K. Gitter

October’s the only time of year when people applaud you for showing up to a party with an ax in your head. It’s an entirely themed month, in which normally mousy drugstores fill with Dracula puppets shriek-laughing like the Count on an endless loop, and when fun-sized Snickers constitute legit breakfast. It’s also the best time of year to step beyond mere horror movies to try and scare yourself silly, just ‘cause you can. Every state has its spooky spots, whether an annual haunted attraction, a legitimately haunted place, or just an uncomfortably eerie spot in nature. And now, right now, ‘tis the season to go to ‘em. Old mental hospitals, valleys filled with ghosts, theme park fright houses, cemeteries, historic hotels -- no matter how you scare, your state has a place to freak you out. We hit up our team of travel writers across the country, and they told us the most haunted places and best spots in each state to live the scary story you’ve waited all year to experience. Alabama Atrox Factory Leeds Haunted houses where off-duty college kids dress up like Jason Voorhees and jump out at you aren't a BAD time. But they’re much cooler when the dude who played Jason in the movies is there. This 50,000-square-foot scare box is the largest haunted attraction in the southeast (outside Florida), with a quarter-mile of hallways full of terrifying stuff. What really sets it apart is the lineup of horror celebs who attend every year; this year it includes Paul T. Taylor, who played Pinhead in Hellraiser: Judgment on October 27 and 28, and Ken Kirzinger, aka Jason Voorhees in Freddy vs. Jason, on October 13. It’s open until November 3, 6:30 to 10 pm during the week, 6:30 pm to midnight Fridays and Saturdays. General admission is $20. -- Matt Meltzer Alaska The Alaskan Hotel Juneau If you’re not into scaring yourself with a long, dark walk through bone-cold and ONLY ONE MATCH, well, good, fine, just scare yourself in the fully heated, bear-free Alaskan Hotel, the state’s oldest-operating hotel and a legendary haunted spot. The most famous ghost to roam these halls is that of a gold miner’s wife who lived here while waiting for her husband to return. When he didn’t, she began supporting herself by working as a prostitute... until he did return. Not exactly thrilled with her new career choice, he killed her, and now guests and staff regularly report encounters (no, not like that) with her ghost. -- MM Arizona Yuma Territorial Prison Yuma Ask yourself whether, during the westward expansion, you’d want to be locked up in anything called a “territorial prison,” and then jump ahead a hundred years to you haunting the hell out of the place if, like 100+ inmates, you’d died inside those walls. Not one to shy from a rep of locking people into hot, dark places, Arizona has designated this a state historical park -- easily one of the creepiest in the nation. Guides report feeling chills when they pass Cell 14, where an inmate doing time for “crimes against nature” killed himself. In the so-called dark cell, prisoners in pitch-black solitary went mad chained to ring-bolts in the walls. -- Lauren Topor Arkansas The Arlington Hotel Hot Springs Long reputed to be haunted, this grand, 93-year-old hotel is a fine place to let your imagination run off with you. It’s so big and so old and so ornate, it’s probably where you’d choose to stay a while, if you were a ghost. History weighs on the place, and on your mind: four presidents have stayed here, plus the likes of Babe Ruth and Al Capone. Right outside, in the dark, the old-timey lamplight guides your walk through the Downtown spring-fed spas that have drawn visitors to this resort town for decades. Echoing against stone buildings and set against a steep backdrop of the inky forest, even the sound of burbling fountains takes on an unexpected note of the ominous. -- Sam Eifling California Heaven’s Gate mass suicide site Rancho Santa Fe The golf course-strewn San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe regularly makes “most expensive zip codes in the USA" lists. So it came to a stunner in 1997, when the world learned it was home to Heaven’s Gate, a cult whose 39 members drank poisoned Kool-Aid as the Hale Bopp comet passed Earth, believing that aliens behind the comet would rapture their souls to Heaven. Even weirder than the mass suicide was their preparations: their bodies were found dressing in black sweatshirts and sweatpants, Nike sneakers, faces covered with purple cloth, and carrying $5.75 in one pocket -- a toll, people speculated, to catch a ride on the comet. Each member had taken shifts, serving vodka and phenobarbital cocktails and tying plastic bags over fellow members' heads before submitting to the ritual themselves. The group's founder, Marshall Applewhite, took his own life only after making sure everyone else was dead. The grisly death pact took place in a multi-million-dollar mansion, later torn down after the property became a macabre tourist attraction. The town also changed the street name from Colina Norte to Paseo Victoria. The still-vacant lot remains a pilgrimage site. Visitors can also check out an exhibit dedicated to the cult suicide at the San Diego Sheriff's Museum in Old Town. -- Jackie Bryant Colorado The Stanley Hotel Estes Park If you’ve read or seen The Shining, you’ll know the feel of this often snowbound hotel: It’s the location Stephen King based his Overlook Hotel upon. It may not look like the film -- unless you watched the 1990s made-for-TV movie version, which was actually shot here -- but it holds are rumors of haunted rooms and service workers who still wander the grounds. Be warned: There's a much more sinister danger. The hotel has such an extreme elevation that just walking to your room can drain you, so one stiff drink may have you seeing ghosts. -- Brock Wilbur Connecticut Fairfield Hills Hospital Newtown For 65 years, this was one of the largest mental institutions in Connecticut, at times housing more than 4,000 inmates before it closed in 1995. Still, locals walking dogs or jogging through the on-premise trails have reported figures passing through the windows, nurses looking down from the upper floors, and other paranormal activity. And that’s just above the ground. Deep beneath the hospital campus runs a warren of tunnels used to move patients and equipment during cold months. We couldn’t track down anyone who’d actually been down there, maybe because it’s illegal to go. Or maybe because nobody’s ever made it back. -- MM Delaware Fort Delaware Delaware City Civil War prisons were a particularly unpleasant place to be incarcerated back in the 1860s, what with the rampant amputations, gangrene, and war-induced psychosis. The spirits of the beleaguered Confederate soldiers interned at this former Union prison are said to haunt the imposing granite-and-brick behemoth, that sits a short ferry ride from Delaware City on Pea Patch Island. During October weekends, the Diamond State Ghost Investigators lead a three-hour tour of the fort at 6:30 and 9:30pm, where you’ll use ghost-sensing equipment to search for paranormal activity. Tickets are $50. -- MM Florida Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Orlando It reasons that a movie studio would be pretty good at making haunted houses. That’s why the most immersive and realistic haunted houses in America are the ones at Universal Studios on Wednesday-Sunday nights from September to early November. They’re full-on sound stages made to look like the sets from different TV and movie themes (this year’s is American Horror Story) with actors in elaborate makeup and costumes leaping out at unexpected times. Universal also deploys half-decaying and mentally deranged characters to run up and scream at visitors as they navigate the half-lit park. Floridians may find this no different than an average afternoon walking to Publix, but for tourists it can be downright terrifying. The sounds, smells, and visual effects make the $84 weekend admission worth it. Crowds can be enormous, so if you have more money than patience opt for the Express Pass. It’ll zip you to the front of the line and allow you to see more than three or four houses during your visit. -- MM Georgia Oakland Cemetery Atlanta Everyone loves an old, eerie cemetery, especially one steeped in Civil War history. Built in 1850, Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery -- the city’s oldest, largest cemetery -- is home to Maynard Jackson, Bobby Jones, and Margaret Mitchell, among many others. The cemetery includes a Confederate branch where visitors insist they’ve seen uniformed soldiers wandering the grounds and even hanging off of trees. Creep in as far as you dare, but be warned: Some have alleged that they’ve heard Confederate Army roll call among the tombstones and sworn that their name was called amid the list. -- Amy Schulman Hawaii Waipio Valley Big Island Ahhh, Hawaii. Home to fiery luaus where island dancers welcome you with pounding drums, native chants, and blazing torches. All of which are awesome when those dancers are actually alive. Not so awesome when they’re ghosts of ancient warriors marching through the islands armed to the teeth. But those are the night marchers, legendary spirits who roam the islands at in an eternal march to battle. Most longtime locals have stories about encountering them, mostly in specific spots spread throughout the islands. The creepiest is the Waipio Valley on the northern shore of Hawaii. Though the park has some of the most scenic lookouts in the state, the pounding beats and chants of the night marchers echo especially loudly through the valley when the night marchers decide to join you for a hike. -- MM Idaho Scarywood Athol The Silverwood amusement park north of Coeur d’Alene turns into the largest haunted attraction in Idaho every weekend night in October. It’s home to five haunted houses with live actors and movie-quality visual effects, this year including a 3-D attraction set in an old asylum. Like a smaller Universal Studios, it also has seven “scare zones,” where sections of the park are themed with creepy phobias like Clown Town, the Dollhouse, and Scarecrow Corner. Your admission ($26 to $40) includes all of Silverwood’s rides, including Tremors, one of the top-rated wooden roller coasters in America. -- MM Illinois Raven's Grin Inn Mount Carroll Have you ever wanted to wander through the mind of a madman? The owner of this haunted nook, the name of Jim Warfield, is mad in all the right ways. He's turned his house -- he does actually live there -- into a maze of his spooky art, prop gags, and a not-so-safe-but-exhilarating three-story slide into the haunted wine cellar. You'll laugh as much as you scream as he guides you through his ever-changing life's work. Fall is the busiest time of year, naturally, but Raven's Grin is open year-round for when the spirited mood strikes in April. There's not much else to do in tiny Mount Carroll, so plan a pit stop at the corner bar before you venture inside. Tours are $15 and no reservations are necessary, though there may be a wait during the busy season. -- Lacey Muszynski Indiana Historic Hannah House Indianapolis This 24-room mansion hosts a range of ho-hum events: Easter egg hunts, Civil War reenactments, weddings, corporate gatherings. It’s also reputed to be haunted as a mutha. We’re talking disembodied footsteps; cold spots; weird noises; strange smells ranging from roses to rotting flesh; shadowy shapes darting about; and a man in a black suit suspected to be the structure’s builder and namesake, Alexander Hannah. Oh, and the unquiet spirits of a group of runaway slaves who reportedly died there in a basement fire. Regular tours are available, and there’s even a Hannah House Paranormal Day Celebration, which for some reason takes place in August instead of October. But that’s OK. Because if the stories are even a wee bit true, every day is Paranormal Day at Hannah House. -- Sam Stall Iowa Villisca Axe Murder House Villisca For a true one-of-a-kind overnight stay, book a night at the Villisca Axe Murder House, the aptly named home where eight people were ax-murdered. The story goes that a family of six plus two friends were asleep when an unknown person entered the house and killed them one by one. While the case is still unsolved and the motive remains a mystery, the main suspect was a traveling minister who had taught at a nearby church that night and had left town early the next morning. Tours and nightly stays are offered for adrenaline junkie patrons interested in spending the night in a room that 100 years ago was the scene of a bloody massacre. You’ll probably get the best sleep of your life, right? -- AS Kansas Stull Cemetery Stull Locals know this tiny cemetery in an unincorporated township in eastern Kansas as a portal to Hell that the devil vacations through twice a year. As outlandish as that sounds, the ruins of a nearby church and the bizarre architecture will have you half-believing the rumors. No Satan sightings have been confirmed, and anyone caught trespassing in the private cemetery can face a $1,000 fine. But that only heightens the dare for jumpy teens and courageous stoners to make the trip. Twice, in my case. -- BW Kentucky Sauerkraut Cave Louisville While it got its name because it once served as a fermenting cavern for sauerkraut, Sauerkraut Cave earned its legend because it was located beneath the Lakeland Asylum for the Insane, an institution marred by accusations of overcrowding and mistreatment of patients. The cave beneath the now-razed asylum is believed to have been an occasional escape route for inmates, but there are also rumors of bodies being buried there and the cave being used as a discarding place for infants born in the asylum. Strange visions and ghostly voices have been reported by many who have explored it; find it behind the archery range in E.P. “Tom” Sawyer Park. Guided tours are offered, but you can use your own judgment. -- Kevin Gibson Louisiana St. Roch Chapel, Yellow Fever Shrine New Orleans There’s arguably nothing scarier than a silent killing machine: a deadly disease. In the 19th century, a yellow fever epidemic swept New Orleans, and Reverend Peter Thevis, the pastor of the Holy Trinity Catholic Church, prayed to St. Roch (who is most identified with good health and healing) that if the members of his parish were shielded from the disease, he would build a shrine in St. Roch’s name. While 40,000 New Orleanians died in the epidemic, no one in Father Thevis’ community perished. To thank him, the chapel in St. Roch’s name was built, as well as the shrine, which is dotted with offerings left by pilgrims who still visit to pray for healing, making it a true-life haunted house. Among the artifacts: children’s polio braces, crutches, rows of prosthetic legs, plaster feet, false teeth, and fake eyeballs. -- AS Maine Mount Hope Cemetery Bangor You know who grew up in Maine? Stephen King. Aka the dude who wrote Pet Sematary, which makes it no surprise the 1989 film adaptation was filmed here. For extra scares, watch the movie before strolling through this creepy this 181-year-old garden cemetery at night, and see if you can find the spot where Gage was buried. On the way, you’ll see some of the first Civil War monuments ever constructed, and grave markers that date back to 1836. If you’re not sufficiently skeeved, Bangor is also home to King’s house, fronted by wrought iron gates decorated with bats. Both are part of several Stephen King tours, that’ll take you through sites of Bangor that inspired his novels. -- MM Maryland Coffin Rock Near Burkittsville The Blair Witch Project, one of the creepiest films in low-budget Hollywood history, still pulls tourists to Burkittsville, Maryland. To find where most of the film was shot, though, you need to head into Black Hills Forest about 20 minutes west of town to find Coffin Rock. It’s a large flat rock near a creek in the middle of the woods. And in history, it’s where a Maryland search party went missing in 1886 in an attempt to find missing 8-year-old Robin Weaver. The kid eventually returned to town; the search party did not. A second search party found disemboweled bodies, bound at the hands and feet, on Coffin Rock. Those bodies later vanished when the search party returned with backup help. Local legend attributes all of this to the so-called Blair Witch. You can, of course, retrace those steps in history … just bring a flashlight and a good pair of running shoes. -- Tim Ebner Massachusetts Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Fall River You’ve likely heard the children’s rhyme: "Lizzie Borden took an ax / Gave her mother 40 whacks / When she saw what she had done / She gave her father 41." Well, you can not only visit the scene of that famous 1892 double homicide, you can also sleep at the Bordens’ home, eat their last meal (Johnnycakes -- a thick, cornmeal pancake -- and eggs), and spend the night in the bedroom where the body of Lizzie’s stepmother Abigail was found. After a stay there, I can attest: This home painstakingly furnished to look exactly as it did on the morning of the murders will creep you right out. Daytime tours accommodate lame-o wusses. Better, though, the 175-year-old property hosts up to 20 overnight guests, one of whom will invariably pull out the house ouija board after the evening guide departs and try to contact Lizzie. I did not sleep a wink. -- Camille Dodero Michigan South Manitou Island Leland If there’s one island that comes packed with its very own creepy legends and haunting history, it’s South Manitou Island, 16 miles offshore from Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula. Featuring 300-foot sand dunes, deserted shoreline, and empty campgrounds, it’s about as terrestrially creepy as you can get. One legend suggests that a ship of cholera-stricken passengers stopped at the island, and sailors buried them in a mass grave while some were still alive. If that alone doesn’t stir you to set sail to the island, there are two cemeteries, a cedar forest where unbodied voices are often heard, and off the coast is the shipwreck of the SS Francisco Morazan, where a young boy is rumored to have died after an attempt at exploring it on his own. Fair warning to all who seek refuge. -- AS Minnesota Forepaugh’s Restaurant St. Paul Forepaugh’s occupies a 19th-century Victorian house with a look that makes you think, "That thing looks haunted as all get-out." Well, yup. Joseph Forepaugh, the original tenant, was quite attracted to a maid named Molly. When his wife found out, he cut off the relationship. Molly, who was pregnant, hung herself from a third-floor chandelier. Soon after, Joseph went for a walk and shot himself. Now, their home is a restaurant beset with accounts of flickering lights, rearranged furniture, cold chills, and unexplained noises. In the house’s nine dining rooms, Molly is said to sidle up near new brides, while Joseph prefers the confines of the cellar. Once a quarter the New American fine dining hub gives into the ghost hunters and holds a night of presentations from paranormal investigators. This year it’s also throwing a Halloween bash, with a 1920s circus theme and performers in every room. -- Dustin Nelson Mississippi University of Mississippi Medical Center Jackson This gothic-ass state loves scary legends -- the devil roaming Delta crossroads, ghosts haunting the mansions in Natchez -- but a very real site of horror resides here in Jackson. Back in 2014, construction workers beginning a parking lot came across a mass grave of about 7,000 former Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum residents, buried around the turn of the century. The asylum closed more than 80 years ago, but it wasn’t uncommon in those days to inter deceased patients together in unmarked graves. Estimating that the cost for outside contractors to remove and rebury the remains would cost an extra $21 million or so, officials decided to let them rest in peace until they can exhume the bodies through university channels and build a historical center where the parking lot would have stood. Until then, it’s one hell of a spooky place to pay your respects to the anonymous thousands of dead. -- Andrew Paul Missouri Main Street St. Charles This multicolored main drag looks like the perfect setting for a midwestern horror movie: charming, peaceful Main Street USA that’s actually haunted by dozens of roaming spirits. The legend dates to 1853 when the old Borromeo Cemetery was moved and a number of the graves they dug up had no bodies in them. Those spirits may or may not haunt places like the Little Hills Winery and its restaurant, where a man and woman are said to be on an eternal dinner date. Or the shops at 700 S Main Street, where mysterious cooking smells emerge, as well a deep French-speaking voice, and objects that vanish inexplicably. The town is also home to a haunted community college, a haunted high school, and a haunted forest. -- MM Montana The Fairweather Inn Virginia City If you’ve ever been borderline homicidal because the kids in the hotel room next to you just won’t shut the hell up, steer clear of the Fairweather Inn. The lone lodging in this former gold mining town, with a current population of 198 folks, is said to be haunted by the ghosts of children who get into all manner of shenanigans: moving your luggage, turning the lights on and off, and generally annoying the bejeezus out of you. The city’s only other hotel, the Bonanza Inn, closed a few years ago and was said to be haunted by the ghost of an old nun, who presumably is better-behaved. -- MM Nebraska Seven Sisters Road Otoe County We all get mad at our siblings. Most of us get over it and just get them a really crappy Christmas present. We do NOT, however, take all seven of our sisters out to separate hills and kill them, as one deranged Nebraska man did over a century ago. The road that runs through the hilly setting of this gruesome crime just outside Nebraska City is identified as County Road L on a map, but colloquially it’s named after the sisters who died there. Cars driving through routinely report headlights going dim, or electrical systems failing completely, leaving their cars stalled in the eerie darkness where they can hear the screams of young women echoing through the hills. Perfect choice for a pleasant drive on Allhallows Eve. -- MM Nevada Bonnie Screams Las Vegas About 30 minutes from the strip, old Bonnie Springs Ranch serves as an 115-acre Western-themed amusement park, a reproduction of this former mining community full of “historic” buildings like an opera house, saloon, schoolhouse, and wax museum. Touristy reproductions, sure, but this settlement is still more than a century and a half old... and legitimately haunted. Reported apparitions include a little girl in the schoolhouse, shadows in the opera house, and figures in the wax museum moving on their own (to the extent that staff decided to nail them to the floor). Every Halloween the buildings are converted into creepy haunted houses as part of Bonnie Screams, the Ranch's fully immersive "haunted ghost town" experience complete with zombie paintball. Tickets are $30. -- Nicole Rupersburg New Hampshire Fright Kingdom Nashua You might not expect to find one of the most elaborate haunted houses in America in such a tiny town, but the 65,000-square-foot Fright Kingdom is up there with any Halloween attraction you’d find in a major city, with impressive convincing actors and special effects worthy of Universal Studios. The fright fest begins with a tarantula terrarium, a walk-through exhibit of live tarantulas clinging to glass panes, followed by themed scares like the Psycho Circus (maniacal clowns!) and Apocalypse Z (undead zombies!). It also rocks a monster-themed midway, making a trip here more like a giant Halloween carnival a mere haunted house. It’s open Friday-Sunday through November 4 and on Halloween; general admission starts at $25. -- M.M. New Jersey The Devil’s Tree 181 Mountain Road, Basking Ridge The tree's visage alone, without context, is enough to inspire nightmares: a warped, half-dead oak tree with dozens of axe marks lining its trunk, standing alone in the middle of a barren field. Then there’s the gruesome history. A purported meeting place for the KKK, a notorious site for scores of suicides, and an allegedly cursed gateway to the depths of hell, the Devil's tree is infamous among locals and has evolved into a grassroots tourist trap that actually delivers chills. The legend holds that anyone who harms the tree will endure swift and violent retribution -- so naturally, it has become a tradition for ballsy teens across the Garden State to pee on its trunk. But do so at your own risk. You might just lose your life (or your manhood) to the tree's legendary curse. Also, that's just unsanitary. Have some respect for nature. -- Wil Fulton New Mexico Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return Santa Fe When the guy who created Game of Thrones puts a trippy, neon-filled, psychedelic art installation in an old 20,000-square-foot bowling alley, that’s the spot you wanna spend Halloween. Though it might not be like, zombies-and-werewolves terrifying, this immersive funhouse relays the story of a suburban family that's been hit with a break in the space-time continuum; visitors navigate a series of wormholes that transport them into “alternate dimensions.” As an added bonus on Halloween, Meow Wolf will host trick-or-treating through the various wormholes, where kids 12 and under can get candy from intra-dimensional strangers until 8pm. Tickets are $14. -- M.M. New York United States Military Academy West Point If the Tudor-style architecture and all-around dismal creepiness of this campus doesn’t give you the heebie-jeebies, then the school’s verifiable ghost sightings will. Back in 1972, it was reported that cadets saw a ghost in an antiquated school uniform, roaming around Room 4714 -- a room no longer in use. Other ghost stories have made their way into the school’s colloquial chatter, most notably the ghost of former superintendent Colonel Thayer’s Irish maid, Molly, who haunts the basement of Quarters 100, tousling the bedcovers in an otherwise orderly room, and borrowing and moving guests’ possessions. -- A.S. North Carolina The Biltmore Estate Asheville The largest private residence in the entire country is, of course, housing some ghosties up in those 135,280 square feet. The former vacation home of George Washington Vanderbilt II is now considered one of the most haunted places in North Carolina. George himself has been spotted chilling in the library, and his late wife Edith wanders around calling out his name. There’s also a headless orange cat roaming the gardens, echoes of laughter and splashing water in the empty pool, and disembodied voices heard throughout the 250 rooms. A day pass to visit the grounds starts at $40, with overnight options available. -- K.P. North Dakota The Haunted Fort Bismarck-Mandan When you suffer one of the most famous military defeats in US history, there’s only one thing to do: Go back home and brood about it, even after you’re dead. That’s one possible explanation for the paranormal activity around the Custer House -- of Last Stand fame -- at Ft. Abraham Lincoln. Staffers typically won’t even go in after dark, thanks to reports of strange voices and footsteps. But during weekends in October, it serves as the finest haunted attraction in North Dakota. Visitors start at the house, where monsters and ghosts pop out from every corner, and move through a granary of creepy clowns, barracks filled with zombies, and a pitch-black hallway where only a rope is there to guide you. It runs through the end of October; tickets are $15 on Fridays and $18 on Saturdays. -- M.M. Ohio Ohio State Reformatory Mansfield This massive stone castle looks like hell disguised as Hogwarts, a majestically spired campus that housed over 200,000 inmates over its history from 1896-1990. A tour through here on a normal day is grim, but during scare season it transforms into the biggest prison-based haunted attraction in America: Escape From Blood Prison. The cells and hallways are filled with undead inmates and faucets dripping blood, turning the already creepy reformatory into a bona fide nightmare. It runs Thursday-Sunday from October 12 to November 5, and costs $20 and up. -- M.M. Oklahoma Hex House Tulsa This intense immersive haunted attraction is based on a disturbing true story from the 1940s when a woman named Carolann Smith forced two young women to live in her unheated basement, act as her servant, and follow a form of occult religion she had created. Smith’s brick house became a popular Halloween destination in Tulsa until it was torn down in the 1970s. Now, Hex House takes the story and runs with it, with hair-raising special effects designed to put you in an altered hypnotic mindset. It runs for 15 nights from September 30 to October 31, mostly weekends and Halloween. Admission starts at $25. -- M.M. Oregon Timberline Lodge Mt. Hood Though the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado is the infamous inspiration for Stephen King’s The Shining (see above), Stanley Kubrick’s movie adaptation used this family-friendly ski resort in Mt. Hood as the exterior of the terrifying Overlook Hotel. For fans of the macabre, a night spent in Room 217 definitely belongs on your bucket list (even though the movie depicted a nonexistent room 237, at the hotelier’s request). There’s no murderous hedge maze or elevators filled with blood, but anyone who’s ever seen those twin girls in their nightmares will be scared silly here. Or at the very least get a good “Heeeeeeeeere’s Johnny!” selfie at the special setup in the lobby.-- M.M. Pennsylvania Eastern State Penitentiary Philadelphia Known locally as ESP (already a creepy touch), the 1829 prison intended to value reform over punishment, at a time when Puritanical America was embracing the penitent foundation of the penitentiary. Instead, this became a real house of horrors and the testing location for a number of "reform" techniques that included paranoia-inducing “panopticon” oversight, now synonymous with a constant threat of surveillance. The mix of weird science, gigantic brutal architecture, and famous inmates like Al Capone and bank robber Willie Sutton serves as a perfect staging ground for the nighttime haunted tours. -- B.W. Rhode Island Fortress of Nightmares Newport Historic Fort Adams -- and the deep tunnels that wind underneath it -- becomes one of the most realistically scary haunted attractions in New England for six days in October. Wandering through dark, zombie-filled tunnels is usually enough to keep you scared until Thanksgiving, but this year ups the ante by adding a virtual-reality component. The new attraction, Paranormal360, synchronizes 24 VR headsets to put you inside an eight-minute horror movie, with real-life effects to enhance the experience. It’ll cost you extra, though general admission runs only $5-15, depending which of the last three weekends in October you go. -- M.M. South Carolina Daufuskie Island The southern barrier islands This little island near Hilton Head bills itself as “the island with no bridge,” which is charming by day and downright panic-inducing by night. Once the sun goes down, the roads become a dark maze through a towering forest of pines, oaks, and spooky spanish moss -- and no bridge means no escape. The screech of cicadas deafens you, and each turn you make on your golf cart (the only vehicles allowed on the island) feels like it could lead you into a corner of the swamp from which you’ll never return. Daufuskie does naturally what swamp-themed haunted houses around the country try to recreate. Minus the zombies. Hopefully. -- M.M. South Dakota Sica Hollow State Park Sisseton The Dakota Sioux who used these thick forests as their hunting grounds named the area Sica, meaning “evil.” Rumors of Bigfoot-like creatures roaming the area have persisted over the years, and during the 1970s a number of people mysteriously disappeared here, never to be found -- perhaps falling victim to quicksand, or to the deep ravines that suddenly drop hundreds of feet. Campers and nearby residents have reported hearing sounds of drumming and war chants echoing in the trees. Park visitors can walk the Trail of Spirits and see the bogs gushing blood-red water (a result of minerals, or the blood and flesh of Sioux ancestors, depending on your perspective). -- M.M. Tennessee The Bell Witch Cave Adams Every kid in Tennessee grows up scared of the Bell Witch, daring each other at sleepovers to say “I hate the Bell Witch” 100 times in front of the bathroom mirror to summon her malevolent spirit. In the early 19th century, “Kate” the Bell Witch ghost tormented the Bell family in Adams, Tennessee, residing in a cave behind their property. Besides pinching, pulling hair, and taunting their visitors with strange sounds, she repeatedly tried to choke patriarch John Bell. For 12 bucks you can tour the spooky cave, which has been placed on the National Historic Register, and according to the tour guides, visitors have felt sensations of being pushed, touched, or held down by a heavyweight. The famous haunting even spooked Andrew Jackson when he visited: "By the Eternal, I saw nothing, but I heard enough to convince me that I'd rather fight the British than to deal with this torment they call the Bell Witch." -- Chris Chamberlain Texas Yorktown Memorial Hospital Yorktown (about 75 miles from San Antonio) For Texas scares this Halloween, you have options: take a turn through one of the Texas Chainsaw-themed haunted houses in Houston, see the Marfa Lights (they’re aliens, 100%), or have a drink with the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt in the Menger Hotel bar. Or, if you’re really serious, visit Yorktown Memorial Hospital, abandoned since 1988 and one of the most haunted places in Texas. Over 2,000 patients died there, and old beds, gurneys, mirrors, chairs, and other medical equipment are still inside. Visitors have described inexplicable apparitions, whispers, shadowy figures in the hallways, wheelchairs rolling unpushed, and a particularly terrifying talking doll in the nursery that asks, “Do you love me?” So um. Go check it out! The owner allows for regular tours and paranormal investigations. -- Keller Powell Utah Castle of Chaos Midvale Until 1998, the Utah State Mental Hospital in Provo hosted an annual haunted house staffed by actual patients. That was deemed a little insensitive to the mentally ill, and the mantle of creepiest place in Utah for Halloween now resides at the Castle of Chaos in Midvale. The only completely underground haunted attraction in the state, it’s a labyrinth of vampires, zombies, and disorienting fog. It’s also got escape rooms and a live-action theater so you can do more than just wander through hallways. This year Castle of Chaos is selling tickets at $20 a pop and is open every night (except for Tuesday, the vampire day of rest) through November 4th. -- M.M. Vermont Nightmare Vermont Essex Junction Until they find a way to create a haunted Ben & Jerry’s factory, the best place to scare yourself in Vermont this season is this combination haunted house/escape room/live theatrical production unlike anything else in the country. This year’s theme has visitors locked in a trans-dimensional lab, where the mission is to escape before you get hit with nerve gas. There to help (or hinder) you are monsters, zombies, and other frightening folks. The last show of the year is called “Extra Bloody Night,” where patrons leave covered in hemoglobin. It runs only four nights: October 20, 21, 27, and 28 with shows at 7-11pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and 2-6pm on Saturdays. Tickets are $13. -- M.M. Virginia Bacon’s Castle Surry There’s no shortage of spooky and sinister places to visit in Virginia -- after all, old battlefields are some of the most haunted grounds anywhere. But if it’s a haunted house you’re after, Bacon’s Castle, built in 1685, is the oldest brick home in the country and the last Jacobean building left standing. And like most very old, very creepy mansions, it’s haunted as hell. People have reported encountering disembodied voices and wails, floating heads, books flying off shelves, rockers a’rocking, and unwanted visitors being pushed around. In addition to regular tours through December, the castle is hosting Historic Haunt Nights on October 14 and 28 where you can take a candle-lit ghost hunt with the Center for Paranormal Research and Investigation in tow. -- K.P. Washington Northern State Mental Hospital Sedro-Woolley The abandoned remains of this old farm, once home to as many as 2,700 mental patients, is one of the creepiest places in Washington. The self-sustaining asylum ran from 1912 to 1973 and had a lumber mill, a library, a greenhouse, a bakery, canning facilities, and other amenities. Now it’s essentially a ghost town. Remnants of the buildings are said to be haunted by patients who died during trans-orbital lobotomies. Some buildings are still in use and off-limits, but you can view the shells of others and an adjacent cemetery at any time. The isolated compound is a short distance off Highway 20 -- the perfect spot for a late-night Halloween walkabout. -- M.M. Washington, DC Congressional Cemetery 1801 E St SE Capitol Hill’s Congressional Cemetery dates all the way back before the Civil War and serves as the final resting site for tons of government honchos, including a vice president, supreme court justice, six cabinet members, 19 senators, and 71 representatives. The first director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and Marine Corp Band Director John Philip Sousa are also on the premises. You can visit the cemetery during its 9 to 5 business hours, or better yet attend a spooky “Soul Stroll.” The guided tours are offered at twilight and 110 pmon the weekends before Halloween, and VIP ticket holders get to drink in a Prohibition-style speakeasy that’s popping up in the cemetery’s main vault. -- T.E. West Virginia Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum Weston Formerly the Weston State Hospital, this massive gothic asylum served West Virginia’s mentally ill from 1864 to 1994. Though designed for 250 people, it once housed 2,400. That kind of overcrowding made for some truly miserable souls, many of whom are still purported to haunt the hospital, and every ghost hunting TV show you can think has at some point paid this place a visit. Paranormal tours of the main building are offered at all hours, but for the hands-down spookiest Halloween activity in West Virginia, do an overnight ghost hunt. You’ll arrive at 11:30pm, stay ‘till 6 in the morning, and spend the whole night roaming the halls. Overnight tours are available on October 27, 28, and 31. -- M.M. Wisconsin The Pfister Hotel Milwaukee When a bunch of tough-guy pro baseball players refuses to stay in a hotel, there's probably something weird afoot. The Pfister is among of Milwaukee's finest hotels, which is why many visiting sports teams put their players up here. It also happens to be among the most haunted hotels in the world, and so many MLB players have complained about ghostly encounters -- strange knocking and pounding noises, TVs turning on and off, their belongings inexplicably moved -- that many now refuse to stay there. Even B-list celeb Joey Lawrence has a Pfister ghost story. So in the words of former MLB player Michael Young, "Oh, fuck that place." Of course, you can book yourself a room and hope for apparitions, but if you just want to visit, you won't look odd sipping on a Bloody Mary in the Lobby Lounge. -- L.M. Wyoming Wyoming Frontier Prison Rawlins Wyoming’s first state penitentiary was about as miserable as you’d expect a stone prison on a cold, whistling prairie to be. It didn’t have adequate heat for nearly 50 years, and no hot water until 1966. It did have something called the “punishment pole,” to which ill-behaving prisoners were handcuffed and whipped with rubber hoses. It’s been closed since 1981, but guided tours allow you to get up close and personal with the Death House, which housed inmates on death row, the gas chamber, and offices that still have old furniture. October is the best time to visit when the prison hosts midnight tours in the days leading up to Halloween. -- M.M. If you're a complete fright fiend, check out our other guides to find the Best Haunted Houses in Atlanta, Denver, Houston, New Orleans and Virginia and the Most Haunted Places in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. (Source: Thrillist)

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