Dracula Park Transylvania Moves Forward With Construction Permit Approval

 

Photo: Dracula Park Transylvania 

by Tara Adams

MIERCUREA CIUC, Romania — Plans for a multimillion-dollar theme park inspired by the Dracula legend have moved forward after local officials approved a construction permit for the 74-acre project in eastern Romania.

Dracula Park Transylvania, planned for the Zsögöd district of Harghita County, is expected to feature medieval-themed buildings, amusement rides, artisan workshops and attractions drawing on the history and folklore of the Transylvania region.

The park's social media accounts announced Nov. 2 that the construction permit had been issued by the Municipality of Miercurea Ciuc.

“Dracula Park Transylvania has received its building permit: on All Souls’ Day, a legend comes to life!” the announcement stated.

“After months of planning, preparation and dedication, Dracula Park Transylvania has reached a major milestone: the full project documentation is complete, and the Municipality of Miercurea Ciuc has issued the building permit for our project in Transylvania,” the statement continued. “For a project inspired by the legend of Dracula, the date carries a special symbolism.”

The project is being developed by András Lénárd, known regionally for business ventures that include the Csíki Sörgyár brewery. According to the park's website, Lénárd has more than 20 years of experience overseeing investments from initial planning and financing through construction and operation.

The development team has enlisted several companies with experience in the amusement park industry, including Italy-based Zamperla and Team Park Project. Architects based in Bucharest are also involved in the project.

In a video posted on the park's website, Antonio Zamperla said more than 350 people in Italy alone are working on the project.

“I do believe that the vision you have, the image that you're bringing, the novelty, and the innovation that you're bringing into the market, it's something completely unique,” Zamperla told public relations official Tofalvi Margit. “So, I do believe it's going to be a great success to work on something like this.”

Plans call for more than 50 themed structures and attractions on the primary development site.

According to Romanian newspaper Székelyhon, the proposed attractions include roller coasters, carousels, ghost castles and halls of mirrors, along with themed village areas featuring architectural influences from Székely, Saxon and Romanesque traditions.

Photo: Dracula Park Transylvania 

The plans also reference a structure inspired by Vajdahunyad Castle. The overall concept combines elements of medieval Transylvanian history and culture with modern amusement park attractions, the newspaper reported.

Local officials, including Mayor Attila Korodi, have described the development as a potential economic boost for the community, which already attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.

Additional development phases reportedly include accommodations and a cable-car connection to a bear sanctuary.

With the construction permit approved, the project has cleared an important step in the development process. The park's announcement described the planned attraction as “a unique theme park in the heart of Transylvania,” adding that “a new chapter in the legend begins.”

For more information, visit the park's official website.

No Safe Haven: Fighting for Survival at Infection

 

An encounter with Waldorf Estate of Fear's vicious zombies

by Tara Adams

LEHIGHTON, Pa. – The goal of Infection sounds simple: make it to the survivors camp and live another day. 

But sounding simple and actually dodging zombies that run, walk, lunge, crawl, and stalk in the dark along an outdoor trail is a bit trickier. 

“Have you been bitten or scratched today?” a haunt actor asked on Halloween night before the interactive outdoor trail began, one of four haunted attractions at Waldorf Estate of Fear. 

The actor handed me a bracelet, directing me to give it to her father, Mason, when I found him. I wouldn't get into the camp, known as Midian, without it. 

“As long as you have that bracelet, he'll know that I sent you. That is your only ticket into the camp, so do not lose it. And whatever you do, do not trust the government,” she warns. “They say they try to contain the infection, but that is a lie. People go into their facility, but they do not go back out.”

Guests enter the trail by ducking under a trap door in which only the lower half opens. 

“I'd walk rather quickly before something finds you,” the actor says.

The door slammed shut. I took one step. 

Too slow. 

A vicious, snarling zombie appeared from the darkness almost immediately, crowding me as I made my way down the path. 

The trail was filled with the flesh eaters, each with their own style of scares. Some appeared from behind outside obstacles, and others lunged from the darkness inside buildings visitors had to enter to advance along the trail.

In one of the buildings, a sickly-looking medical staffer handed me a floppy disc and told me to give it to a doctor I would meet up with along the way. It was another part of the quest to make it out alive. 

One of the zombies followed me for more than a minute, as I made my way past a wrecked airplane. The undead creature jumped out from under a fence, ran out from around corners, lunged from bushes and crawled through the dirt in the process.

As that same zombie ran between two boats toward me, a shot rang out, dropping the zombie to the ground. But then it crawled toward me, before a second shot was fired, finally putting the corpse to rest. 

Mason fired the shots from a watch tower, which meant I arrived at the survivors camp. He asked for the bracelet from his daughter and sent me through the camp so I could make it out safely. 

A relentless zombie at Waldorf Estate of Fear's Infection. 

I encountered a few more zombies along the way, before running into a doctor I didn't quite trust. He asked for the floppy disc and said the research on it would save many people. 

Whether the research on that floppy disc will actually save humanity remains to be seen. But making it to Midian was an adventure in itself. At Infection, reaching the survivors camp doesn't mean the danger is over. It just means you've lived long enough to make it there.

In addition to Infection, the other attractions at Waldorf Estate of Fear are the Waldorf Hotel, Terror in the Corn and Grimville Slaughterhouse. 

For more information about Waldorf Estate of Fear and its upcoming events, click here. 

Pennhurst Asylum: Where the Scares Don't End at the Actors

 

by Tara Adams

EAST VINCENT TOWNSHIP, Pa. – The road to Pennhurst Asylum isn't particularly reassuring on a Friday night in October.

Church Street is dark, bumpy and isolated, the kind of road that gives you plenty of time to reconsider your plans. 

Somewhere along the way, you begin wondering whether visiting a Halloween attraction on the grounds of one of America's most notoriously haunted locations was such a good idea after all.

Then you arrive.

You can tell yourself it's all theater. The figures emerging from the fog are actors. The screams are part of the show. The shadows moving inside those old buildings are there for your entertainment.

But there's something about stepping onto that sprawling brick campus that makes those reassurances a little harder to believe.

My night took me through four attractions: The Catacombs, Pennhurst Asylum itself, The Morgue and, finally, The Tunnels.

One thing becomes clear pretty quickly: 

Personal space isn't a priority here. Actors brush against your arms, grab your shoulders and test your reflexes when you least expect it. And if you're wearing a hat, consider it fair game.

In The Catacombs, an actor dressed in a black gown, with symbols mapped across her face, apparently decided I looked like an easy target. She stepped into my space, pointed a long finger at my hoop earrings and delivered a character assessment.

“The bigger the hoops, the bigger the sins,” she rasped. “You smell like sin. I can tell you were wild in your 20s.”

And then something moved in the darkened fog. Whatever spooky armor I'd arrived wearing was already beginning to crack.

From there, the small R.I.P. tour group I tagged along with headed into Pennhurst Asylum itself, where the surroundings become considerably more unsettling.

The walkthrough takes visitors through medical labs, filthy, run-down bathrooms, rooms full of bunk beds and deranged patients, bunk beds, and an area filled with enormous, moving dolls. 

Other scenes are populated by characters with giant, unblinking eyeballs for heads.

One actor sidled up and quietly asked if he could have my eyes. Another appeared out of the shadows, stared directly into my pupils and softly crooned, “Jeepers, Creepers, where'd you get those peepers?”

Photo: Pennhurst Asylum 

The encounters are strange, unpredictable and often close enough to make you instinctively step backward.

That same chaotic energy follows visitors into The Morgue, where the actors seem to take particular pleasure in keeping everyone off balance.

One ghoul launched into a rapid-fire blood-type roll call:

“A is for A Positive, B is for B Negative, C is for Cookie, D is for… Daddy issues!” he yelled, pointing at an unsuspecting guest.

Later, just when my guard was down, a hand shot out of a boo-hole and landed squarely on top of my hat-wearing head. As I scrambled past, the same actor reached out from another opening and went after my hat again.

I jumped.

“That's two!” he cackled, clearly delighted that he scared me twice.

The actors come at visitors from every direction, and there isn't much opportunity to relax between encounters.

Then comes The Tunnels.

If the previous attractions have kept you on your toes, this is where things get particularly disorienting.

The highlight is an impressive spinning vortex tunnel that turns an ordinary walk into a serious test of balance. The walls rotate around you, making it difficult to trust what your eyes are telling you. Add the low ceiling, darkness and surrounding effects, and simply making it to the other side becomes an adventure.

Even after escaping the claustrophobic spinning tunnel, your sense of direction takes a little time to catch up. The floor seems to shift beneath your feet, and the darkness makes it difficult to tell exactly where you're headed.

Naturally, it turns everyone into a nervous wreck.

In front of me, another visitor kept turning around to check behind us.

“I keep looking behind me, just in case,” she muttered into the dark.

A few moments later, she got her answer. Something reached out of the darkness and grabbed her shoulders. The scream she let out was so loud and piercing it probably woke the dead.

Then come the figures. Rows of white-sheeted silhouettes line the route, some towering unnaturally high, others twitching slightly. Your brain spends the entire walk trying to figure out whether there's an actual actor hiding underneath, waiting to lunge, or whether you're looking at an oddly shaped prop.

It's an uncomfortable guessing game, particularly when you can barely see what's directly in front of you.

What makes Pennhurst different from an ordinary haunted attraction is that the setting doesn't need much help creating an unsettling atmosphere.

The campus opened in 1908 as an institution for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Its troubled history, including neglect and abuse, eventually became the subject of intense scrutiny and public outcry, and the institution closed in 1987.

Today, Pennhurst is also widely known for its paranormal reputation. Ghost hunters have reported unexplained footsteps, strange noises, doors moving on their own and voices coming from seemingly empty rooms.

Whether you believe those accounts or approach them with skepticism, they're difficult to forget when you're walking through the buildings after dark.

There's a difference between being startled by an actor in a fabricated haunted house and being startled in a place whose history is very real.

At Pennhurst, the two experiences exist side by side. The actors provide plenty of reasons to scream, but the location itself brings an entirely different atmosphere to the experience.

By the time you leave, it's difficult to separate the scares that were carefully planned from the uneasiness that comes with being there in the first place.

The actors go home when the night is over. The costumes come off, the lights go out and the attraction eventually closes for another evening.

But Pennhurst remains.

And as you make your way back down another dark stretch exiting the property, you might find yourself wondering whether everything you encountered that night was actually part of the show.

Pennhurst Asylum will be open Halloween through and on Nov. 6-7, 2026, for Blackout, in which visitors walk-through each attraction with the lights out. For more information, click here. 

​No Anesthesia Required: The Barnyard Madness of Fear At The Farm

 

by Tara Adams 

BLOOMSBURG, Pa. -- There's the dentist who wants to floss your teeth with barbed wire, a doctor who just pulled a foot out of someone's rear end, and a nun who's eager to decapitate her next victim.

Fear At The Farm in Bloomsburg, Pa., has its share of memorable characters. And on a recent chilly Sunday night, the crowds lined up to see them. 

Owner Adrian Swartzlander said Sunday nights are a large draw for local residents, often larger than Friday crowds. 

Fear At The Farm features a haunted hayride and a walk-through attraction, both part of a haunt that continues to grow.

The haunt added a few new scenes and expanded the deck on the Boos Bar for this season. Next season, the hayride will be overhauled and expanded.

“I'm redesigning the whole ride after this season,” Swartzlander said. “That's our focus for next year. You'll have to come back next year, because that'll be a lot bigger, a lot more scenes out there.”

Inside the walk-through, a variety of scares and surprises await visitors. One second their hearts might be thumping from a pitch-black jump scare, and the next, one of them ends up reclining in a retro-creepy dentist chair that suddenly pitches backward with a metallic clunk. 

Before the new “patient,” or victim, can sit up, a manic-eyed dentist is looming over her, peering into her mouth with deranged enthusiasm.

“Let's take a look!” the dentist said. “Nice and wide!”

The dentist then tells the patient she has a bad tooth and work is needed. Before the patient can protest, the dentist is holding a sputtering drill and aiming straight for her molars. Just as the visitor braces for the worst, the dentist abruptly kills the motor and scoffs.

“Alright, get going, get going!” the dentist says. “I have more patients to see!”

​As the patient heads for the exit, the dentist calls out a reminder to keep up on oral hygiene while hoisting a thick strand of barbed wire for dental floss.

“Get in there nice and good!”

Now in its sixth season, Fear At The Farm offers more than plastic props and predictable hallways. Actors can make physical contact with visitors, adding another element to the experience. There's a rough, backwoods quality to the place, with over-the-top characters and sets that wouldn't look out of place in a 1980s direct-to-video splatter flick.

“How do you like my hand job, pretty good, right?” said the doctor, who had earlier retrieved a foot from a patient's behind, while pointing to X-rays of a mangled hand.

The doctor grabbed a hand prop with fingers pointing in several different directions. “I did a pretty good job on this guy, you know?”

Elsewhere in the haunt, visitors encountered a deranged woman who is dressed like a nun, standing in front of a large game wheel and carrying a decapitated head. 

“You're not going to spin my wheel? I'll spin it for you,” the nun says. 

None of the options on the wheel are a good deal for the visitor. The nun spins the wheel, then stops it on the space of her choosing.

“Oh, it's my choice! My choice is, ‘I think you should get the hell out or you're going to end up like this guy right here! Get out!’” she yells, gesturing toward the decapitated head.

The dentist's office is more than a gag. The scene takes a familiar fear and makes it absurd and threatening. The drill, the chair and the barbed-wire floss turn an ordinary trip to the dentist into something altogether more sinister.

The actors have the energy of a traveling carnival crossed with an underground punk show. The makeup is grimy, and the banter feels spontaneous rather than rehearsed. The characters aren't just standing around waiting to jump out at people; they interact with visitors and keep the scenes moving.

As they wait their turn, visitors laugh, wonder how claustrophobic the rooms might be and debate who will go first.

​They think they're ready for whatever’s waiting for them in the darkened rooms and corridors, but the drill is already spinning up again.

Fear At The Farm is open this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the final weekend of the season. Swartzlander said the attraction will be open on May 1 for a Halfway to Halloween haunt and Halloween oddities festival.

For more information about this weekend's lineup, visit Fear At The Farm's Facebook page here.

​From Home Haunt to Playland Park: Inside 25 Years of Scared By the Sound

by Tara Adams 

RYE, N.Y. — The Ferris wheel stands silent against the October night. The rides at Playland Park are dark, but the amusement park has a different kind of attraction drawing visitors through its gates.

Opened in 1928, Rye Playland is a Westchester County landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places and recognized as a National Historic Landmark. The park has also appeared in several well-known productions. In "Big," Tom Hanks' character returns to the Zoltar fortune-telling machine at Playland in hopes of reversing his wish and becoming a child again. The park's Dragon Coaster also appeared in "Fatal Attraction" and Mariah Carey's “Fantasy” music video.

On Halloween nights, though, Playland takes on a different role.

Scared By the Sound is celebrating its 25th season, bringing another round of haunted-house scares to the edge of Long Island Sound. Waves crash along the shore as spooky music drifts across the entrance and screams carry through the darkness.

“The park itself sets the tone,” says Connor Costello, one of the haunt’s owners and operators.

Costello runs the attraction with his family, but the idea began with his father, Pat, who built a haunted house at home every year. Eventually, he decided to try something bigger.

That was 25 seasons ago. The family is still building, dismantling and rebuilding the attraction each year, driven by a love of Halloween and the pleasure of giving visitors a good scare.

The work begins well before the first guests arrive. Scared By the Sound covers more than 12,000 square feet, and the crew has just four weeks to construct it. Roughly 500 wall panels go up before the space is transformed into a series of elaborate scenes. When the season ends, the process runs in reverse. Every wall, prop and bolt comes down and is hauled away.

“We put it up every year, and we take it down completely,” Costello said. “When we're out of here in November, it is completely empty.”

Much of Scared By the Sound depends on creative, detailed handmade sets; custom props and actors who know how to work a room. Animatronics have their place, but the scares often depend on timing and the people delivering them.

The attraction has about 60 to 70 actors each season. Costello credits their dedication as one of the reasons the family has kept the haunt going for so long.

“Our actors are definitely trained to not just stand there and say 'boo,'” Costello said.

And he's thankful for the haunt's many loyal customers, who come back each year for more of the scary fun.

“We've been very blessed and fortunate to be doing this for so long,” Costello added.

There are new characters and scenes this season, including the Wolves Den, His Masters Quarters and Cell Block C-D, a jail where visitors find themselves on the wrong side of the law, according to the haunt's website.

“Welcome to our cell block,” a prison official tells a visitor. “You're not going to be able to get away from this. You did the crime, you're in here.”

After guiding the visitor inside, the officer raises his voice.

“Yo, boys. We have one for death row!”

It's the kind of encounter that depends on more than a startling noise or something jumping out of the shadows. The actor establishes the scene, draws the visitor in and delivers the scare through the performance.

That approach carries through the rest of the haunt, where the rooms are built around details that can make visitors briefly forget they're walking through an attraction.

In the library, tall shelves lined with actual old books fill the room. The aging paper gives the space a smell that is difficult to reproduce with a prop or a sound effect.

“There's not going to be any unnecessary screaming in the library, is there?” an actor asks while ushering visitors inside.

At the center of the room, a librarian strikes up a conversation with guests about their reading preferences. While their attention is on her, something else is happening overhead. The ceiling opens with a mechanical groan, and a ghoul drops down.

The wine cellar offers a different kind of detail: more than 3,000 bottles arranged across wooden shelves. The bottles are secured in place, preventing them from shattering as visitors move through the room and the scares unfold.

In the asylum, an actor stationed at a heavy entrance door lays out the rules for touring the facility. His final instruction is simple: “Make sure you don't look behind you.”

He points, and visitors instinctively turn around. The distraction gives the haunt an opening to deliver a scare from the opposite direction.

Outside, the breeze comes off Long Island Sound. The Ferris wheel remains dark, and another group makes its way toward the entrance, ready to see what awaits inside.

For the Costello family, the work will soon come full circle. When the Halloween season ends, the walls will come down, the props will be packed away and the rooms will disappear. By November, the space will be empty again.

But they'll leave the memories of the laughs and scares with visitors, until it’s time to do it again next year.

For more information on Scared By The Sound's final haunt weekend of 2026, visit their website here. 

 

When the Headless Horseman Rides: Halloween in Tarrytown

 

by Tara Adams

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. – Stepping off the train into Tarrytown on a chilly October morning means more than just visiting a Hudson Valley village. 

It means stepping into the scene that inspired Washington Irving and helped make “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” famous.

Published in 1820, Irving's short story immortalized the hills, trails and shadows along the Hudson River through the tale of the Headless Horseman.

More than 200 years later, the story remains part of the area's identity.

Here, history extends beyond museum walls. It's part of the landscape, from the Old Croton Aqueduct to the fog that settles over the Hudson on autumn mornings.

Given Irving's legacy, it's no surprise that Tarrytown goes all out for Halloween.

​When I visited the village for the Tarrytown Halloween Parade on October 24, it was my first time experiencing it firsthand. I quickly understood why Halloween is such a big deal here.

Officials estimated before the event that about 20,000 people would pack the streets, which were already buzzing when I arrived.

Scarecrows were tied to utility poles, shop windows sported Halloween decorations, and costumed dogs trotted past their equally festive owners. Children waited excitedly for the parade to begin.

Marchers danced, played instruments, tossed candy and high-fived kids along the route.

The Wildey Street Neighborhood, its members wearing black robes and hoods, hauled a float carrying an animated skeleton making groaning, ghastly sounds. 

“Here lies British Spy Major John Andre, justly executed on October 2, 1780,” a large tombstone on the float stated.

Andre, mentioned in Irving's short story, was a British Army officer during the American Revolutionary War who conspired with Benedict Arnold and was hanged on George Washington's orders.

Other marchers included Pac-Man running after and trying to eat life-size ghosts, Ghostbusters reenactment groups, a cosplayer dressed as Ms. Frizzle from “The Magic School Bus” reminding children to wear their seat belts, and energetic high school bands. 

Students from the Tarrytown Music Hall Academy performed several theatrical acts, including a horror production of “Carrie” along the parade route.

“Help me! Help me!” a student pleaded, before Carrie, wearing a crown and a bloody gown, struck another student down with telekinesis.

Then came the star of the parade.

In Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman is a rockstar. The crowd roared whenever he came into view, but the biggest reaction came when he and his horse broke away at a full gallop down Main Street.

Four or five rows deep, spectators whistled and clapped as the legendary Hessian soldier thundered through modern-day Tarrytown. For a moment, Irving's 200-year-old tale seemed to step right off the page.

Maybe that's why Halloween works so well here. People come for the costumes, the parade and the Headless Horseman, but they also come to be part of the legend.

For one October afternoon, Irving's story isn't confined to the page. It's alive on the streets of Tarrytown, with a crowd waiting for the next thunder of hoofbeats.

​Ghosts of the Speakeasy: Horror Hall Unearths New Frights in West Nanticoke

by Tara Adams
Writer, Haunt Hunters App

WEST NANTICOKE, Pa. — In the shadowy basement of a former 1920s Mafia speakeasy, a grainy video casts an eerie glow over a group of curious visitors.

The video shows paranormal investigators entering the speakeasy to capture evidence, and the guests follow their steps through the investigation.

​This is "Underground," the new attraction at Horror Hall’s 2026 season. And for those who step inside, the boundary between the investigation and lingering speakeasy spirits blurs very quickly.

Visitors slip through a hidden entrance into the old bootlegger speakeasy. One of their stops along the way includes a psychic, who sets a chilling scene by sharing a message from the spirit world.

​“There's a spirit here with us,” the psychic warns the huddled group. “Let's see what she wants.”

The guests are guided to place their hands on a Ouija board. The planchette slides across the board, spelling out a single word: Die.

​“Die. It wants you to die,” the psychic gasps just as a sudden jump scare shatters the silence. 

“Go! They're coming!” the psychic shouts.

​It is high-octane theater, and by the time visitors emerge from the final, high-intensity scene, the adrenaline is noticeable.

​“That was cool,” one thrill-seeker remarked as the excited group hurried off toward the next phase of the haunt, which is the walk-through that's been open for more than four decades.

​Justin Davis, Horror Hall casting director, explained that the new attraction relies heavily on atmosphere and narrative. 

“You'll see lots of high-tech things and evidence left behind by ghost hunters,” Davis said. “There's moments of entertainment and storyline and scares, and you'll see all of that.”

​To pull off the nightly mayhem, Davis said there is a crew of 30 to 35 actors among both attractions, and three makeup artists, who begin preparing for the show hours before doors open. Many of the performers are haunt veterans who return year after year.

​“They’re not new people,” Tilbury Community Center Director John Rinehimer said. “They've been here many years.”

​For more than 40 years, Horror Hall has been a cornerstone of northeastern Pennsylvania’s Halloween culture. 

The attraction celebrated its milestone 40th season in 2024, cementing its status as one of the region's most enduring traditions. It's also known as the longest-running indoor haunted attraction in northeastern Pennsylvania.

The frights have filled the halls of the former Harter High School on East Poplar Street since the 1980s, a multi-floor brick building that now operates as the Tilbury Community Center.

​According to Rinehimer, Horror Hall’s longevity comes down to basic survival. 

Decades ago, the Tilbury Volunteer Fire Company held an annual bazaar to raise funds, but the event sometimes struggled to turn a profit. After acquiring the former school in the early 1980s, the fire company pivoted to running the haunted house as its major yearly fundraiser. It proved to be a turning point, transforming the seasonal spookhouse into a beloved community staple.

​While the fire company is no longer active, the mission behind the haunt remains fundamentally the same. Proceeds go toward maintaining the community center, with the remaining dollars donated to charities like the Pennsylvania Wounded Warriors.

​“If we don't do this, we don't have an organization,” Rinehimer said. “Same as the fire company. If they didn't run the haunted house, they wouldn't have existed.”

​Though the production is volunteer-driven, the organization takes care of its own. At the end of every operating night, the cast and crew are treated to a hot meal. The volunteers are also celebrated at an annual awards party every November, reinforcing the sense of kinship that runs deep through the operation.

​That close-knit atmosphere is a big reason why people stick around for decades. 

Diane Knoll, a longtime fixture of the haunt who played Vampira, is still active with the attraction. While she no longer performs, she greets patrons from the ticket booth. 

Older fans of Horror Hall might remember Knoll's iconic local performance. Guests, who were seated in the former school's auditorium while waiting to enter the haunt, would be caught off guard by a flash, before Dracula and Vampira materialized on stage through billowing clouds of smoke.

The pair of traditional vampires would go over the haunt's rules of conduct, before serving as tour guides for a lucky group of haunt-goers. 

Fittingly, Knoll is also the mother of Horror Hall’s scenic designer, Zak Knoll.

Vintage Horror Hall poster of Knoll as Vampira

​Reflecting on the decades they have spent at the haunt, Rinehimer remembers teasing Diane back when they were both much younger. 

“Hey, you think we'll be coming here when we're using canes and in wheelchairs?” he asked her.

​More than 40 years later, they are still there.

​For thrill-seekers looking for an extra jolt, Horror Hall also offers a special adults-only event, Horror Hall After Dark, held on a single night at the close of the regular season. Unlike the standard, family-friendly tour, the late-season adult night takes the frights to an entirely different tier.

​“They touch,” Rinehimer. “It's adult entertainment. The language is a lot different. They push it to the limits.”

​During the event, guests who prefer not to be touched can wear a glow-in-the-dark necklace as a safeguard, though Rinehimer notes that most people who buy a ticket actively want the physical interaction. 

The evening also features unique audience participation elements, including a roving spotlight inside the auditorium.

​“When they go in the auditorium, every now and again, there's a big light that starts swirling around. If it stops on you, they drag you out of there,” Rinehimer explained, adding that pulled guests are eventually reunited with their parties, though perhaps a bit worse for wear.

This year’s Horror Hall After Dark is on Halloween night.

​Whether it's a high-tech ghost hunt in a 1920s speakeasy basement or an intense adult-only night at the end of October, Horror Hall continues to thrive on East Poplar Street, fueled by spooky fun, haunt comradery, and a community refusing to let a tradition die.

“For as long as I've been doing this, it's always felt like home,” Diane Knoll said.

For more information about tickets and Horror Hall’s attraction, visit their website here.