Spooky season is here. That means hay rides, pumpkin picking and haunted houses. If you want to take your celebration to the next level, these 21+ Halloween haunted house ideas will transform your space into a truly scary place.
21+ Spooky Halloween Haunted House Ideas for Your Party This Year
1. Spooky Slasher Killer Forest
Create a scary forest where famous slasher movie killers like Freddy Krueger hide in waiting for their next victims. To pull this off, you’ll need some pretty serious props, like giant trees, fake mushrooms, moss, lanterns and a fog machine.
Related: How to Throw a Witch-Themed Halloween Party: Killer Decor, Food & Drink Ideas
2. Hanging Ghosts and Spiders
Transform your hallways into haunted spaces with just a few decorations. Hang ghosts from the ceiling and add spiderwebs to set the scene. Attach fake spiders to doorways and the walls to give people creepy-crawlies. Don’t forget to add fairy lights to the spiderwebs on the ceilings.
3. Yard Ghosts
Welcome your guests with light-up ghosts in your yard as they enter your haunted house. You can make your own ghosts, or you can buy them (Amazon sells some cute ones).
Place them strategically at the front of your home. You can add one to each side of your entryway, or create a line of ghosts leading up to your front door.
The goal is to prepare your guests for what’s inside.
Here’s a great tutorial on how to make your own ghosts if you’d rather go the DIY route.
4. Create a Halloween Garden
One of my favorite Halloween haunted house ideas is to create a Halloween garden for your guests to walk through and enjoy.
Decorate a walkway through your yard with ghosts, hanging lanterns, pumpkins, spiderwebs and hanging bats.
5. Creepy Graveyard
If you have the front yard space, you can create a creepy graveyard with props, a fog machine and solar lights.
You can find life-size skeletons and ghosts on Amazon. Some are animated, which will really bring your haunted house to life. Depending on the size of your yard, you may need quite a few of them.
Then, fill in the spaces between your props with fake tombstones and pumpkins. Sprinkle in some solar lights and add a fog machine to create a scary scene. You can even hang spiderwebs from your garage or above your entryway.
6. Decorate Your Mantel
If you have a fireplace in your home, decorate it to make it the focal point of your space. Drape black spiderwebs from the mantel, and add Halloween decor. Black pumpkins and candles are a great start. You can also lay down more spiderwebbing on the floor just in front of the fireplace (out of the way so that no one trips on it).
Add a spooky mirror with a ghost face to the mantel to finish things off.
7. Hang Spiderwebs from the Ceiling and Furniture
Create a space that feels dusty, haunted and creepy. Hang spiderwebs or dropcloths from the ceiling and drape some from the furniture. Use them to make the space feel like it’s deteriorating and filled with spooky secrets.
Stick to black or gray colors to make the room feel truly haunted.
Just be careful not to hang them too low if you have real candles lit.
8. Add Brewing Witches to Your Front Yard
Decorate your entryway or front yard with witches and their cauldron. You can use a small fog machine inside the cauldron to make the “brew” look realistic.
You may be able to find animated witches that bring the whole display to life and really set the stage for your Halloween party.
9. Create a Magical and Witchy Mantel
How gorgeous is this mantel display? It’s not scary, but it fits the Halloween theme and will add a bit of spooky whimsy to your space. You can recreate this by adding branches with fake owls, crows, pumpkins, moss and candelabras.
10. Set Up a Haunted Garage
Here’s one of my favorite Halloween haunted house ideas: create a cool hangout space at your party in your garage by hanging black drop cloth along the walls, fake spiderwebs, string lights, bat decorations, pumpkins and some seating.
11. Death Room
Baby dolls always have a scary, spooky vibe to them during Halloween. But with this idea, there’s a reason for it. A white carpet with blood splatters on the floor and dolls in each corner of the room are just the beginning of this spooky scene.
To bring this idea to life, all you need are dark murals, Halloween chandeliers and fake cobwebs draped on the wall.
12. Creepy-Chic Halloween Decor
On both sides of the stairway, place your Jack-o-Lanterns and skulls. Hang black doorway curtains from the ceiling to make an archway and add a niche touch. Sprinkle in a few bats hanging from the ceiling and spooky sound props, and you have the perfect stairway for people to traverse at your party.
Related: 21 Halloween Potluck Recipes That’ll Be a Hit at Any Halloween Party
13. Pumpkin and Skeleton Head Tables
If you have a table in the hallway, it’s time to decorate it. You can be as creative or overboard as you wish. Start with two large lanterns, like this purple one and this gothic one. Place multiple Jack-o-Lanterns on the table. A few good options are:
- These black and purple ones
- These traditional Jack-o-Lanterns
Finally, add plastic human skulls, a skull with crow and skeleton figurines.
14. Retro Halloween
Retro ideas are perfect for the “big kids.” You can hang pumpkins (like these) between two trees and place pumpkin bags on the floor. I’m not 100% sure how they created the floor lighting in this Pin, but there are other options, like these pathway lights.
Strobe lights can be used to illuminate the room and add some fun to the space.
15. Three Dancing Witches
For this idea, you luck out because so many companies sell these three witch products. It’s as easy as buying and placing them, but you can have your own fun with it. Add a cauldron in the middle of the witches with a smoke machine to make it look like the witches are cooking up a potion.
You can also find cauldrons with green bubbly goo inside.
16. Skeletons with Lanterns
Halloween haunted house ideas like this one are best placed on outside walkways leading to your home. And you can have fun with this idea because there are a lot of decor variations to choose from:
And you can even place a skeleton in a rocking chair or seat next to the door.
17. Ghost Surrounding the Entryway
You’ll need a decent budget for this one, or just reduce the 25 – 30 hanging ghosts down to something more respectable. If you have an overhang, like in the Pin, have ghost heads with sheets for their body hanging down.
On both sides of the door, place full-size ghost decorations.
Add a faceless reaper to make the decor even more frightening.
18. Witches Brew
A fun, witches’ brew decor theme going up to your entryway will require a bit of imagination, but it’s worth the effort. Your centerpiece is a cauldron that has a smoke machine inside and fairy lights behind it to make it look like flames through the smoke.
Surrounding the cauldron, add a few lighted pumpkins and you’re good to go.
19. Ghost at the Top of the Stairs
If you have a set of stairs that no one needs to go up or down, this is a great decorative choice. Place a ghost at the top of the stairs. I like this one, but there are so many others to choose from.
On each side of the steps, place flameless candles, and be sure to keep any of the other lights in the room off to make them stand out.
20. Vampire Headline
Vampires are an integral part of Halloween and one that is rather easy to recreate with the right props. Start by hanging fake bats from the ceiling so they look like they’re hanging upside down.
On the back wall, you’ll place a wooden coffin against the wall, kind of like this one.
Next to the coffin, place a skeleton upside down and wrap a black sheet over it. Randomly around the room, add fake cobwebs to complete the spooky look.
21. Tombstones and Hands
Shipping pallets are used in this design, which you’ll need to source locally. Facebook Marketplace is a good option. Place a few fake hands inside of the pallet, facing the fingertips towards the sky.
Add solar-powered string lights inside to illuminate the hands.
Place fake tombstones around the outside to complete the look of the “dead rising.”
Related: How to Throw a Vampire Halloween Party: Killer Decor, Food & Drink Ideas
22. Haunted Living Room
There’s always something spooky about a charred fireplace. Halloween haunted house ideas work on this concept, just like in this Pin. A lot is going on here, but it makes the idea fun:
- Angry pumpkins and flameless candles sit at the base of the fireplace
- Black crows and black and white candles sit on the mantle
- Around the mantle edge, bats and cobwebs are used
- Black cobwebs can also drape from the mantle
- A black mirror can sit in the middle
If you have an armchair in your living room, be sure to pick up some Halloween pillows to put on it.
