Skip to main content
This current haunted house market essentially ignores houses and no longer bothers with mere hauntings. Ever since Gresham’s House of Shadows allegedly broke three teeth of a litigious patron, area fear factories have shied away from full-contact spookings. Yet the local scaremongering industry still strives nonetheless to conjure each attendee’s preferred brand of terror.
Searching for the sheer adrenaline wrought from first-person shrieker gauntlets of FX-charged confrontations? Beguiled by the experiential alienation of psychological horror narratives steeped in potentially-salable-IP? Drawn toward the flopsweat-slackened nervousness of career ghouls fighting every instinct to keep family-friendly variants fear-free? Gaze upon the following listicle and beware!
Bella Organic Haunted Corn Maize
A decidedly backward-leaning alternative to the animatronic hordes of rival attractions, Bella Organic’s corn maize—see what they did there?—may advertise the bygone pleasures of trad craftsmanship cultivated for PDX appetites: the beer, the music, the maze designs honoring gender equality or (this year’s message) denouncing gun violence. Fleeing zombified farmers across uncertain routes is plenty scary, though. And, perhaps unique among rival haunts, navigating nearly 3 miles of passages within the 7-acre labyrinth all but guarantees entrants sufficient alone time for proper terror. 16205 NW Gillihan Road, bellaorganic.com/haunted-corn-maze. 7-10 pm Fridays and Saturdays, Sept. 30-Oct. 28. $30-$50, cash only at ticket booth; group rates available.
Creatures of the Night
Revisiting their popular workaround from COVID-era quarantine strictures, the Creatures of the Night veteran Halloween troupe invites audiences to attend their Haunted Drive-In. During performances of Arachnaphobia, Addams Family Values and Night of the Living Dead at West Linn’s Mary S. Young Park, a slew of monsters threaten their own take on grindhouse. 19900 Willamette Drive, West Linn, creaturesofthenighthalloween.com/2023. 7:45 pm Saturdays, Sept. 9-30. $40-$70.
Davis Graveyard
For more than two decades, the Davis family have steadily escalated the intricacies of their Halloween yard displays from a mere neighborhood quirk to a burgeoning cottage industry that fills summer workshops with faux-crypt craft tutorials and enlists civic grants to fund their most elaborate recreations. It takes a village to raise the dead. 8703 SE 43rd Ave., Milwaukie, davisgraveyard.com. Dusk-10 pm Sunday-Thursday, dusk-11 pm Friday-Saturday, through October. Free.
The Fear PDX
A massacre for all seasons—The Fear’s yawning industrial-abattoir complex also hosts Yuletide Krampus, V Day-themed Love Bites, and not-quite-Hallmark-ready Halfway to Halloween haunts—these longtime local spookmasters have yet to announce the specific circumstances surrounding this year’s slaughter. But expect a sensory-overloaded hellscape fueled by killer clowns, urban alienation and mechanized despair. Now with a gift shop! 12219 NE Glisan St., thefearpdx.com. 8-11 pm Friday-Saturday, Sept. 29-30. 7-10 pm Sunday, Oct. 1, 8, 15 and 22; Wednesday, Oct. 18 and 25 and Nov. 1; Thursday, Oct. 12, 19 and 26; and Monday, Oct. 30. 7 pm-midnight Friday, Oct. 6, 13, 20 and 27; and Saturday, Oct. 7 and 14. 6 pm-midnight Saturday, Oct. 21 and 28. 7-11 pm Sunday and Tuesday, Oct. 29 and 31. Prices TBA.
Misery
For those long dreaming about a more intimate portrayal of torturous cabin fever, Beaverton’s Experience Theater Project is reviving Stephen King’s bestseller-turned-blockbuster yarn about a romance novelist trapped by his No. 1 fan to conjure up the immersive production always lurking below its black heart. 4690 SW Watson Ave., Beaverton, experiencetheatreproject.org. 7:30-9:30 pm Friday-Saturday, Sept. 29-30, and Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 12-28. 2-4 pm Saturday-Sunday, Sept. 30-Oct. 28. $5-$175.
Oaks Park ScareGrounds PDX
Nestled within the remains of a creakily maintained, ill-attended amusement park more than a decade past its centenary, Oaks Park’s Halloween attractions are never not scary. The lingering atmosphere of ramshackle whimsy, DIY mischief, and carny pride fully blossoms each autumn as the deceptively vast environs host three separate attractions: The Silver Scream warns of a demented projectionist run amok amid a crumbling movie palace; The Complex’s medical maelstrom writ expressionist claymation threatens the genuinely terrifying specter of Laika-rendered Dr. Caligari fever dreams; and The Slayers’ promotional art features an ax-wielding Abraham Lincoln, which neither offers nor requires further explanation. 7805 SE Oaks Park Way, scaregroundspdx.com. Haunts every half-hour 7-11 pm Friday-Sunday, Oct. 6-8; Friday-Sunday, Oct. 13-15; Friday-Tuesday, Oct. 20-24; Friday-Tuesday, Oct. 27-31; and 7-10 pm Friday-Saturday, Nov. 3-4. $25-$95.
Underhill Haunted House
Far from the most technically proficient or theatrically sleek of local shriek-outs, the Underhill Haunted House has weaponized the ghosts of Old Portland to chilling effect. But, bells and whistles aside, what’s spookier than searching for an escape through 40,000 square feet of unlit corridors below Memorial Coliseum as the low chuckle of PDX Elvis lumbers ever nearer? Veterans Memorial Coliseum, 300 N Winning Way, underhillpdx.com. Hourlong haunts 7-10 pm Friday-Saturday, Sept. 29-30; Friday-Saturday, Oct. 13-14; Thursday (“Lights Out” special event)-Saturday, Oct. 19-21; Thursday-Sunday, Oct. 26-29; and Tuesday, Oct. 31. $30-$50. Kids Monster Fest family-friendly hourlong haunts noon-3 pm Saturday-Sunday, Oct. 21-22, and Saturday, Oct. 28. $9-$12.