Are you a fan of everything spooky and looking for some terrifying activities to fill your calendar? Finding haunted houses that are suitable for every personality can be very difficult. There are many different factors that go into picking a good haunted house: the time, place, and location and whether you want your experience to be short and sweet, or longer with more gruesome features to really get your fill. 

If you’re looking for affordable and local frights, Rolla High School’s Haunted High is the best place to go. This attraction is hosted on Oct. 29 from 8 -11 p.m.at RHS with an entry fee of $10.  

I personally love the Haunted High. It’s such a surreal experience to walk through your own school decked out in creepy decorations. This haunted house is really fun, especially when they have enough scare actors. The actors are one of my favorite parts of this attraction.Just imagine being chased around the school by your best friend.

Another popular and local haunted attraction is Missouri S&T’s Haunted Mine. The Haunted Mine opens Oct. 18 and will additionally be opened Oct. 19, 25, 26, 31 and Nov. 1. This attraction is open from 6 -11 p.m and tickets for adults are $15, and $13 for children under 13. From 5-6 p.m. young children can walk through the mine with lights for $5 each. If you bring canned food donations, up to $3 can be taken off of the cost of your ticket. Donations go to Russell House and support victims of domestic violence.

The mine is really cool, I personally love visiting haunted houses in my community. I understand how this attraction is very popular; the decorations are good quality, and the scare actors are really talented. The mine is an amazing place to host this kind of event, it’s dark, spooky and the smell is a good sensory element that immerses you into the experience.

If you want a larger haunt with more interactive activities the Haunted River Float at Ruby’s Landing in Waynesville should be right up your alley. The Haunted River Float offers many spooky activities other than the half-mile haunted float trip. For $75 you can buy the “Spookclusive” pass which includes ax throwing, an escape room, Zombie Paintball, a half-mile float, the Corn Maze, the Haunted Forest, and the Haunted Maze. For $35, you can purchase the basic pass which includes a half-mile float, the Corn Maze, the Haunted Forest, and the Haunted House. If you don’t want to do all of those activities you can just buy a ticket to the haunted house for only $25, or $25 for Zombie Paintball. These attractions are open Oct. 1, 7, 8, 14, 15, 22, and 29, floats and other attractions start when it gets dark. If you are under 18 you must be accompanied by an adult, and children under 8 are not allowed. 

I went here for the first time this year and it was pretty good. Due to the price, I could only do the basic pass but it was still an incredible experience. The float was probably the scariest part, but that’s most likely due to me being terrified of rivers, especially when it’s dark. I usually don’t get scared by haunted and scary things, but this did give me some anxiety. I definitely would recommend this.

Another great place with more than just haunted houses is Six Flags’ Fright Fest, which is held from Sept. 23 to Oct. 30. Single day tickets start at $40. Once you get in the park there are many haunting activities you can do for free such as scare zones. Scare zones are filled with creepy scare actors and decorations and are like mini haunted houses. Another free attraction is riding roller coasters with zombies and clowns in the dark. Every night there is the Deadman’s Party show, a creepy dancing performance followed by Freaks Unleashed, where all of the scare actors are let out to roam the parks. There are three different Haunted Attractions passes: Regular, allowing you an all-day pass to the haunted attractions, Express, allowing you to skip all the lines, and All Season, an all-day pass for the entire Fright Fest Season. There are four different haunted houses this year: Jingle Mangle, a gorey take on Christmas elves who are tired of making toys for terrible children and are now out to get you, Creatures of the Corn, a haunted corn maze filled with obstacles, dead ends, and dark turns, you never know what’s right around the corner, Oddballs Fun House, a maze of warped and crazy rooms, and filled with psychotic clowns, and Slaughter House, a pig slaughterhouse gone wrong, filled with mutated pig people out for revenge, which is my personal favorite haunted house. If scary things aren’t your cup of tea, Six Flags has many fun family-friendly Halloween activities during the day.

I absolutely love Six Flags Fright Fest. As a lover of all things scary, Fright Fest has everything I need. There are amazingly decorated haunted houses, and they go all out decorating the park. The ‘freaks’, as they like to call them, are  amazing-looking and their costumes are so realistic. It’s amazing how they submerse you in every theme for the scare zones and haunted houses. I go to Fright Fest every year, it’s definitely the highlight of my Halloween.

If you are ever in the mood for some terrifying haunted attractions, try checking out one of these close-to-home activities.