Halloween Frights

The 9 best haunted houses in Dallas-Fort Worth for Halloween chills and thrills

Reindeer Manor Halloween Park in Red Oak

Reindeer Manor in Red Oak is one of nine haunted houses in Dallas-Fort Worth guaranteed to deliver scares this Halloween season.

Photo courtesy of Reindeer Manor Halloween Park

No matter where you live in Dallas-Fort Worth, you're not far from a great haunted house. The sheer number and quality of them might allow us to lay claim to the best haunted house-area in the country.

We've rounded up some the best haunted houses for your enjoyment and/or terror. This is not a complete list of area haunted houses, but it's one that features the best of the best.

All of the haunted houses will stay open open every weekend through at least Halloween; check each event page for additional dates and times.

Cutting Edge Haunted House
Cutting Edge is a dark attraction filled with terrifying live actors, amazing special effects, and incredible monsters. Located in a 100-year-old abandoned meat-packing plant in Fort Worth, it is an intense, multistory, multithemed haunted house that uses the building's former tenant as wicked inspiration. Set aside some time for this one, as it takes visitors an average of 55 minutes to explore Cutting Edge.

Dan's Haunted House presents V
Most haunted houses go the standard zombie, clown, or serial killer route, but not Dan's Haunted House in Lake Dallas. They have a Japanese demon theme, with a continuing storyline involving terrifying samurai, frightening spirits, ghostly yōkai, and sinister creatures that inhabit the Japanese waters. All good haunted houses try to up their game each year, and Dan's does so by constantly changing things up.

Dark Hour Haunted House
The rare year-round haunted house, Dark Hour in Plano boasts sets worthy of a Broadway production, professional actors, and a strategic use of technology to produce a genuine theatrical experience. Themed around the Witch of Coven Manor, it almost guarantees you're not likely to see higher quality scares or more attention to detail anywhere in the area. Even better, you can come back at Christmas, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and other times of year to enjoy other holiday-themed terror.

Hangman's House of Horrors
Some haunted houses come and go, but Hangman's House of Horrors seems to be eternal. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the haunted house in north Fort Worth includes three separate attractions: the classic Hangman’s House of Horrors, No Place Like Home 3D, and Zombie Outbreak. Additionally, the 19-acre property will be transformed into a festival area featuring live bands, food trucks, free photos, festival activities, novelties, and more.

Moxley Manor Haunted House
The claim to fame for Moxley Manor in Bedford seems to be unique on this list: It was featured in the 2014 feature film The Houses October Built, about a group of friends traveling across the country looking for the best haunted houses. It offers two haunted attractions for the price of one, with the original Moxley Manor joined this year by a second called Big Top Terror.

Reindeer Manor Halloween Park
Don't get fooled by the cute and cuddly name of this haunted house complex in Red Oak; it just masks the horrors it has in store. The oldest haunted attraction in Texas, celebrating its 45th anniversary, features three separate areas: Reindeer Manor Estate, 13th Street Morgue, and Dungeon of Doom, plus a bonus area called the Shadow House that has a terrifying pitch-black maze, where you have only a glow stick to light the way from the entrance to the exit.

Six Flags over Texas presents Fright Fest
Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington will transform and feature 20 chilling attractions, including four new ones, that promise to deliver spine-chilling scares. There will be activities for the entire family throughout the day, then thrills and terror after the sun goes down. Ghouls are set free for their daily hunting rituals once the dark of night washes over the park.

Slaughter House Farms / Zombie Safari
Right next to door to each other in Forney are two haunted attractions guaranteed to get your blood pressure up. Slaughter House Farms has a grisly theme revolving around clowns, one that anyone with coulrophobia would probably do their best to avoid. Zombie Safari is not a haunted house, but a takeover of Cousins Paintball Park at which you can ride around on "Zombie Response Vehicles" shooting at roaming zombies without fear of being shot back.

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Movie Review

Daniel Craig searches for elusive new bond in audacious film Queer

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

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Queer is now playing in theaters.

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