Five Halloween haunt attraction movies to enjoy since Covid-19 cancelled the real thing
With the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the safest way to get your fix of Halloween haunt attractions is on the small screen. Luckily, movies set in Halloween scare mazes are a surprisingly interesting subgenre.
Haunt attractions provide an enviroment where it can be difficult to tell if something has gone wrong, as evidenced by several times haunt actors have accidentally hanged themselves, with patrons passively watching them die in the belief it's part of the show.
With the growing popularity of extreme haunts like Blackout and McKamey Manor - some have begun to question the motivations of scare actors who inflict such no-holds-barred terror. With the absense of a safe word at McKamey Manor and punters only being allowed out when Russ McKamey lets them, the boundary between paid-for scares and real-life psychological torture is deliberately thin.
The following five films explore the idea of what can happen when the brakes come off and safe scares become frightening real.
The Houses October Built (2014)
In a nutshell: Five friends head on a five day quest to find the scariest Halloween haunt attractions. Unfortunately, they end up pissing off actors from a mysterious extreme haunt group called Blue Skeleton, who end up stalking them across the country before treating them to a haunt like no other.
Where to watch: Amazon Prime, bizarrely retitled as The Houses of Halloween.
Described by the filmmakers as Borat meets Cannibal Holocaust, The Houses October Built is one of the most intriguing takes on the found footage genre. It's filmed in real haunt attractions for the most part and features interviews with real haunt actors, which are incoporated into the fictional narrative about the Blue Skeleton troupe.
With its interest in extreme haunts and real-life tales of scare actors who have committed violent crimes, the film is an interesting meditation on the commercial explosion of haunts and a rumoured underbelly of unsafe attractions. The first movie and its sequel (titled The Blue Skeleton in the UK) provide a thought-provoking take on the line between paid-for fear and life-threatening terror.
That said, the movie is a slow burn and spending the majority of the runtime on the actors going through real scare attractions may test some viewers' patience. The finale is also hampered by bizarre editing decisions and poor lighting, proving somewhat anticlimactic.
Haunt (2019)
In a nutshell: A group of friends foolishly visit a backwoods haunt attraction. They soon find themselves trapped inside, with the sadistic 'actors' picking them off one by one.
Where to watch: Shudder in the US, Amazon Prime in the UK
Haunt is a brutally effective slasher film set within the claustrophobic confines of an excellently designed scare maze. Its group of masked villains are all commanding screen presences, and we're treated to a good smattering of gore including burning pokers to the face, nails through the foot and exploding heads.
It's more focused on getting your adrenline pumping than examining the popularity of haunt culture, but it's an entertaining answer to the question "what would happen if a group of sadists disguised an elaborate death trap as a scare maze?"
Ruin Me (2017)
In a nutshell: A slasher experience/escape room hybrid goes awry when it seems like the participants are being killed for real - or is final girl Alex (Marcienne Dwyer) losing her grip on reality?
Where to watch: Shudder
Ruin Me's Slasher Sleepout is in some ways a riff on McKamey Manor - with its disclamier forms, simulated kidnapping and attempts at psychological manipulation. It cleverly teases the viewer with multiple conflicting explanations about what's really happening - again playing on the theme of how to tell the difference between planned scares and real threats to the characters' safety.
The movie features a standout performance from Dwyer, who brings new life to the stock protagonist of these movies - an easily scared twenty-something unwillingly roped into the haunt who draws on her unexpected resourcefulness to stay alive. Ruin Me is a cut above other haunt movies, and its numerous twists take the narrative on pleasantly unexpected turns.
Hell Fest (2018)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime
Perhaps the least original film on this list, Hell Fest is redeemed by an excellently imagined haunt theme park - it was filmed at the Six Flags amusement park in Atlanta with production designers who'd previously worked creating real-life scare mazes. It's also an entertaining watch due to its thinly draw yet naturalistically acted cast of characters, with Amy Forsyth and Roby Attal's awkward improvised flirting being a particular highlight.
One of the main draws is that this is a frighteningly realistic set-up - particularly the scenes when Natalie (Forsyth) tries to convince park security that she's being stalked and threatened, only for them to assume it must be scare actors doing their job.
Hell House LLC (2016)
In a nutshell: A group of down-on-their-luck haunters accidentally settle on the haunted-as-fuck Abaddon Hotel as the location of their next scare maze.
Where to watch: Shudder or Amazon Prime
A rare movie told from the perspective of the crew designing the haunt, Hell House LLC is a mockumentary exploring a tragic unexplained accident in a scare maze. The maze itself is entertainingly naff, with budget cuts forcing the beleagured crew to rely on models rather than scare actors for the most part. Yet the unquiet souls of the Abaddon Hotel are happy to pick up the slack on the scares, resulting in an immensely creepy film packed to the brim with dread.
With the unique concept of setting a haunted house attraction in an actual haunted house, Hell House is still one of the most talked about found footage films of the 2010s. While most films set in scare mazes are essentially slashers, Hell House asks what happens when large crowds are unwittingly herded towards a portal to hell. The mass panic as things go south is hard to forget.
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