The Scare Factor, the haunted house review directory that has sent trained review teams into haunts for more than 20 years, has launched Haunt Advisor, a free tool that turns its directory into a personalized one. You tell it how scared you actually want to be and how much you care about actors, sets, atmosphere, and pacing, and it re-ranks every haunt near you against your answers. Two people standing in the same parking lot can open it and get two different lists.
It is worth clearing up one thing first: this is not an app. There is no download. Haunt Advisor runs on thescarefactor.com and works on your phone, and the account is free and ad-free.
What You Can Do With Haunt Advisor
You start by creating a free account and setting your preferences. A Scariness slider runs from Light Scares up to the most extreme, and you can weight how much you care about the parts of a haunt that matter to you, from the actors to the sets to the overall atmosphere and pacing. From there, the tool builds a feed of haunts around you.
The more you use it, the sharper it gets. You can like or dislike haunts, save the ones you want to visit, build a bucket list, mark haunts you have already been to, and leave full guest reviews as you go through the season. Each of those actions reshapes what the feed shows you next, so your list in October looks different from where it started.
How Haunt Advisor Ranks Haunts
Every haunt starts from The Scare Factor’s review, and that score carries the most weight. From there, the feed factors in what the community actually does: thumbs up and down, saves, bucket-list adds, guest reviews, and whether guests said they would recommend a haunt. A full written review counts for more than a quick thumbs-up, because it takes more effort to leave.
The piece that sets it apart is fit. If a haunt is far more intense than a guest said they want, it will not climb into that person’s feed no matter how many thumbs-up it has. The Scare Factor says it weighted the system this way on purpose, to avoid sending a nervous first-timer into an extreme show. For a guest, that is the useful part: the highest-rated haunt in town is not automatically the one you are shown, the best haunt for you is.
Plan Your Haunt Season With the Trip Planner
Once you have a few haunts saved, the built-in Trip Planner turns them into a night out. Drag the haunts you are eyeing into the order you want to hit them, and it works out the route and drive times from your Home Base, then pushes the plan into Google Maps or emails you the whole thing. It is a cleaner version of the group text everyone was already using on the last Saturday of October. The tool also awards seasonal points and badges, so someone joining in a later year is not stuck behind the early adopters.
Is It Free? Is It an App? What About Your Data?
Haunt Advisor is free and ad-free, and The Scare Factor says no paid placement will ever affect the feed. There is no app to install, because it runs on the website and works on a phone. You are in control of your own information too: everything tied to your account can be exported or deleted from your settings, without filing a support ticket.
What It Means for Haunt Owners and Actors
The guest experience is the point, but there is a clear read here for the industry. For owners, the system rewards haunts that are actually delivering, and it cannot be bought. Every published haunt is already included, no one has to opt in, and no one can pay to jump the line. Ranking comes from The Scare Factor’s reviews, guest feedback, and how well a haunt matches each guest. The system is also deliberately hard to move quickly, so a haunt cannot spike itself overnight and a single bad review will not rewrite a reputation.
What’s Next
The Scare Factor says Haunt Advisor is only the starting point. For 2027, the company plans to make the system smarter by factoring in the content of written reviews, haunt themes matched to guest preferences, sentiment trends, and more.
Haunt Advisor FAQ
Is Haunt Advisor free?
Yes. It is free and ad-free. You create a free account on The Scare Factor to use it.
Do I need to download an app?
No. There is no app. Haunt Advisor runs on thescarefactor.com and works on your phone’s browser.
How does it know which haunts to recommend?
It starts from The Scare Factor’s review team scores, then factors in guest feedback and your personal activity (saves, thumbs, bucket-list adds, reviews) and how well each haunt fits the scare level and preferences you set.
Can a haunt pay to rank higher on my feed?
No. Ranking comes from The Scare Factor’s reviews, guest feedback, and how well a haunt matches the individual guest. No haunt can pay to jump the line.
Does one bad review tank a haunt, or can rivals pile on?
Barely, and not meaningfully. The system is deliberately hard to move quickly in either direction, so it takes sustained agreement among many guests to shift a haunt, and a bad night will not rewrite a reputation.
Do haunts have to sign up to be included?
No. Every published listing in the directory is already in Haunt Advisor. Owners who want to correct their listing can submit changes.
What happens to my data?
You can export everything tied to your account or delete it outright from your own settings.
The Scare Factor’s Haunt Advisor is free and live now at thescarefactor.com.
