Frightening Fun: Halloween 2010 Events - 3

Greeting guests at Six Flags Great America's Fright Fest is an entry pool dyed blood red.  Talk about setting the mood!  This year marks the 20th season of screams for Fright Fest, and the park is giving guests reason to celebrate.

Creating Fright Fest is intense: "The transformation to turn the theme park into a"scream park" is underway with over 2,000 corn stalks, 7 tons of pumpkins, 300 bales of hay, 200 pounds of blood-red dye, 200 monsters, dozens of corpses and skeletons, and hundreds of rubber snakes, bats, rats, skulls and body parts.  Fright Fest staples, "Tiny" the famous 200 lb spider makes his return to the side of the America Eagle coaster as the 500 lb inflatable gorilla begins his climb up SkyTrek Tower."

2010 marks the debut of the Saw Live haunted maze.  Guests will come face to face with some of jigsaw's most horrible deeds.  Fright Fest starts October 2nd and runs weekends throughout the month. 

Wild Adventures Theme Park becomes even more wild during the Fall when Phobia takes over.  New this year is Phobia: One Path - Endless Fears, the only Halloween experience of its kind set in a real blackwater swamp.

Living in that swamp is the Fearmaker, who doesn't sound like an especially nice guy.  Guests will have to wander through a single pathway and face their most horrible fears along the way.

During the day Kid-O-Ween takes place, featuring Monty's Magical Pumpkin Forest where kids can pick their very own magical pumpkin.  There's also a Monster Mash Dance Party, hay bale maze, and a craft station for the tots.

Universal Studios Orlando kicks things up a notch each year when they present Halloween Horror Nights to the masses.  This year the event is celebrating it's 20th anniversary, quite an accomplishment in the Halloween realm.

Naturally, a 20th anniversary calls for a big celebration - and that's just what guests will find this year.  The even is hosted by Fear itself, manifested into a physical form and causing all kinds of a ruckus.  There are 8 new haunted houses, 6 new scare zones, and 2 new live entertainment productions.  Things never get stale at Halloween Horror Nights!

The event is so popular that most nights sell out, especially on the weekends.  Horror Nights runs through October 31st this year.

If you happen to find yourself in the Nation's capital this Fall and need to get to a scary attraction right away then Six Flags America has what you need! (ok so that's a stretch, but still)  Fright Fest returns to the park this year filled with both scary and family friendly Halloween fun.

If you're really brave then take a trip on the Circus of Lost Souls, where the park's railroad takes you on a trip into the woods where the only way back is a path riddled with ghouls.  Also make sure you are prepared to cross the park's famous Bridge of Terror.  Located in a tree covered, quiet area the bridge is absolutely packed with monsters during the event.

Before all that starts, however, families can partake in a Not-So-Scary Hayride, see a magician perform, and, of course, go trick-or-treating.  Fright Fest starts on October 2nd and takes place weekends through the end of the month.



"Where fear meets fun!"  That's the slogan for this year's ScreeemFest at Canobie Lake Park.  Granted, the park does have such fun as Pumpkin Palace - where kids can take in a spooky story or two - but there's also plenty to fear while at ScreeemFest.

Take for instance the Dead Shed, which promises that "if you leave, it will be screaming!"  You see long ago a group of miners set up camp where the park is now located, and they had their own butcher shop.  Long since redeveloped, the butcher shop still stands and it seems the souls of those animals (and people?!) taken there are back with a vengeance.

Other haunted attractions include The Village and Merriment Incorporated, both of which sound rather freaky and unsettling.  The thrill rides that Canobie Lake Park offers also stay open when ScreemFest is going on, giving visitors yet another way to lose their voice.  The event runs weekend nights for all of October.

After and exciting season that saw the reopening of the venerable Blue Streak wooden coaster, Conneaut Lake Park will get into the haunted swing of things with Ghost Lake.

Nevermind that the classic Conneaut Lake Hotel is known as one of the most haunted places anywhere - there's plenty of other scares to be found at Ghost Lake.  In fact, the event has eight different levels, all of which have different themes.  The entire experience takes over a half hour to complete - but that's only if you make it!

As a bonus the Blue Streak - temporarily known as the Ghoster Coaster - will operating during Ghost Lake.  And if you want to stop by just for a spin on the Streak, that's fine too - the park will offer tickets for just the coaster.

CarnEvil, The Harvest, Slaughter House, Central Stalking, Blue Ridge Bloodbath, Toxic Plague.  What do these all have in common?  Well, there's all attractions at Kings Dominion's Halloween Haunt that are sure to keep you up at night well after you've made it back home.  And that's just a handful, there's plenty more haunts to be had!

The event is expanding again this year with the addition of several new indoor haunted houses, and a new scare zone as well.  Among them is the Doll Factory, where you have to pass by plenty of creepy looking dolls... but are they alive?