About

How it started

We started www.HoustonHaunts.com in 2003 to provide information regarding the Houston Halloween attraction scene. We stood in the lines, went through the attractions, came out and felt hungry for more…we wanted to find another haunted house. At that moment, everyone always brings up the rumor about that one house that is so scary that nobody makes it to the end. You and your friends drive off heading towards the next haunted house. The one you are going to is on the other side of town, and perhaps, just maybe it is the one that makes grown men cry…because you hate walking thru an attraction having to act like a hard a** (by the way, it is much more fun for you and the monsters if you actually get into it).

Somewhere along the way (listening to Metallica of course, well I used to anyways), your friend says, “Hey, I know this cemetary, let’s all pull over and hang out there for a bit.” You realize that nothing is going to happen and you are left with this vacant feeling…wishing Halloween still had that charm it had on you when you were a kid. You go home and Halloween is over.

Well, we didn’t think it should be this way. We wanted you to know where you could find the next scare, where you could find the next Halloween whatever, but we wanted to give YOU (Houstonians) the power to find that info. So…www.HoustonHaunts.com was born.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are you guys owned, affiliated, payed off, have any ridiculous mafia style connections to any of the attractions?
Short answer: No.
Longer Answer: Not really. We have a good relationship with the attractions. We live really close to ScreamWorld. One of us actually worked for ScreamWorld for a bit. The Castle of Doom hires us out to build their website. NONE of this has anything to do with what we say on our site…so get over it.

Will you guys be rating the houses again this year?
YES! We think we came up with a decent way to fair to everyone and give a decent review/rating of the attractions. Look for the reviews/ratings after the weekend of the 20th.
It is not likely that we will. There are so many reasons not to and just not enough reason to do the rating. 2 big reasons not to:
1. Every attraction offers something different. There are big ones, small ones, high priced ones, lower priced ones, attractions that will weird you out, attractions that go for overall length, attractions that are simply more accessible than others (you know how long it takes to drive from one side of Houston to the other, it sucks.), attractions that are outside, some that are inside, some attractions have a great raw-indie type of feel, some that have a slick multi-million dollar feel. It all becomes too subjective and we want to help the industry as a whole to succeed.
2. For us to be fair, we would definitely need to come several nights during the season so that we can see how they act when they have a low volume versus a high volume of people. By the time we write a semi-objective view on an attraction most of you have already picked out the ones you like yourself.

Does this site give information about real haunted houses?
Yes! We have finally put together a very small list of real haunted houses in the Houston area. We hope to expand this part of site with pictures over time.
Not yet, but we definitely plan on doing so. We know you want it and in all honesty, it is probably a matter of weeks (or less) before we attempt to build a source of real haunted location information.

Are you guys hiring?
We wish we were, because then we could say we make a decent amount of money off this site. So, no, we are not hiring. BUT, we will never turn down a good tip or something that would definitely be news worthy. We will give you credit if you decide to send something our way.

creation tools and credits

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX - for most of the HTML
Adobe Photoshop - for the photo work
Good ol’ fashioned typed out HTML - because we would be embarrassed if we didn’t do at least a little of it by hand.
Powered by WordPress - because it is flexible.
Yahoo! Hosting - We’re not sure why really.
We really like using Firefox - because it is cooler than IE.
Youtube - for the “drive-in” video window
Google Analytics - for our site stats
Pops - Because he took some of the photos that still haunt this site
Everyone who knows us - because you need to be thanked
Everyone who knows us better - because we learned so much from you. Thank you.
Edgar Allen Poe - for writing The Raven
Aphex Twin - for writing Rhubarb