With October right around the corner, it’s almost the time of the year for spooky festivities and Halloween-themed fun. Whether you enjoy going out trick or treating with your friends and family or finding a local horror attraction, there are plenty of things to do in Portland.
Portland Oddities & Curiosities Expo
Starting this list off is the Oddities & Curiosities Expo, where you can find a wide selection of vendors, dealers, and small businesses from all over the world that show off their collection of oddities. You can find anything from taxidermy, preserved specimens, and horror-inspired original art to handcrafted items.
If that’s not enough, you can find collections of antiques, bones, creepy jewelry, and funeral items to bring home and creep out your friends and neighbors. This is a great place to come and hang out with your friends to see what dark artists across the world are making, with many guests coming in costumes to add to the Halloween vibe.
Portland Oddities & Curiosities Expo
Underhill Haunted House
If you are looking for a good scare or a creepy place to explore, Underhill Haunted House may be up your alley. With three large attractions in a 40,000-square-foot basement, this is one of the best places to come for a scare. Originally called The Beneath, Underhill Haunted House is the passion project of a local group of artists and creatives at the Memorial Coliseum.
Each of their three attractions—Blood Point Road, Morbid Nightmares, and Underhill Manor—has a unique setting and narrative to make for an engaging experience; so even if you clear one, you have plenty of reason to stick around or come back another time for the complete horror experience.
The Fear PDX Haunted House
If you are a thrill seeker looking for something to get your adrenaline pumping this Halloween season, you may want to try out The Fear PDX Haunted House. At this haunted house, you will experience intense audio and extremely low visibility, as well as moving floors, special effects, sudden actions, and an overall physically demanding environment that will keep you on your toes.
For everyone’s safety, The Fear PDX Haunted House encourages patrons to follow their guidelines, so be sure to avoid wearing any costumes that cover your face, drag on the ground, contain any sharp or pointed objects, and contain anything that could be mistaken for a weapon. Furthermore, children must be attended to by an adult at all times, and you should not enter with any physical limitations, such as a crutch or medical cast.
Portland Ghost Tours
Here’s a little history lesson for some of you: Portland was known as the Shanghai capital of the world in the 1890s. Back in the early 1800s, ships arriving from the Pacific—notably Shanghai—that were carrying valuable commodities from Asia were often understaffed as sailors jumped ship as soon as they arrived at a port. To provide these understaffed ships with the manpower they desperately needed, men would be drugged, kidnapped, and sold to various crews headed to the United States for trade. This cruel practice came to be known as Shanghaiing, and it killed many men far from home in cities such as Portland, where it is said their spirits haunt the area to this day. If you enjoy horror and are looking for a more authentic experience, Portland Ghost Tours offers tours of the most haunted locations, where you can learn about much of the city’s horrific past.
BeerQuest Haunted Pub Tour
If you are looking for something a bit more relaxed and opportunities to meet new people, BeerQuest Walking Tours is an opportunity to connect with others and learn about the city—plus, there’s beer! The staff here are all local historians who conduct extensive research on Portland’s history to create interesting and engaging tours with an emphasis on storytelling.
For Halloween, they offer the Haunted Pub Tour that will take you to underground tunnels and many other haunted sites. Tour guides—many of whom are ghost hunters—will share stories of unsolved murders, cover-ups, and unexplained paranormal activity as you delve further into some of Portland’s most tragic and spooky locations. If you are looking for a more relaxed and only mildly scary activity with some beer in the mix, this could be for you.
Oaks Park ScareGrounds
Oaks Park ScareGrounds (or ScareGrounds PDX) is the northwest’s largest haunted house and Halloween event that you can find at the Historic Oaks Amusement Park. The Silver Scream, an 80s Slasher film-inspired attraction, will give you a dose of classic horror with plenty of thrills and cinema villains to terrorize you in a decrepit movie theater setting.
Meanwhile, the Grimthorne Manor is an infamous house that has fallen into disrepair where you will have to survive a night in hell house as the barrier between our world and the nether fractures and allows otherworldly horrors to creep in and torment you. Finally, The Complex features an old facility turned renovated hostel where you can experience Portland’s haunted past with a tour of the old faculty with artifacts from a bygone era. If you are looking for a spooky adventure, this is the place for you.
Haunted Corn Maze at Bella Organic
For a classic horror attraction experience, the Haunted Corn Maze at Bella Organic is where you and your fellow thrill seekers can get lost in a spooky labyrinth as terrifying creatures stalk you through the night. This year, be prepared to face off against Michael Myers, in addition to dark ghouls, goblins, and zombies that will chase you through the maze. Oh, and don’t forget to avoid the Demogorgon as you enter their version of the Upside Down, and make sure to bring shoes with good traction as you will spend the evening running and hiding from all of the horrors prowling the night.
Haunted Corn Maze at Bella Organic
These are the spookiest places and attractions in Portland this time of the year, so grab a friend and a pair of running shoes before heading on out into the night!
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