From family-friendly frights and creepy soirées to intense experiences that promise big scares, here are our recommendations for London's best immersive experiences this Halloween...
As always, October is looking to be a bumper month for spooky immersive experiences in the capital. To help you make the most of the spooky season, we've gathered together all the information you need to make your next night out a great one. Below is our pick of the best experiences on offer across the month for those looking for various levels of frights. From family-friend spooks to intense experiences, there's something on offer for everyone's taste this Halloween, if you're brave enough...
Phantom Peak - Hallowed Peak
We've spoken at length previously about how good Phantom Peak is. In our opinion, this platypus-loving mining town is the most enjoyable immersive experience currently on offer in London. While it's open nearly year-round with regular updates and re-themes, Halloween is when the place comes into its own. Their Lunar Festival returns for a third year, with both previous Hallowed Peak seasons having enjoyed multiple sold-out dates.
There are 10 brand new story trails available for guests to experience this season, and if they are anything like previous years you can expect to be doing anything from banishing demons to encountering haunted dolls, visiting the Undertakers for a coffin fitting, and almost certainly lending a hand to the town's resident paranormal investigators - Spectre and Vox.
Brand new for Hallowed Peak 2024 is The Lunar Remedy, a cocktail experience add-on that will see guests in search of a remedy to a series of strange afflictions that are spreading among the townsfolk of Phantom Peak. In a race against the clock, guests will need to explore the town and interact with its characters in a self-guided experience that culminates with a mix-it-yourself cocktail, along with an exclusive trail card.
Photos: Alistair Veryard
This is an important and eerie time of year for the residents of Phantom Peak. It’s the time of year when the moon is closest to the Ridge, and Diamant begins to react in strange and unpredictable ways. Spirits rise from the grave, creatures lurk in the shadows, and the Church of the Cosmic Platypus raves in style! Expect a thoroughly original take on the Halloween traditions that made this unique event so popular in 2023!
Phantom Peak is a family-friendly experience, and the free-roaming, experience-at-your-own-pace design of the show means you can take a break from the storylines at any time and pick them back up without missing anything. There's a string of other activities on offer including carnival games, the annual costume competition and multiple food and drink options. The show's creators describe Hallowed Peak are 'more spooky than scary', so it's an ideal experience for those wanting a Halloween experience that's not intense.
📍 Canada Water 💰 From £42.00 👻 Scare Level: 1/5
🕒 27th September - 10th November 2024 🎟️ Book via phantompeak.com
Open House: The Escape Room - Screamworks
In recent years, ScreamWorks has earned a reputation for creating London's best immersive horror experiences. Their debut show, Bloodbath, launched in late 2022 and was unlike anything else on offer in the capital at the time. It pushed the boundaries and conventions of immersive theatre to an extreme and saw visitors being force-fed, tied up, undressed, and chased through an air vent on their hands and knees.
Last year saw them debut The Ghost Hunt - another exceptionally scary immersive horror experience that had guests make their way through a Victorian house illuminated only by torchlight. Set within the abandoned home of the Luff family, who all met their end in bloody murder-suicide back in 1937, visitors were invited by paranormal investigator Hector Phoenix to explore the family home and discover the truth behind what really caused their horrific deaths.
For 2024, they return with Open House: The Escape Room. The experience is a combination of immersive theatre and escape room elements, and ScreamWorks CEO Gary Stocker describes it as their most exciting immersive concept yet - being the culmination of everything they've learnt in the last few years.
East London’s most haunted house is up for sale and seasoned 'escape agent’ Jason Shepherd has teamed up with ScreamWorks to present one of the most innovative house-hunting events of the season: Open House – the immersive escape game. What better way to explore and experience the highlights of this unique property than to be locked inside, with a delicious drink from our brand sponsor and a host of fun games and challenges to complete? This enormous Victorian mansion is dripping in history, full of characters and the perfect forever home for a young couple or family looking to take their lives to the next stage. With a bathroom to die for and a suite of bedrooms that will guarantee you rest in peace, this captivating property won’t cost you an arm and a leg! While the house has a guide price of £666k, the current vendors are keen for a quick sale and are willing to accept any offers whatsoever.
Photos of previous ScreamWorks shows.
Open House will run between 60 to 90 minutes depending on the type of booking made - the 90-minute experience is set to be more intense and be warned - includes moments of climbing and crawling. Those who are curious enough during the house tour may also uncover hidden paths and secrets, leading them down even more terrifying routes through the experience.
📍 Bethnal Green 💰 From £45.00 👻 Scare Level: 3.5/5
🕒 From 27th September 2024 🎟️ Book via screamworks.london
Tales of the Strange
The creators of Tales of the Strange are well-versed in providing great Halloween outings. For several years they ran Ghost Newington, a must-loved immersive walking tour that had visitors exploring the winding backstreets, cobbled yards and haunted ale houses of Stoke Newington under night fall. Last year saw them swap the streets of Stokey for a bricks-and-mortar venue in Haggerston with The House of Dust, which invited visitors to enjoy three supernatural cocktails as The Ghost Master took them on a twisted journey through the annals of time to a world where ghosts, murderers and ghouls were brought to life.
For 2024 they've shifted down to Brixton for Tales Of The Strange. The show is a collaboration between JimJack (part of the team behind Macabre & Ghost Newington) and Vi & Sly - a design duo know for creating hauntingly creepy puppets and props.
In a last ditch attempt to save his ailing career, horror writer Jeffrey Thrillerman dares you to encounter some of his twisted tales, brought to life for the first time by a motley team of actors. Housed within a haunted railway arch in Brixton, this pop-up extravaganza is part theatrical experience, part bar and wholly good vibes! So, grab a cocktail and hang with your friends as we regale you with an anthology of strange tales. What’s that? You’re feeling peckish? Fear not, we’ll have a selection of dastardly dishes available, prepared by dead-chef Danny Jack. Oh, and after the performance we wont just kick you out onto the cold streets of Brixton, no ma’am! You’ll get to hang out for the night in the tunnel of Strange. You can drink, dance, feast and frolic to the dead in style. Perhaps you’ll regale new found friends with your own tales as our house DJ’s play groovy 70s vibes.
📍 Brixton 💰 From £40.00 👻 Scare Level: ?/5
🕒 31st October - 2nd November 2024 🎟️ Book via designmynight.com
Make Believe: A Halloween Grotto
This Halloween season brings with it the debut show from Scarehand Productions, a new venture from Christopher Blackmore, Amy Sherlock, and David Hoskin. The company's mission is to "create boundary-pushing Halloween experiences soaked in atmosphere and scares," and with over 20 years of combined expertise, they're well-equipped to deliver.
Christopher Blackmore was one of the writers for Deathcell, the much-talked about extreme immersive horror experience that returns to London in early 2025 with Deathcell: Magenta, and David Hoskin did the dramatergy and sound design for Gorgon: A Horror Story back in 2021, which BroadwayWorld described as "evocative and terrifying".
If the trigger warnings for Make Believe: A Halloween Grotto are anything to go by, you can expect a claustrophobic, anxiety-inducing experience that touches on suicide, wasps and most terrifyingly of all... germs.
This Halloween, cross into the Grotto—a shadowy world where innocence and nightmares collide. Inside, your deepest childhood memories twist into something darker, more menacing. What was once joyful becomes unnervingly sinister, forcing you to confront your inner fears. Not everything is as it seems, as the veil between what is real and make believe gets thinner... A 30 minute horror-filled experience, audiences are guided through eerie, atmospheric den of memories and compelled to follow the Grotto’s cryptic commands in an unnerving journey to meet your forgotten inner child. Expect interactive performances, haunting visuals, and spine-tingling surprises that will leave you questioning what is real and what is make-believe. This isn’t your typical haunted house; it’s a chilling journey of self-discovery and terror. Are you brave enough to enter the Grotto?
📍 Loughborough Junction 💰 From £15.00 👻 Scare Level: 4.5/5
🕒 25th October - 2nd November 2024 🎟️ Book via designmynight.com
Check back here later in the month, as we'll be updating this guide with some more exciting shows.
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