Halloween season is upon us again, and Hersheypark is back with another edition of its Dark Nights event. Hersheypark continues to improve their annual Halloween event to where I can confidently say that it is among the best regional theme park events I’ve visited. Combine 5 haunted houses, 4 scare zones, a trick or treat trail for kids, and 4 shows to go with the park’s lineup of coasters and other rides, and Hersheypark offers more than what most guests could see during a single visit. Hersheypark invited my family to represent Theme Park Insider at their opening night media event, but the opinions expressed and reviews below are my own.
This year’s lineup of haunted houses features 4 returning entries as well as a new house for 2025, Kill ‘n Fill Garage. This new house replaces The Decent: Catacombs of Decay and is themed around a gas station that has been taken over by the undead. As with many of Hersheypark’s haunted houses, they use a ton of authentic props and other thematic elements to set the scene. The park seemingly spares no expense in filling their houses with props to relay that theme, which in the case of Kill ‘n Fill Garage includes tools, signs, and realistic-looking automotive equipment that would be more than enough to start a small chain of car repair centers. For an event that only runs in the evenings for 2 months of weekends each year, it’s impressive the lengths that Hersheypark goes to add depth and detail to this house. The house begins outside, with guests walking through a junkyard framed with stacks of tires that eventually lead you inside. The interior portion starts in the maintenance bay before taking guests through the office, which is filled to the brim with actual automotive manuals, plans, and other relics that would make the guys on American Pickers giddy. After a couple of long hallways, guests are led to the paint bay, where a scare actor is standing by with one of the more effective uses pressurized air in a haunted house. This area also makes great use of sheet plastic to also set the scene since paint shops often use it, though not typically covered in splatters of blood. If you’re able to escape the paint shop, the car wash is up next, where Hersheypark appears to employ actual car wash brushes and equipment to fill this area. Again, the level of detail that’s far beyond what you would expect to see in your typical regional theme park haunted house. Eventually, guests make their way through the parts room and outside where a final scare actor is staged. Kill ‘n Fill Garage is an excellent addition to the Dark Nights lineup, and utilizes a surprising number of automated effects, though it could probably use a few more scare actors to fill in a few of the dead zones.
Estate of Evil returns this year, which I thought was one of the weaker entries from last year. However, Hersheypark has made improvements to the pacing of this maze, which is themed around an aristocratic mansion where guests are invited to tour. One common theme I noticed this year was the introduction of distinct smells into the mazes, and as guests walk through Estate of Evil, you get a real “scents” of what it’s like to live in the late 19th century. While it did feel like this house could also have used some more actors, our run through this year was far better than what we experienced last year.
Twisted Carnevil is the token circus haunted house and was probably the weakest of the 5 houses. With Terrifier and Art the Clown scoring wide-ranging praise at HHN, it establishes an almost unrealistically high bar for clowns at Halloween events. Clearly it can be hard to deliver a circus/clown attraction that can meet expectations, and unfortunately Twisted Carnevil fell flat for us. It didn’t help that many of the areas where scare actors should have been staged were empty during our walk-through of this maze, but I feel that even a perfect run through this house would still place it as the weakest at Hersheypark this year. I recognize that HHN sets a high bar, which is what Hersheypark appears to be aiming for with many of their haunted houses, but I do think the circus/clown theme has run its course. 🎦 Video
Haunted Coal Mine: Curse of the Tommyknockers is back with its impressive elevator simulation and highly detailed mine scenes and subterranean caverns. The elevator effect is just as convincing as it was last year, but again I felt that there were not enough scare actors with a few large rooms that were completely empty. Also, this house still has a claustrophobic hallway where you walk between 2 massive plastic sheets blown together with giant fans. However, to make things even worse, this hallway ends with a pitch-black room that slows the pace to a crawl, creating a bottleneck and destroying the pace of the second half of the house. I’m not sure why parks continue to use these elements (or pitch-black rooms), because they just slow the flow of guests through the house. Haunted Coal Mine’s ending was improved over our experience from last year, but it still doesn’t match the quality of the beginning of the house and the simulated elevator. 🎦 Video
Auntie Mortem’s Abattoir remains one of the best of Hersheypark’s haunted houses, though Kill ‘n Fill Garage is neck and neck for my favorite. This house again takes guests through a family-owned facility where swine are slaughtered and processed. As noted earlier, Hersheypark has started to really lean into the use of smalls in their haunted houses, and they’re really effective here. During our experience this year, my son and I actually got split as I was forced into an alternate set of extremely dark rooms while Zach went through a spinning tunnel room.
In addition to the haunted houses, Dark Nights features 4 scare zones, which we did not spend a lot of time exploring. However, in the Midway of Misery scare zone, there is a crew of sliders (Decayed Brigade) that have drawn quite the following, and feature some of the originators and trainers who have passed on their skills to Halloween event staff around the country. When guests enter this scare zone, you never know when one of these talented sliders will zip right across your path that is bound to startle the bejesus out of even the most stoic passerby. Near the end of the night, Hersheypark closes the main pathway in the scare zone to allow the sliders to perform on open pavement. 🎦 Video
In addition to all of the Halloween attractions, guests can also enjoy many of the park’s top coasters, including four that operate with their lights off during the last hour of the evening: Comet, Candymonium, Lightning Racer, and Wildcat’s Revenge. Unfortunately the lights out was negated somewhat on the RMC due to a high school football game at the nearby Hersheypark Stadium. Hersheypark has also offering an exclusive menu of themed food that can be purchased individually or sampled with a tasting pass.
The was our second year visiting Dark Nights, which is still a young event when compared to other theme park Halloween events in the Mid-Atlantic. It’s clear that the park is dedicated to delivering a top notch event and improving year over year.
Going this weekend! I hope the staffing issue is sorted out, but the mazes look great compared to other somewhat-nearby regional parks (looking at you, BGW, with your werewolf maze that doesn't include werewolves).
With each passing season, Hersheypark’s Dark Nights haunt continues to improve and develop, and provides new scares and immersive experiences. Although I typically write my assignments online website, events like this are an exciting excursion worth going to.
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Our final ranking was:
1. Estate of Evil
2. Haunted Coal Mine
3. Auntie Mortem's Abbatoir
4. Twisted Carnevil
5. Kill N' Fill
Part of what "killed" Kill N' Fill for us was the haunted conga line, but even when the crowds eased up, the maze didn't seem to have a unique story or interesting scares. And much like Twisted Carnevil, it. just. ends. There's no big scene or satisfying conclusion; you walk out the front door and it's done. They could easily fix this for next year by swapping out generic killers for zombies or monsters that are scarier than regular people.
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Thanks Russell for the write up. Hershey Parks Dark Nights is really fun, we're actually going again for our 2nd year in a row since we had such a good time last year. Hershey continues to punch above it's weight limit, I just wish ride ops were a little faster (but I'm spoiled as a UOAP).
As my username may indicate, I'm a big fan of Halloween Theme Park events. While HHN is the Big Daddy, regional parks offer an excellent experience at a good price point too. This journalism is important coverage for sure.
And after Hershey Park, we're off to Universal Studios Singapore and their HHN! Super excited to check it out!