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Halloween is a real scream in Philadelphia.
Each fall, Philly takes spooky season to the next level as creepy haunted houses, nerve-wracking hayrides and terrifying Halloween attractions pop up throughout the region, scaring up new and over-the-top Hollywood production-level experiences set inside some of the creepiest places you can imagine.
Abandoned Eastern State Penitentiary becomes America’s largest haunted house during Halloween Nights. A century-old industrial warehouse basement morphs into the Fright Factory. And deserted psychiatric hospital Pennhurst Asylum transforms into a terror-inducing spookhouse.
And, as one of the nation’s oldest — and possibly most haunted — cities, Philadelphia is also home to a bevy of frightening historical ghost tours offering up chilling tales of the region’s paranormal past and shocking true events.
Meet some historic spirits during a candlelight tour at Laurel Hill East Cemetery or take a haunted trolley ride as the Philadelphia Sightseeing Tours transforms into Terror Beyond the Walls.
Read on for our picks of Greater Philadelphia’s top haunted houses, startling hayrides, scary attractions and moonlight ghost tours for 2025.
September 19 – November 2, 2025 (select dates)
Hollywood-level special effects ramp up the trilogy of terror at The Bates Motel, which was named one of America’s 10 best haunted house attractions by CNN.
For 2025, expect giant, new sets throughout the Haunted Hayride’s 25-minute tour of the dark trails of Arasapha Farm’s forest. The Haunted House offers high-tech effects and realistic details, and the Revenge of the Scarecrows Haunted Corn Trail promises screams during a walk-through experience riddled with animatronic monsters and actors.
Bonus: Double Edge Axe offers blood-free (hopefully!) ax-throwing for an additional charge.
Where: The Bates Motel, 1835 Middletown Road, Glen Mills, PA
September 19 – November 8, 2025 (select dates)
Each fall, Eastern State Penitentiary opens its cell blocks after dark for Halloween Nights, which transforms the abandoned prison into one of America’s largest haunted houses.
During the annual fall festival, the legendary facility (which once housed infamous criminals from Willie Sutton to Al Capone) plays host to about a dozen different attractions, ranging from pure terror behind its walls to spooky storytimes around a campfire.
Along with prison tours and multiple haunted houses, this year features a bone-chilling lineup of brand-new attractions, including Dark Tides — an abandoned fishing village-style haunted house — and the high-octane Apocalypse Pass. Also debuting: new characters, expanded food offerings, enhanced sets and a redesigned layout. Tickets are required.
Where: Eastern State Penitentiary, 2027 Fairmount Avenue, Philadelphia, PA
September 20 – November 2, 2025 (select dates)
For a terrifying near-real-life attraction, don’t miss Pennhurst Asylum in Chester County. Voted the No. 2 best haunted attraction in the USA TODAY 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards and described as “scariest place I’ve ever seen, period” by HauntWorld, the experience operates in the same facility that housed a psychiatric hospital for 80 years.
The programming at the 120-acre property offers three menacing stops: the Legendary Asylum haunted house, the disturbing Morgue and the panic-inducing Tunnels (all respectfully presented while reappropriating the site’s problematic history through feedback from the disability and mental health communities).
For an extra fee, add on the Catacombs experience (if you dare). Also available: professionally guided daytime history and photography tours.
Where: Pennhurst Asylum, 250 Commonwealth Drive, Spring City, PA
September 26 – November 2, 2025 (select dates)
Located at the Phoenix Sport Club in Feasterville-Trevose, The Valley of Fear has offered Halloween frights for 35 years, with this year’s production their biggest ever.
The attraction’s trifecta of terror gets five out of five “blood drops” and an Attraction of the Year nod by Halloween Haunts 365. The twisting, disorienting Original Haunted Hayride promises even more screams in 2025 with a redesigned trail and new, ginormous sets.
Feel your heart pounding as you hunt for One Eye’d Willie’s lost treasure. Will you escape Shipwreck Cove before Willie can steal your soul? If you do make it out, watch out for the ghost of Miles Manor, who has risen from the ashes at the Miles Manor Haunted House.
Where: Phoenix Sport Club, 301 W. Bristol Road, Feasterville-Trevose, PA
September 26 – November 1, 2025 (select dates)
A chilling chairlift ride at Scream Mountain at Spring Mountain Adventures takes you to the top of the Montgomery County ski mountain’s dark side, just to leave you to guide yourself back down an eerie, dimly lit trail to the base.
At the bottom, hop aboard a haunted hayride to visit the remains of the vengeful quarrymen murdered in their sleep who haunt the resort. Visitors can also ride the hayride as a standalone attraction, and there’s a daytime “starter” version with fewer scares. Live bands play nightly, and skip-the-line VIP tickets are available.
Where: Spring Mountain Adventure, 757 Spring Mount Road, Schwenksville, PA
Like a nightmare right out of a Stephen King novel, the dark and cavernous basement of a 120-year-old abandoned factory becomes one of the most unnerving places on the planet. That’s the setting for the high-scare, high-startle Fright Factory, a crowd-pleasing, creep-factor-100 warehouse in South Philly.
Three themed areas take up the 25,000-square-foot space: the dystopian and derelict Industrial Nightmare; the abandoned South Side Sanatorium; and Fright Factory Unholy, a consecrated cathedral home to possessed priests and demonic entities.
Where: Fright Factory, 2200 S. Swanson Street, Philadelphia, PA
The story of Lincoln Mill Haunted House tells a spine-chilling tale of bodies “discovered” in a secret basement chamber after flooding from Hurricane Ida in 2021, uncovering the mill’s dark and gruesome past.
Explore the 160-year-old abandoned Manayunk mill as you avoid the lingering spirits of workers who were subject to torment and experimentation by disturbed owner Viktor Kane (possessed by the ghostly Corruptis) a century ago.
Expect scare actors, high-quality sets, special effects and animatronics, with new props, characters and sets for 2025.
Where: Lincoln Mill Haunted House, 4100 Main Street, Philadelphia, PA
September 27 – November 1, 2025 (select dates)
Offering suburban scares since 1990, Sleepy Hollow Haunted Acres hosts three ghoulish attractions at the 230-acre Gunser Farm, a working family farm in Newtown, Bucks County. The mile-long Sleepy Hollow Hayride — one of the longest in the region — winds through dark woods and pumpkin fields.
Afterward, make your way through the abandoned Field of Fright village to old Malfate Manor — known as The House in the Hollow — for a terrifying haunted house experience. End your night by the bonfire pit with live music at the concessions building.
Where: Sleepy Hollow Haunted Acres, 881 Highland Road, Newtown, PA
October 1-31, 2025 (select dates)
You’ve never witnessed movies like this! Roll up to the Haunted Halloween Drive In Movie Experience at Morrisville’s Snipes Farm & Education Center for frightful Halloween flicks — from Scream and Friday the 13th to Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween — projected onto a 50-foot screen.
Expect an immersive experience rather than just a drive-in movie, as the creepy, after-dark viewing features terrifying animatronic characters and live actors that surround you and bring the story to life.
Where: Snipes Farm & Education Center, 890 W. Bridge Street, Morrisville, PA
October 3-26, 2025 (select dates)
Get ready for a three-part chilling adventure, as Warrington’s Winding Brook Farm features three classic haunted attractions (ticketed separately) in one terrifying location.
The Night Chills Hay Ride winds through woods transformed into the Gates of Hell — populated, of course, by eerie nighttime creatures. Hear blood-curdling screams at every dark turn during the Corn Walk of Horror. And try not to get trapped in the Haunted Hay Maze, where spooky characters chase you into a seemingly never-ending series of dead ends.
Where: Winding Brook Farm, 3014 Bristol Road, Warrington, PA
Ongoing
Historians and professors lead the highly researched, adults-only Grim Philly Tours, including two excursions tailor-made for spooky season. The R-rated Dark Philly Adult Night Tour visits Old City landmarks while spinning risqué tales of ghosts, sex, vampires, blackmail, espionage and murder from the days of the Founding Fathers.
The True Crime Philadelphia: Cemetery & History Tour mixes real-life crime stories and history lessons with tales of serial slayings and psychopathic killers, with stops at Revolutionary-era sites including Elfreth’s Alley and Benjamin Franklin’s Grave.
Where: Tours depart from the Independence Visitor Center, 599 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA
Philly Ghosts offers three spooky walks, each with a different theme and vibe.
Where: Phantoms of Philadelphia tours depart from Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, 217-231 W. Washington Square, Philadelphia, PA
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Boos and Booze Haunted Pub Crawl meets at Independence Beer Garden, 100 S. Independence Mall West, Philadelphia, PA
Ultimate Dead of Night Haunted Ghost Tour departs from corner of Chestnut Street & Independence Mall East, Philadelphia, PA
Wander the back streets and secret gardens of Independence National Historical Park, Old City and Society Hill by candlelight on the guided Ghost Tour of Philadelphia. Hear chilling ghost tales and see where the bodies were (literally) buried from the era of William Penn to the Founding Fathers to today.
Costumed tour guides spin spooky tales of villains, tragedies and plagues as you explore haunting burial grounds and historic sites along the dark city’s back alleys and secret gardens on a journey based on the book Ghost Stories of Philadelphia, PA. Tours depart from the Signers Garden at 5th and Chestnut streets.
Where: Tours depart from Signers Garden, 434-498 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
The lantern-lit Ghost Tours of New Hope — led by best-selling author and long-time paranormal investigator Adi-Kent Thomas Jeffrey — are one-hour, one-mile ghostly ambles through the streets of the Bucks County river town, offering interesting and surprising stories of spine-tingling hauntings and spooky locales.
Public tours are available every Saturday night from June to November, plus Friday nights during October only, as well as Halloween night. Tours meet in front of the Parry Mansion Museum on Ferry Street.
Where: Tours depart from Parry Mansion Museum, East Ferry & South Main streets, New Hope, PA
The paranormal stories heard along the Spirits of ’76 Ghost Tours are “one part history, two parts haunt.” The experience stops at more than 20 of Philadelphia’s (definitely) historic and (possibly) haunted sites for chilling stories from the city’s past, including the ghosts of Independence Hall, the dancing statue of Benjamin Franklin, paranormal Pine Street Church & Cemetery and grim tales of long-time Philly resident Edgar Allan Poe and Leo Callahan (allegedly the only person to escape Eastern State Penitentiary).
Also visited: movie set locations from The Sixth Sense to National Treasure.
Where: Tours depart from 325 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
Feeling short on time but still wanting some spooky stories? Check out this DIY audio tour you can download onto your phone and take any time. Go at your own pace and linger, or run screaming from historically haunted sites.
The tour starts at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington Square, once the site of a Colonial-era burial ground. Then follow in the haunted footsteps of the nation’s Founding Fathers, including a stop at Ben Franklin’s grave.
Plan to spend a little more than an hour if you walk straight through. Or, you can pause the tour as you go or break it into sections.
Where: Download the WalknTours app onto your phone, Philadelphia, PA
Take a trolley tour that’s a real scream — the Halloween version of a Philadelphia Sightseeing Tours. Terror Beyond the Walls takes you on a 90-minute tour of Philadelphia’s most terrifying tales in a trolley decked out in Halloween decor.
Step off the trolley at two surprise stops along the way for a chance to walk around as you listen to harrowing tales of ghostly encounters. Swing by the historic home of titan of terror, Edgar Allen Poe, as well as some (surely) haunted burial grounds.
Where: Departs from 21 S. 5th Street in front of the Bourse Building, Philadelphia, PA
They say the veil between the realm of the living and dead gets thinner this time of year. Find out as you hear haunting tales of restless spirits on this flashlight-lit tour through historic Laurel Hill East Cemetery, the final resting place for famous Philadelphians from the 19th & 20th centuries.
Knowledgeable guides spin yarns of cemetery residents as you creep through dark, winding paths. Swap ghost stories at the end while sipping beverages around the fire pit. Don’t wait on snagging tickets: The events only runs for two nights.
Where: Laurel Hill East, 3822 Ridge Avenue, Philadelphia, PA
The only way to fully experience Philly? Stay over.
Book the Visit Philly Overnight Package and get free hotel parking and choose-your-own-adventure perks.
Or maybe you’d prefer to buy two Philly hotel nights and get a third night for free? Then book the new Visit Philly 3-Day Stay package.
Which will you choose?