It’s October, which means it’s time to get in the Halloween
spirit, with all the thrills chills, frights, ghouls, and ghosts it entails. In
some places, that’s easier than others as it seems like it’s Halloween basically
all the time there.
In this list, we’re counting down the top 10 Halloween
locations in media.
For this list, we’ll be counting down the top locations
across different kinds of media, from comics to shows to games, that best
embody the feel of Halloween, anything from a large building to an entire world.
This means creepy locales, gothic architecture, Halloween appropriate color
palettes, and ghosts and monsters galore, and it explores those themes without
crossing the line into outright horror. We won’t be counting locations whose
creepiness is only implied or has to be searched for or places that are just
outright dangerous or do cross the line into outright horror. This means places
like Gravity Falls, Sunnydale from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Lavender Town
from Pokemon won’t count here.
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10. Forever Forest & Boo’s Mansion (Paper Mario)
The ghosts called Boos and their Ghost Houses are a well-established
part of the world of the Mushroom Kingdom, but in the Nintendo 64 RPG Paper
Mario, we find probably one of the largest ones ever. Mario having been
summoned there by the head of the house Lady Bow, Boo’s Mansion is a creepy,
old, haunted mansion inhabited by several Boos, many of which are cowering from
a ghost-eating being known as Tubba Blubba. Mario needs to solve puzzles and
play different small games in order to move through the manor’s rooms and at
the end of it, Bow herself joins the party and they move on to find Tubba
Blubba.
At least the ghosts in the mansion aren’t hostile, which is
more than can be said about the surrounding Forever Forest. This mazelike
spooky forest with dead trees and strange plants also has several enemies to
fight against and while they aren’t any different from normal Mario enemies,
they’re still choosing to attack in a spooky forest. Any wrong turns trying to
get from the forest entrance to Boo’s Mansion will put you right back where you
started at the forest entrance. Clues to which way you should go are indicated
by the foliage in front of each path.
9. Thriller Bark (One Piece)
Who’s ready for some high-seas screams?
One Piece is usually an action-packed adventure series
following the Straw Hat Pirate crew as they sail the seas from one adventure to
the next, but one stop on their charter has them treading in horror waters. Right
after getting their new ship the Thousand Sunny, the crew arrives at the
mysterious Thriller Bark, which at first looks like an island not found on any map
but is soon discovered to actually be a giant pirate ship. The ship itself is
big enough to house the aforementioned island, complete with a spooky forest,
graveyard, and an enormous castle and the island itself is infested with
hundreds of zombies.
The zombies were created by the ship’s captain, Gecko Moria,
one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea and a cursed fruit user with the power to
control shadows. He uses this power along with soulless corpses to create
zombies with powerful physical capabilities, all with the purpose of creating an
unstoppable undead army. Along with the zombies and Moria himself, a gigantic
figure with features reminiscent of vampires, there’s the sharp-toothed mad
scientist Dr. Hogback, the lion-faced, invisibility-gifted Absalom, and the
emotion-warping, ghost-controlling Perona. The Straw Hats even take a piece of
the spookiness with them in the form of their new crewmate, the skeletal,
singing swordsman Brooke.
8. Death City (Soul Eater)
In an alternate version of Earth, sitting somewhere in the
middle of the Nevada desert is this dark city run by Death himself. Death City
is the main hub of activity in the shonen anime series Soul Eater, being the
home of the Death Weapon Meister Academy, where people who can shapeshift into
weapons, and the meisters who wield them, train to hone their skills. The final
goal of many of these students is to turn their weapon into a Death Scythe, a
powerful class of weapon with the privilege of being wielded by Death and
protecting the world from sinister forces that threaten it.
The city also serves as the prison of the kishin Asura, a
demon intent on spreading madness throughout the world. The allure of
harnessing Asura’s power causes different factions, like those lead by the
witches Medusa and Arachne, to invade the city. The city itself has a somewhat
gothic look, especially the DWMA, about half of the characters have black or
dark-colored default outfits, and recurring characters within the show include a
vampire, a werewolf, several witches, a zombie, a magical cat with pumpkin-themed attacks,
and one character who’s a clear homage to Dr. Frankenstein.
7. Evershade Valley (Luigi’s Mansion 2: Dark Moon)
One haunted mansion wasn’t enough for you? How about five?
This sequel to the hit GameCube title, sees the younger
Mario Brother called out by Professor E. Gadd to his laboratory in the
Evershade Valley, a location with five undead-infested buildings, including a
pair of overgrown greenhouse towers built around a giant tree, an abandoned
clock and watch factory built over an ancient desert tomb, and a snowy mountain
chalet hiding a secret mining operation. While this sounds like a place to
avoid, the ghosts of Evershade Valley are normally nice and civil, thanks to
the power of an artifact called the Dark Moon. However, the plot of the game
sees the Dark Moon getting broken into pieces, making the ghosts turn hostile.
So, it is up to Luigi to find the pieces and reassemble it before things get
too out of hand.
6. The Netherworld (Disgaea)
You would think that an alternate dimension inhabited by
demons would be more about fire and brimstone.
In the Disgaea series, the Netherworld is a plane of
existence parallel to our human world and Celestia, the world of the angels.
Home to several different kinds of demons, each new game in the series tends to
have its own Netherworld, ranging in theme from a gigantic school campus to a
former human world where all the humans have been turned into demons, but they
all tend to have dark landscapes, spooky buildings (especially if they’re
castles), and several deadly monsters. The demons themselves have a wide range
of powers and tend to vary in alignment from Chaotic Neutral at best to
different shades of pure evil at worst. A good number of them even have a view
on villainy cliched enough to make Snidely Whiplash blush in embarrassment. The
ties to Halloween get especially stronger with the main characters of Disgaea
4, the vampire Valvatorez and his werewolf partner Fenrich. The Netherworld
also serves as a kind of afterlife, with the souls of sinners arriving penguin-like
demons known as Prinnies, to work off a debt before they can be reincarnated back
in the human world.
5. Halloweentown (Halloweentown)
Did you know that there were two Disney movies with a
setting involving a Halloween-themed location? Let’s start with the lesser
known of the two.
The main location of a series of Disney Channel Original
Movies, a portal opens up every year on Halloween that allows those with the
know-how to enter Halloweentown, a town in another dimension inhabited by
several monsters, everything from ghosts and vampires to werewolves and trolls
to witches and warlocks. There are buildings and services catering to different
species and the town’s centerpiece is even a giant Jack O’ Lantern. Barring the
eccentricities that come with the different types of monsters walking around,
they behave a lot like normal people and some of them find offense in the
images that humans have of them being horrifying nightmares. They even seem to
have their own stereotypes of normal humans, viewing them as dull, drab, and
boring.
Though now, you might be asking “What’s more Halloween than
a place literally called ‘Halloweentown’?” Let’s look at the rest of the top
five.
4. Horrorland (Goosebumps)
First appearing in the book One Day at Horrorland, this amusement park containing or paying
tribute to all things ghoulish and gruesome is the Goosebumps franchise’s
premiere scary location. Several books in the series involve Horrorland, with
it even being the connecting setting of an entire run of Goosebumps books. There
are several horror or monster-themed rides, shops, and attractions, the park
has several rules that would seem bizarre to humans (mostly to benefit the
monsters that are or aren’t trying to get them), and the park is staffed by
several monsters including vampires, ghosts, zombies, werewolves, fishmen, and
witches. The most notable staff members however are the Horrorland horrors, the
ogre-esque creatures that seem to run the park, and at times, it’s hard to tell
if they’re trying to put an end to their guests or if they just want it to look
that way to get the max amount of screams out of them.
It gets worse when several villains arrive in Horrorland in
the Goosebumps Horrorland series and use the park as their hunting grounds searching
for the kids each of them are targeting. It’s also implied that the living ventriloquist
puppet Slappy, the most infamous villain in the franchise, is a frequent
visitor and is the park’s equivalent to a VIP guest.
3. Underborough & Pendleton (The Underburbs)
The settings of the indie comic series The Underburbs,
Pendleton used to be a normal, everyday, small town while Underborough was a separate
alternate dimension of monsters, both initially having nothing to do with each
other. That changed one Halloween night however, when a portal to Underborough
opened in Pendleton, courtesy of Countess Winifred Pale, a young vampire with
dreams of world conquest. Using the power of a magic scroll, she essentially
makes the town part of Underborough, sealing it off from the rest of the human
world, turning most of the people into monsters (with the remaining humans
going into hiding), and essentially making it Halloween permanently.
While the new version of Pendleton still looks like a normal
modern town, except now there's the always-eerie-looking sky, a gigantic pumpkin patch, and the fact that
monsters are now everywhere. Meanwhile, Underborough itself looks more like stepping into
Transylvania, with dark forests, spooky castles, and other foreboding
locations.
2. The Neitherworld (Beetlejuice: The Animated Series)
Based on the 1988 horror-comedy film of the same name,
Beetlejuice follows the titular ghostly trickster and his living best friend/love
interest Lydia Deetz as they go through various misadventures through the
Neitherworld, an abstract and chaotic plane of existence where monsters and the
undead reside. Pretty much everyone there is spooky in some way, if not
outright monsters. Even living human visitors like Lydia get a creepy makeover upon
crossing over. The dark and twisted atmosphere of the Neitherworld takes cues
from the Tim Burton film that inspired it and does a good job of showing a lighter
version of the Afterlife, if something like that is even possible.
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Before revealing the number one pick, here are a few
honorable mentions.
Addams Manor (The Addams Family) – It may be just one large
building, but it’s a classic example of a good, creepy location that perfectly
gives off a Halloween vibe.
Hang Castle & Mystic Mansion (Sonic Heroes) – A haunted
castle and mansion that has spook-themed robot enemies and mechanics that warp
the physics and overall state of the environment.
Your Town (Magician’s Quest: Mysterious Times) – This
obscure Animal Crossing style life sim game is set in a town of monsters and
spirits with a wizarding school as the main hub of activity.
Mad Monster Mansion (Banjo-Kazooie) – Think every large,
haunted mansion ever with treasure scattered around, ominous pipe organ music following
you everywhere, ghosts and strange half-dead creatures ready to attack, and an
evil witch watching your every move.
Monster High (Monster High) – A high school for all the
classic Halloween/horror monsters and many more.
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1. Halloween Town (The Nightmare Before Christmas)
Admit it. Most of you knew this would be on the list at some
point.
The main setting of the hit stop-motion movie, Tim Burton’s
The Nightmare Before Christmas, Halloween Town is meant to encapsulate
everything about the scariest of holidays. Dead trees, graveyards, and pumpkin
patches surround the town, which itself has a lot of gothic-style buildings,
and all its residents are monsters. The big musical number at the start of the
film shows that the population includes vampires, werewolves, witches, ghosts, zombies,
and that’s just the top of the list and its most prominent figure is the Pumpkin
King himself, Jack Skellington.
Also pictured: the unofficial mascot for Hot Topic.
As you could guess, Halloween isn’t just a big deal here; it’s
the biggest deal. The residents spend all year preparing for it, so they can
bring their A-game with the best scares possible and Jack is the guy who brings
it all together and makes sure it all goes smoothly. They’re always on the lookout
for something that can take their performances to the next level and when Jack
has an idea, everyone listens. Even when they take charge of other holidays,
like in the movie, they basically Halloween it up and turn it into a scary
version of itself.
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What did you think of this list? What locations do you think
embody the spirit of Halloween? Make your voice heard in the comments below.
Thanks for reading!
