October 9, 2024

After years of obsessing over horror themed attractions, I finally visited my first batch of haunted houses! I have loved the idea of haunted houses and horror themed experiences in theme parks for a while now, but I’ve never really had the chance to experience them. However, this October I was fortunate to be able to visit Kings Island Halloween Haunt.

A Busy Haunt

Turns out, the night I visited Haunt also turned out to be the night everyone else wanted to visit Haunt. There were swarms of people, even in just the parking lot. Plus, since it was still relatively early on in the season, there were still some kinks that weren’t ironed out yet.

I entered the park with my girlfriend and we were struck that there weren’t many scare actors out yet. We arrived earlier in the evening and the sun wasn’t down yet, so this could simply be a case of management waiting for some of the families and younger guests to leave the family-friendly Halloween event. This energy remained through the evening, though, and we didn’t encounter many actors in scare zones until much later in the evening.

We made our way through the crowds and got in line for our first haunted house: Alien Abyss.

Alien Abyss

The area around Alien Abyss is awesome, especially at night! Flight of Fear’s theming and the track of Orion looming in the background fit in very well, and the warning lights added a lot to this area. There weren’t really any scare actors out, besides the occasional alien or mauled guard, but the area still looked great.

The line didn’t seem too long, but we ended up waiting around 45-minutes to get through. This did end up feeling a little long for the experience we had, especially in contrast to the experiences we would have later in the evening. Honestly though, the wait didn’t really bother me because I was so excited to have my first haunted house experience!

And it was an interesting experience for sure. Right after entering the building, we were directed to line up in a classroom-sized room with an actor shouting about an important video we needed to watch. This was a charming experience; it felt very similar to the First Order sequence of Rise of the Resistance.

The video itself was very entertaining and set up the story of the attraction well. The basic idea of this house was that we entered a government facility engaging in research on alien life, but the alien broke out and was roaming free. After the video ended with a character being eaten off-screen, we were ushered into the house experience itself.

The sets were mostly cool, but this house was way too dark to properly see anything. There were sequences of just pure darkness with no scares. The alien actors themselves looked cool and spooked me pretty well at one point, but there just didn’t seem to be enough.

I really like this house’s concept and I think it could’ve been a lot cooler. I’ve heard that this year (or at least, that night) had a lot of effects turned off or changed from previous years which makes sense to me. In the promotional image for this house, there’s some imposing creature with red, glowing eyes, but nothing like that appears in the house.

Still, as my first haunted house, I was excited. I love alien horror and sci-fi and the queue video was really engaging! After we exited the house, we moved on to the next attraction.

Madame Fatale’s Cavern of Terror

We waited significantly less time for this attraction, which was honestly a bit of a shame because the queue for this house is amazing. The house itself takes place in the old Tomb Raider ride’s show building, so the indoor queue takes place in the mostly intact Tomb Raider/The Crypt queue.

It was really cool to see and the still functioning Crypt monster animatronic in the queue was a real highlight of the night! This house ended up being my favorite house too. The theming was awesome and seeing some of the remaining elements of the old attraction was really cool. The old theming fit in very well with the cavern museum theme of the house, and the actors were very engaging.

I would definitely recommend this house during Haunt!

Hotel St. Michelle

Hotel St. Michelle struck a good middle ground for me. I didn’t find it as engaging as Madame Fatale’s but it was still very well themed and had great actors. I’m also a sucker for twists on 1920s culture and iconography, so it all fit together very well for me.

The abandoned, haunted hotel story came through from our walkthrough. There was an especially eerie effect where there’s a long hallway with many hotel room doors and some of them are opening and closing. The lighting in this hallway really tied it all together and ended up being one of the moments that stood out for me the most throughout the night!

Other Experiences at Halloween Haunt

Those were the three houses we experienced! Madame Fatale’s was my favorite out of these three, but I really enjoyed all of them. Plus, by the time we were finished with the houses, the scare zones had more actors in them. We walked through a few of the scare zones and they were a lot of fun at night. My favorite scare zone ended up being Pumpkin Eater, mainly because the aesthetic of the area was very pretty.

We didn’t watch any of the shows, but we did try some special snacks and drinks. The standout for me were the blood bag themed drinks! It was such a fun idea and the different varieties all looked and sounded good. I ended up trying the standard alcoholic variety and I highly recommend it (plus, for those under 21, Kings Island offers a non-alcoholic version of this same drink)!

Final Thoughts

Kings Island Halloween Haunt is a lot of fun! I had a great time experiencing my first haunted houses, and I’m excited to visit more in the future. My recommendation would be to arrive early to the event, especially with how busy it was the evening I was there. Plus, maybe have a plan of which attractions you would like to do! Between the houses and the nighttime rides there is a lot to do, but making a plan could help you have a better idea of your priorities.