Best Theme Park Halloween Event (2018)

The Kings Island coasters aren’t the only things making park guests scream. Come September, the park’s annual Halloween Haunt adds frightening mazes and live shows designed with one purpose: scare you just enough to haunt your dreams until next year’s event comes ‘round. Among the upcoming attractions, along with all the rides Kings Island fans love, the Kill Mart department store-themed house, Slaughter House and a musical stage show: Monster Rock.
Photo courtesy of Kings Island

A host of haunts are on tap at this Virginia favorite, where dangers lurk in the eerie woods just off the Blue Ridge Parkway and the ghosts of criminally insane inmates are looking to satisfy their eternal bloodlust – though “Skareoke” at the Annex at Club Blood could prove the most frightening entertainment of all! Live shows, mazes and more are in store and each year the mayhem spreads like a Halloween virus. Kings Dominion’s fierce fans are most definitely infected.
Photo courtesy of Kings Dominion

Fright Fest at Six Flags Great America offers thrill seekers several haunted houses and scare zones, including a maze from the movie Hell Fest and the cursed Manslaughter Manor.
Photo courtesy of anjanettew / Flickr

Seventeen nights of horrifying mazes, roaming zombies and spooky shows await thrill seekers at this famed California theme park – threats so terrifying, in fact, you may just opt for the relative “calm” of riding the world-class roller coasters in the dark instead! Looney Tunes characters and holiday crafts delight wee ones by day, but all bets are off at night when cannibals, ghostly circus performers, man-eating plants and more darken every turn.
Photo courtesy of Six Flags Magic Mountain

Carowinds Theme Park turns into a scream park with 16 haunted attractions and shows and 500 monsters waiting to thrill and chill. Visitors to this year's event can walk the haunted Fleet Street, gather round for a berserk circus, revisit the horror classics of the '50s and '60s at Silver Scream Studios or swing by The Playground.
Photo courtesy of Carowinds

Each weekend starting in late September, visitors to Lake Compounce will be entering The Haunted Graveyard, a mile-long nightmare journey featuring dark catacombs, a vampire's lair and an ancient temple hiding dark secrets. 
Photo courtesy of Lake Compounce

Busch Gardens Howl-O-Scream celebrates 20 years of fears with more scares than ever. Fear awaits in the Virginia theme park’s collection of elaborate haunted houses, immersive themed scare zones, challenging escape rooms and darkly entertaining live shows.
Photo courtesy of Busch Gardens Williamsburg

For 16 years running, Phantom Fright Nights has been luring Kennywood fans back for Halloween-themed thrills they can’t get any other time of year as their favorite attractions go Jekyll-Hyde, transforming into dark, fearsome alter egos well suited for the holiday. Raging Rapids, for example, is drained to become Voodoo Bayou, a devastatingly dangerous attraction for those brave enough to enter. Also on tap: BioFear, Mortem Manor, Villa of the Vampires and more. Don’t come alone.
Photo courtesy of Kennywood

Cedar Point rolls out the orange carpet for kids and grown-ups come Halloween time. When the sun goes down, its cheery exterior morphs into the stuff that haunts your dreams. Previous years have featured chemical-created mutants, mortuary miscreants, eerie Egyptian ghouls and proof that lycanthropes live among us. Bring the wee ones during the day for a family-friendly affair that’s trick-or-treat’tacular.
Photo courtesy of Cedar Point

Celebrating 28 years in 2018, Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights immerses gleeful guests in gore from end to end. Killer clowns, brain-starved zombies and violence-bent Purgers are among the characters you might meet as you navigate the streets– which transform each evening into a hellscape of bone-chilling screams. You’ll find little refuge in any of its nine horrifying houses.
Photo courtesy of Universal Orlando Resort