Haunted Houses in Texas 2026: Dates, Tickets, and What’s New

Texas runs one of the country’s deepest haunt seasons. Five Texas haunts hold current Haunted Attraction Association Top Haunt certification, three theme parks run separately branded Halloween events, and the 2026 season opens as early as September 11. This guide covers the state’s major ticketed haunted attractions by metro area, with 2026 dates and pricing as operators announce them.

Most independent haunts post their full calendars in August. Entries below marked “not yet announced” will be updated as dates land, and you can track opening dates nationwide on our when do haunted houses open page.

Texas Haunt Season 2026 at a Glance

Dallas-Fort Worth Haunted Houses

Cutting Edge Haunted House

Cutting Edge operates inside a 100-year-old former meatpacking plant in Fort Worth’s historic Hell’s Half Acre district. The set the haunt is best known for runs on the plant’s original equipment: “Realistic looking human mannequins are hoisted up to the second level and brought through the entire meat packing process until the conveyor system brings the butchered corpses back to the first level,” per the operator. The multi-story walk-through takes an average of 55 minutes per the operator, and the haunt has held Guinness World Records for the longest walk-through haunted house, a record currently held by Dragon’s House of Horror in Albuquerque at 7,183 feet. Tickets are sold by date and time slot.

Dark Hour Haunted House

Dark Hour is an indoor, air-conditioned haunt built around a witch-coven mythology, with a 20 to 30 minute walk-through and an in-house production facility behind its sets and monsters. It is one of the five HAA-certified Top Haunts in Texas, certified at the Iconic tier. The haunt also runs one of the busiest off-season calendars in the state. We covered its Love Is Blind interactive Valentine’s mechanic in February and its Dead by Dark Hour one-night event in January, and designer Allen Hopps talked interactivity and off-season trends on our podcast this year.

Hangman’s House of Horrors

Hangman’s is one of the first Texas haunts with full 2026 dates and pricing already posted. The haunt occupies a 100-plus-year-old former military helium plant on Fort Worth’s north side and runs three attractions:

• Hangman’s House of Horrors — the namesake walk-through, built on the legends of the old base
• OUTBREAK! — the zombie attraction, which moves out of its trailer and into a wing of the main building for 2026
• The Beauty of Horror (NEW) — what the operator describes as a “horror based twist on the popular and trendy concept known as the interactive art exhibit”

Two Scaredy Cat family sessions run the lights up on October 11 and 18 for younger visitors. Tickets are on sale now.

Thrillvania Haunted House Park

Thrillvania spreads three haunted attractions across what the operator bills as almost 50 haunted acres:

• Verdun Manor — the mansion and cemetery grounds of Baron Michael Verdun, “a psychopathic werewolf,” per the operator’s lore
• Cassandra’s House of Clowns — a labyrinth built around space-bending illusions
• Sam Hain’s Trail of Torment — an outdoor trail through the woods

The operator says a full visit usually takes a couple of hours. General manager Michael Malec walked us through the park’s history on our podcast.

Moxley Manor

Moxley Manor is a fully indoor mid-cities haunt with a no-touch policy and a recommended age of 10 and up. The operator’s attractions page lists three houses for the coming season: Moxley Manor, Regans Revenge, and Big Top Terror. Like Dark Hour, Moxley works the off-season calendar, most recently with its Romance Is Dead Valentine’s haunt in February.

NOTE: Screams Halloween Theme Park in Waxahachie, the five-haunt park that anchored the south-of-Dallas season for 28 years, has closed. “After 28 frightful years, Screams Halloween Theme Park has come to a close,” the operator announced. Its producers now run Scarborough’s Hollow, a family-oriented fall festival on the Scarborough Faire grounds.

Fright Fest at Six Flags Over Texas

Six Flags Over Texas confirmed Fright Fest’s 2026 dates on the company’s season preview, with new Fright Fest exclusive entertainment promised on select days. The park has not yet announced its 2026 maze or scare zone lineup. Daytime Tricks and Treats programming runs the same weekends for families. Full chain-wide dates are in our Fright Fest 2026 all-locations guide.

Houston Haunted Houses

Phobia Haunted Houses

Phobia runs ten haunts across two locations. The Beltway 8 location stacks eight attractions, from the industrial Dawn of the Machine to the linked three-haunt Exile bundle that ends in Savage Ground, an open-air infested landscape. The Kemah Boardwalk outpost links two haunts, DOOM and Darke Labs, on one ticket and one line. Queues at Beltway 8 are covered, and the operator budgets about 15 minutes per attraction.

Creepy Hollow Haunted House

Creepy Hollow marks 15 years in 2026, and it is the rare Houston-area haunt with its full calendar posted and tickets already on sale in July. The HAA Iconic-tier scream park runs three attractions on one ticket:

• 288 Scare Factory — an indoor industrial haunt where, per the operator, “the laws of science have been manipulated and decayed”
• Dark Woods Swamp — an outdoor wooded trail stalked by The Caretaker, a burned figure with a rusty shovel
• Pitch Black — an indoor haunt that alternates between glowing light states and total darkness, changing how its characters behave

A post-season Lights Out with Krampus event runs November 6 and 7.

13th Floor Houston

The Houston outpost of Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group runs two walk-through attractions for 2026 under one roof: Containment: Sector 9, an alien-pathogen lab hidden beneath a barn, and Cannibals Crossing, a ruined estate overrun by a cannibal clan. Around the mazes sit a secret bar, five-minute escape games, and a live-actor zombie shooting range. It is the Gold-tier entry among the five HAA-certified Top Haunts in Texas.

Houston Terror Dome

Terror Dome is a fully air-conditioned indoor haunt, roughly a 20-minute walk-through past a spiral vortex tunnel, a 3D clown funhouse with glasses provided, a doll house, and a butcher shop, backed by a midway of paid extras: UV blacklight paintball, axe throwing, three 10-minute escape rooms, and a free-with-ticket haunted bar.

Redrum Fear Park

Redrum has run in Fort Bend County since 2008 and structures itself as an outdoor fear park around indoor haunts. Its 2025 lineup ran four attractions, including a 3D circus and a Purge-themed walk-through laser tag experiment where guests shoot back. The park also hosted a vampire-themed music festival, Bloodbath, in March 2026.

Austin and Central Texas Haunted Houses

House of Torment

House of Torment is the HAA Iconic-tier anchor of the Austin scene, operated by Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group. Its 2026 lineup runs three experiences:

• Beyond the Veil — a cult-guarded manor built around “a mysterious, ever-changing book that records its own narrative,” per the operator
• Return of the Abominations — a post-apocalyptic wasteland of mutated survivors and biomechanical creatures
• Phobia: Sensory Overload — a highly physical, confined-spaces immersive experience

A Respawn Pass sells a second run through the houses, and the 21-plus Nocturne Sanctum bar hides behind the midway.

Scream Hollow Wicked Halloween Park

Scream Hollow spreads four haunted houses and a hayride across 20 acres of dense forest and 22 buildings southeast of Austin:

• Mansion of Terror Coven — built on an 1842 orphanage narrative where, per the operator, “the mansion has a heartbeat”
• Sinister Circus — an outdoor clown haunt in the woods
• Lost Pines Asylum — an indoor-outdoor quarantined-facility haunt
• Alien Encounter — a walk-through of the crashed USS Astral Horizon spacecraft
• Fort Split Rail — a haunted hayride through the property’s “sacrificial grounds”

Each house runs 10 to 12 minutes, and a beer garden, cafe, and Halloween museum fill the midway. Its full 2026 calendar is already posted, opening September 18.

San Antonio Haunted Houses and Halloween Events

13th Floor San Antonio

The downtown San Antonio 13th Floor carries HAA Iconic-tier certification and headlines 2026 with Dose of Decay, a chemical-plague cityscape of cracked streets and flooded tunnels ruled by a deranged chemist called The Pharmacist. Add-ons include a Gellyball zombie shooting range with live actors and a two-bar secret speakeasy combo for guests 21 and up.

Scream Experiment

Scream Experiment opened on Alamo Plaza in May 2026 from Phillips Entertainment, the operator behind the former Ripley’s Haunted Adventure, which closed in 2022 to make way for the Alamo Visitor Center redevelopment. The new walk-through is set in the Restful Sleep Hotel, shuttered for 53 years after a string of disappearances and now reopened by two fictional hosts. “It’s a series of experiences. It’s fun for all ages, but screams will be involved,” Phillips VP Yvonne Pedigo told the San Antonio Report at opening.

Howl-O-Scream at SeaWorld San Antonio

Howl-O-Scream returns to SeaWorld San Antonio with haunted houses, scare zones, themed bars, and live shows, all included with admission. The park warns the event carries intense adult content and bans costumes for guests. The 2026 house lineup has not been announced. The daytime Spooktacular runs family programming from September 10, and chain-wide dates live in our Howl-O-Scream 2026 all-locations guide.

Fright Fest at Six Flags Fiesta Texas

Fiesta Texas has its 2026 Fright Fest dates live, with scare zones, live shows, and night rides included with park admission and the maze lineup still to come. Kids Tricks and Treats runs weekend days through the season.

Frequently Asked Questions

When do haunted houses in Texas open in 2026?

The season opens September 11 with Howl-O-Scream San Antonio and Fright Fest at Fiesta Texas, followed by House of Torment, both 13th Floor locations, and Fright Fest at Six Flags Over Texas on September 12. Most independent haunts open the last two weekends of September. Phobia and Creepy Hollow run the latest posted calendars, both through November 7.

What is the scariest haunted house in Texas?

Five Texas haunts hold current HAA Top Haunt certification, the industry’s ten-point standard for safety and professionalism: House of Torment, Dark Hour, Creepy Hollow, and 13th Floor San Antonio at the Iconic tier, and 13th Floor Houston at the Gold tier. Cutting Edge in Fort Worth has held Guinness World Records for its walk-through length and lists back-to-back USA Today readers-poll wins on its awards page.

Are any Texas haunted houses open year-round?

Scream Experiment on San Antonio’s Alamo Plaza operates daily year-round. Several seasonal haunts also run off-season events, including Dark Hour’s themed shows in Plano, Moxley Manor’s Valentine’s haunt, Cutting Edge’s summer Blackout nights, and Creepy Hollow’s post-season Krampus weekend.

Which Texas Halloween events work for kids?

Hangman’s House of Horrors runs lights-up Scaredy Cat sessions October 11 and 18. SeaWorld’s daytime Spooktacular and Six Flags’ Tricks and Treats offer trick-or-treat programming at both Texas parks, and Scarborough’s Hollow in Waxahachie runs a fright-free fall festival from the producers of the former Screams park.

Planning to work a haunt instead of touring one? Our scare actor jobs and auditions guide covers hiring season, and the Texas Haunters Convention guide covers the state’s own industry show.

Last updated: July 21, 2026. Most Texas operators post full calendars and ticket tiers in August. We will update this guide as 2026 dates, lineups, and prices are announced.