Get your Halloween kicks by being chased by a lunatic with a chainsaw or hunting ghosts in the wilderness? Your luck is in.
All around the UK, chilling shows and immersive experiences are inviting you to have the fright of your life.
From scary circus shows to horror stories brought to life, ramp up the fear factor this year with one of these eerie experiences.
50 Berkeley Square, London
The London Dungeon always goes hell for leather at Halloween but this year it’s gone one further by staging their spooky seasonal show in the derelict attic of 50 Berkeley Square – London’s most haunted house.
Untold chilling phenomena have been reported to have happened at the address over hundreds of years. Scare-junkies will await their fate in a dingy, dusty room surrounded by really creepy old-school toys.
Creaky rocking horse, anyone? One of those weird monkeys holding cymbals? Nope, us neither; horrifying.
Until Oct 31, from £28 (entry to London Dungeon included).
PrimEVIL Norfolk
A nightmare of bloodthirsty surgeons, maniacal clowns and cannibals dead-set on eating you alive, PrimEVIL takes Halloween to a level that can only be described as mayhem.
With disorientation, darkness and jumps at their core, each of the five main haunts is designed to scare the living daylights out of anyone attempting to escape.
Hell’s Hollow is a series of pitch-black lanes; Route 666 is a one-way forest path inhabited by flesh-eating madmen; and new for this year, Circus of Terror is a carnival of twisting corridors stalked by frenzied clowns. Fun!
Until Oct 31, tickets from £25.
Mary Shelley’s House of Frankenstein: After Dark: Purgatory, Bath
Set in Mary Shelley’s townhouse and dedicated to the gothically-minded author, Purgatory is an intense multi-sensory horror journey guided by faint torchlight and the unrelenting fear of being set upon by Frankenstein’s monster. Spoiler alert – he will find you.
Special effects, spooky visuals, aromascapes and some pretty hostile houseguests bring this five-storey escape room to life. In the eerie attic quarters of the Screaming Room, a slasher movie plays on a loop, the house’s dingy underbelly crawls with shocks and surprises, and Victor’s Lair is an hour-long mission to unravel the ramblings of an organ-harvesting madman.
Until Oct 31, tickets from £15.
Nightmare Island, Alderford Lake, Shropshire
Less slaughter and more soulless spirits but equally terrifying, Nightmare Island is a living ghost story in which scare-seekers are hunted under a veil of darkness by the tormented lady of the lake and her pitiless henchmen.
The lakeside location for this immersive outdoor escape room adds unsettling atmosphere as lost souls emerge from the misty waters summoning their prey along a lakeside trail of jump-inducing frights before abandoning them on Nightmare Island.
Wellies and wit are essential to escape the clutches of the island’s deranged fallen but no swimming is involved. Easy, right? Right?!
Saw: The Experience London
An immersive multi-escape room adaptation of Saw, this Halloween ‘game’ ups the frightening quotient to a level of shedding actual tears.
Not for the faint-hearted – or weak-stomached – the production quality is off the scale and just like the terrifying chain of events in the film, willing participants will have their moral choices tested in a theatrical battle of wits.
Anyone who’s heard the words ‘do you want to play a game?’ said by on-screen psychopath Jigsaw will know no action is without consequence. Ruthlessness is essential.
Until Mar 26, tickets from £39.
Psycho Path: Fearground, Lintz Hall Farm, County Durham
Ramping up the panic to grip the soul, this immersive scream park is as dark as they come.
One of six scare mazes, Isolation is a lucky dip of four nightmarish rooms based on phobias that must each be braved alone to guarantee escape. Gulp.
Elsewhere in Psycho City, Corn-ered is a massive corn maze teeming with cannibalistic farmers who’ve swapped chickens for chainsaws. New attraction, The Thunder Dome, is a disturbed take on laser tag that assaults every single sense with actual electric shocks and maniacs thrown in for good measure.
Until Oct 31, tickets from £20.
Thorpe Park Fright Nights, Surrey
Winner of the best Halloween event 2022 at the UK Theme Park Awards, Thorpe Park’s annual dose of torment has been unlocking evil for 21 years.
Unrelenting in its desire to awaken the nation’s nightmares, this year there are three new ways to ensure you never sleep again.
Death’s Doors is a demented locksmith’s lair of 21 doors hiding sinister secrets, Survival Games has been rated a 5/5 scare and sensory rating – an intense scrabble for existence with loads of gore thrown in.
And, if that’s not enough torture for one night, check out The Terminal – an immersive, audio-scare experience involving isolated pods and headphones.
Until Oct 31, tickets from £39.
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