Nightmare on Elm Street's set-up, this twisted institute of education features a child murderer. Already, we're in fun territory. Instead of being haunted by the local neighborhood pedophile, the Dent Schoolhouse is the stomping grounds of a deranged janitor. Neat fact: the Schoolhouse is in fact an old public school. After all, reality is what makes for the most disturbing situations.
9. The House of Shock
City: New Orleans
Address: 319 Butterworth St.
Website: houseofshock.com
Price: $25
Scariest Feature: (Satanic) live rock bands
Founded by, among others, Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo, the House of Shock is the most rock'n'roll haunted house in America. All those rumors about rock music being a vehicle for satanic messages? The House of Shock sets out to prove them right. Live bands perform on the weekends here, while visitors endure scares like the Church of Satan, an unholy ritual that will have you shitting yourself. You'll headbang too, which make for a pretty unique mess.
8. Netherworld Haunted House
City: Norcross, GA
Address: 6624 Dawson Blvd
Website: fearworld.com
Price: $25
Scariest Feature: Water zombies
Netherworld has been lying to you—it's really two haunted houses: Banshee and the Hive. Both are marked by attention to detail, just like your favorite serial killer. The costumes and makeup are so real, so carefully put together, you'll have the unique experience of being impressed while you wet yourself. Watch out for the Hall of Mirrors—you may not be able to walk straight after.
7. The 13th Gate
City: Baton Rogue, LA
Address: 832 Saint Philip St.
Website: midnightproduction.com
Price: $25
Scariest Feature: The Hellevators
If you hire a crew of makeup and special effects artists from real Hollywood flicks to work on your haunted house, it shows. It shows not just because the blood looks real, or the bridge over the pit of snakes creaks in all the right places—it shows when the people around you scream and faint. The 13th Gate, located in the home of Lil Boosie, is one such haunted house. After a trip on the hell-bound Hellevators, or some fun with live roaches and rats, you'll need someone to wipe you down—your sweaty fear, that is.
6. The Blumhouse of Horrors
City: Los Angeles
Address: 940 S Figueroa St.
Website: blumhouseofhorrors.com
Price: $35
Scariest Feature: The disorienting feeling of the guided maze
From the mind of Jason Blum, producer of Paranormal Activity and Insidious, comes an immersive horror experience in an 88-year-old theatre. The 40-minute guided tour imagines you as the first group to enter since a mysterious accident forced the building to close, and you’re told a story about a magician who once performed at the theatre until one of his tricks caused a tragic accident. A series of elaborately creepy, well-thought out vignettes, performed by 80 actors, result in expertly engineered scares that don’t feel gimmicky. A cohesive, thoroughly creepy narrative emerges that even jaded horror fans will appreciate.
5. Nightmare: Killers
City: New York
Address: 107 Suffolk St.
Website: hauntedhousenyc.com
Price: $30–$60
Scariest Feature: Assisting serial killers with their horrible plans
Now in its ninth year, Nightmare is disorienting New Yorkers with an entirely new iteration of horror. The new installment is ghost and goblin free. Instead, Killers plays on the grim reality of history’s most infamous serial killers. There is a maze of elaborately crafted rooms, each devoted to a different murderer, among them Jeffrey Dahmer, the Zodiac Killer, and Ted Bundy. Each space presents a chill-inducing scene, another graphic glimpse inside a psycho’s mind. Actual serial killer props, like the execution letter of John Wayne Gacy, add to the awful realism.
4. Terror Behind the Walls at Eastern State Penitentiary
City: Philadelphia
Address: 2027 Fairmount Ave.
Website: easternstate.org/halloween
Price: $40 online (Box office ticket prices vary)
Scariest Feature: Slowly walking past a line of prisoners with their heads hung low and their faces covered with masks
Eastern State Penitentiary is the kind of place that's creepy as hell, even with the sun sitting high in the sky. The crumbling walls of the six-chamber-prison exude a nameless dread, part of the reason it made our list of the craziest prisons and jails in the world.
At the haunted house, a high production value combined with a team of 200 invested actors, impressive animatronics, and cells outfitted with bloody prison guards and inmates, makes staying cool an impossibility. Sure, the performers can’t touch you, but they’ll push the limits of personal space to the point of true distress. Let's get dangerous.
3. House of Torment
City: Austin, TX
Address: 523 East Highland Mall Blvd.
Website: thehouseoftorment.com
Price: $30
Scariest Feature: Flesh-hungry zombies chasing you through an inflatable hallway
The House of Torment manipulates the fear that the world will end as the Mayan calendar predicted with this three part, 25,000-square-foot vision of a post-apocalyptic Earth. The first part, dubbed Cursed: The Howling, features Mayan nightmares come to life with frenzied animatronic creatures, a sign of the chaos to come. The Awakening and The Slaughterhouse thrust you into the throes of doomsday. Terrifying touches include blood-covered-everything, a diseased urine trench the smells like the real thing, missing posters, and superbly costumed characters that never break character.
2. Cutting Edge
City: Fort Worth, TX
Address: 1701 East Lancaster Ave.
Website: cuttingedgehauntedhouse.com/cutting.cfm
Price: $30
Scariest Feature: The sound and smell of chainsaws in the air
Cutting Edge is a drawn-out terror experience that plays on deep-seated fears you didn't know you had. At 235,000-square-feet, it's the longest haunted house in the world. In the hour it takes to make your way through, you’ll encounter room after room devoted to your phobias. If getting verbally assaulted by demented clowns doesn’t inspire terror, narrow closets, slaughterhouses, and asylums will surely spike your adrenaline. Hope you laced-up your New Balances!
1. Blackout
City: New York/Los Angeles
Address: 115 West 27th St./207 South Broadway
Website: blackouthh.com
Price: $35
Scariest Feature: Having revolting things inserted in your mouth by strangers
Is Blackout the most intense haunted house in America? The elaborate waiver you sign before entering, which says you can expect "extreme horror, adult sexual content, tight spaces, darkness, fog, strobe light effects, exposure to water, physical contact, and crawling" indicates yes loud and clear. Rather than watching a performance from the periphery, Blackout immerses you in your fears, making you a prisoner to them. You enter alone and are given a "protective mask." You're then violated, groped and forced to put things in your mouth, until you're so terrified by the S&M-inspired scares that you scream the safeword. Yes, you're given a safeword.
