Is your October less than complete without at least one trip to a haunted house or creepy cornfield? If so, you’re far from alone. Intentional chills and thrills are as much a part of the Halloween season as bite-sized candy, costume parties and pumpkins.
Well, if you’re looking for some high-spirited entertainment, Indiana can provide you with plenty of options. Every year, people in search of a good scare travel great distances to visit some of these popular attractions.
Ready to be scared? Here’s our guide to some of the must-see scream-fests in the state. If you scare easy, don’t say we didn’t warn you!
Hanna Haunted Acres
Located in Indianapolis, Hanna Haunted Acres has six different attractions. You can visit one or visit them all (if you dare). The signature attraction, naturally, is the Haunted Hayride, where guests are pulled through the nightmarish woods in a wagon while peculiar beasts and terrifying entities reveal themselves by moaning, clawing and grabbing. This is the perfect attraction if you don’t want to do a lot of walking — although the nature of the ride leaves you trapped and unable to run away from whatever is following you!
Other attractions on the site include “Pandemic,” which involves a crashed 747 and a horrifying virus that leaves victims mutated into vicious, fanged beasts, and the “Blood Barn,” which features a madman in charge of a slaughterhouse. You can also venture into the attractions labeled “Freakshow,” “Outbreak” and “Descension” for additional thrills and chills. How much you can experience in one night depends largely on your ability to outrun the ghouls and monsters you encounter.
Piney Acres Scream Farm
During the daylight hours, Piney Acres Farm hosts family-friendly hayrides and has an eight-acre corn maze for you to explore. You can also pick pumpkins, visit the barnyard animals and do some gem mining, making it a perfect holiday attraction for anyone.
When night falls in October, however, the 73-acre farm outside of Fortville is transformed into a place of abounding horror. Three different chilling attractions, including a haunted trail where the most daring can brave the dangers on foot, a hayride that is overrun with zombies and a mad scientist’s haunted loft, make this a “must-visit” destination for horror fans everywhere.
Edge of Insanity
In operation for more than a decade on a Kokomo farm, the Edge of Insanity features the abandoned remains of the haunted Weitle’s Asylum. Each October, when the veil between the worlds begins to thin, it’s said that you can hear the screams of the mad and tormented souls that once lived there. (Then again, maybe that’s the sound of visitors screaming as they try to escape the asylum before they become the mad doctor’s next science experiment!)
Whatever the case may be, you may appreciate the fact that the proceeds from this haunted house always go to charity and there’s a “no touching” policy. Free parking and a covered waiting area for those damp autumn evenings are also available.
Check out this behind the scenes tour!
Forbidden Hollows
This creeptastic farm offers three attractions for the price of one, including a haunted house, a maze of madness and a haunted hayride. During the early evening hours from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturdays, the attractions are geared heavily toward children. The ghouls, ghosts and other monsters dial back the scares to keep the event family-friendly.
At night, however, all bets are off. The Hollows transforms the outskirts of Bedford into a zone of pure horror for adults only. Everyone has to sign a waiver to get on the property, which is an indicator of how truly terrifying the place can be.
The Haunting at Shireman Homestead
What’s Halloween without the Headless Horseman, right? If you like your nightmares to have plenty of inspiration, this Columbus farm may be the perfect place to visit.
Once you arrive at the Homestead, your path will quickly take you through a ghost-filled woods, an Old West-style town, a zombie house and a graveyard. All of that is just a warm-up, however, to the main attractions: an abandoned mine with a ghostly miner and the mining camp through which the Headless Horseman is known to roam.
Assuming that you make it across the covered bridge and back to the gates alive, you can even pick up a few snacks and some souvenirs of your encounters.
Indy Scream Park
Considered one of the top haunted houses in the state, the Indy Scream Park in Anderson is conveniently located near Indianapolis. It’s also been dubbed the “most terrifying haunted house” in the state and “a haunted house like no other.”
Indeed, if you go, be prepared to be scared out of your wits — and maybe thrown into a locked room or two. This is a no-holds-barred attraction that aims to scare you witless if it can. With five thrilling attractions in one location, you can experience demons in the dark woods, visit a nightmarish circus with 3-D crazed clowns, explore an abandoned factory of horrors and more.
Keep in mind that this list is by no means the limit of the seasonal haunted attractions. There are scares to share all around the state — we couldn’t possibly list them all in one spot. Whether you’re merely visiting, thinking about relocating and want to check out the atmosphere or just love traveling to see the most frightful sights of the season, Indiana has plenty to see and do throughout the month of October.
