October 15, 2013

Our Picks for Atlanta's Best Haunted Houses this Halloween


It almost seems like yesterday when I experienced my first haunted house. Growing up in Macon, Georgia there were always some backwoods mom and pop haunted house that would scare anyone who dared to walk through them. Every Halloween the Macon Jaycees would host the best haunted houses in central Georgia. How could I forget. I was eight years old and the monsters would always find a way to chase me. Here it is decades later and I still find myself searching for the scariest haunted attractions.

For the past eleven years, I have traveled the southeast to find the best haunted attractions each season. Not only do I rummage the creepy backwoods, I also visit theme parks like Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights and Busch Gardens' Howl-O-Scream. To me its more than just an experience. I'm fascinated by the caliber of production design and the actors. Honestly, if I were casting a scary movie, I'd start with the haunted houses in Georgia. Haunted House connoisseurs like myself know the best attractions are actor-driven.

I'm not here to throw any haunted attractions under the bus but I'd be perfectly happy if I never saw another overly commercialized animatronic attraction again. However, a novice generally loves animatronics because its a quick scare. It doesn't allow people to experience the fear of being closely followed immediately after the initial shock of fear. Try being in the woods where you hear noises but you can't figure out where the heck they're coming from. That'll definitely get your heart racing.

The one thing I can say is that Atlanta has haunted attractions that will suit just about anyone's taste. So I am here to share some of my favorite haunted houses in the area. This year's haunted house crawl included the following haunts. They are listed in the order we visited.