Love horror. Will travel. Horror fans hit the road for real-life thrills.
Growing up, Wynter Starks didn’t trick-or-treat like other kids.
With an affectionate chuckle, the Dallas-based content creator said her mom was “paranoid” about things like razor blades in candy, so she’d buy Starks and her sister their own, and they’d stay home watching movies as a family instead.
“But it wasn’t the typical kiddie Halloween movies like ‘Coraline’ or ‘Nightmare Before Christmas.’ It was always ‘Friday the 13th‘ and ‘Halloween,’” Starks recalled. “From what my mom told me, I was never scared; … I just love the adrenaline.”
She still does, as she shares regularly on Instagram, but that love isn’t limited to screens. Like many fans, she eagerly travels for her hobby, which just happens to be horror.
Spooky destinations
I like to take trips to historical places that had haunted things that happened or places that were in movies. I actually went to the ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ house,” Starks said of a home outside Austin, which was featured in later films. “You can’t really get too close because of the owners and privacy reasons, but it literally looks how it is in the movies.”
Another house in Kings Island, Texas, featured in the original film, has been turned into a restaurant named Hooper’s, after “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” director Tobe Hooper.
Many destinations lean into their spooky legacies, like the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, which inspired “The Shining,” and Hotel del Coronado near San Diego, which is said to be haunted. Ghost tours are also popular in several cities.
Starks’ dream is to someday visit the Warren Occult Museum in Connecticut, which is closed to the public, but open to guests who book overnight stays at the home of late, famed ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren.“It’s basically full of things that are actually from either possessions or hauntings, and they collected it all in this museum,” Starks said, citing the infamous Annabelle doll among them. “I really want to go so bad.”
Worldwide draw
Nearly every year, Tom Scott travels from England to Florida to attend Universal Orlando Resort’s Halloween Horror Nights. While he didn’t grow up with horror, he credits the fan-favorite after-hours event for getting him into it.
“I wanted to prep for the houses, so I went and watched all the movies, and that’s when I realized that I just loved all this stuff,” he said. He was so inspired by the genre that he went to film school and hopes to make a horror movie.
Scott also founded a Facebook group with more than 92,000 fellow HHN fans. “I’ve got so many friends that I’ve made through either the group, through people that I’ve met at Horror Nights,” he said. His group centers on Orlando’s event, but Universal Studios Hollywood also hosts HHN in California, and this summer, Universal opened its first year-round horror experience in Las Vegas, Universal Horror Unleashed.
Nate Stevenson, show director of Universal’s Creative Development Group, said, unlike films, where “you’re all there together, but you’re not really interacting, having an experience together. This is something they can all walk in, they can experience together.”
Other theme parks, including HersheyPark in Pennsylvania and various Six Flags properties across the country, also host seasonal horror events. Scott attended Sea World Orlando’s Howl-O-Scream for the first time this year, while he was in town. He’s previously attended Tulleys Shocktober Fest in England, which bills itself as “Europe’s largest scream park.”
Horror fan community
Both Starks and Scott love connecting with fellow horror fans in person and online.
“I wanted to create the community that I wanted to be a part of,” Scott said.
He has gone to several horror conventions in the U.K. Some of the biggest ones in the U.S. are Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, California, Spooky Empire in Orlando and Texas Frightmare Weekend in Irving, which Starks is eager to attend next year.
TJ Mannarino, vice president of Entertainment Art and Design for Universal Orlando Resort, likened horror gatherings to family reunions: “You would think it’s going to be people all dressed in black or goth, and it’s funny: I talk horror, and people look at me and they go, ‘You look kind of normal’ and I’m going, ‘I am kind of normal. I like horror. I have kids.’ It is interesting to watch different people from different backgrounds, different interests, from different walks of life, and see how much horror connects them.”
And while horror may not be for everybody, the fan community can be.
“Horror fans are some of the most kind and warm people you will ever meet, really,” Scott said. “They’re not people to be afraid of. Just because people are into all this blood, gore and violence doesn’t mean they’re inherently violent people.”
“We’re very open, and when I say open, I mean open-hearted and open-minded, and we don’t judge, and we come loving,” Starks said. “I wouldn’t trade it for any other community, honestly.”