Haunted Houses & Ghost Tours in Austin, TX

The history

Austin's haunted history, in the material collected for this page, is not a history of hauntings — it is the history of an industry. The city's two big attractions are professional Halloween operations, and their own sites tell that story plainly. House of Torment describes itself on its homepage as "the world-famous House of Torment Haunted House, Austin's legendary Halloween event," and it is presented by Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group, which the same page calls "the world's largest Halloween-themed entertainment company, with over 15 locations and counting." The Travel Channel line the business quotes on its homepage — "THE SCARIEST HAUNTED HOUSE IN AMERICA" — is the kind of billing Austin's haunt scene has grown up around.

The second operation reaches further back. Scream Hollow, in Smithville in the Austin area, states in its own FAQ that it was built from the Mansion of Terror haunted house, "which was featured annually on the Travel Channel and placed #1 haunted house in the Nation by Lions Gate Films," and that its creators set out to build "something next generation" from it. Between a multi-state entertainment group's flagship and a Travel-Channel-featured predecessor rebuilt in the woods of Bastrop County, the documented history the sources support is a scare industry with national credentials — not a haunted-house tradition in the ghost-story sense.

An honest limitation: the city-level reference leads collected for Austin were weak. to The Grove in Jefferson, Texas, an 1861 house the lead calls the most haunted place in Texas — and to Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred" colonists of Mexican Texas. Neither is an Austin haunting, so neither is used as one here. Austin's page, on current evidence, is a professional-haunt page, and its "legend" section below is labelled for what it actually is: the fiction its attractions stage.

The legend

This section is the attractions' own published fiction and marketing lore. It is labelled as such; none of it is presented as local folklore or as fact, because the collected sources do not support that framing.

House of Torment's 2026 season, per its own site, is built on licensed and original storylines. In "Jason Universe: Survive the Night," visitors come "face-to-face with Jason" — Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th franchise, in what the business calls "an officially licensed Jason Universe walkthrough haunted attraction." A second storyline strands visitors in "the ruins of site 505," where, in the site's telling, "mutated survivors, biomechanical zealots, feral alchemic horrors, and void-scarred abominations wage an endless war beneath poisoned skies." A third hides "an ancient cult" inside "the abandoned manor," guarding "a mysterious book whose pages bear no date, no language, and no sign of age" — a book that, the storyline says, was "not guiding them but recording them." These are scripts written for the season, and they are quoted as scripts.

Scream Hollow's published lore is of the same kind: its FAQ promises that across its buildings and forest, "if you want to experience what it feels like to be in a genuine horror movie then this is the ultimate experience." That is a showman's claim about a staged production, and it is reported here as one.

What the sources do not contain is an Austin ghost legend attached to either site — no named spirit, no reported haunting of either property, no local tale the operators themselves retell. If Austin has such legends, they were not in the material collected for this page, and Hountix does not fill the silence by inventing one.

Haunted today

Hountix lists 14 places in Austin, TX. Seasonal attractions keep their own open dates, so check each business's own site before you go.

• Austin Panic Room Horror Chamber — horror escape room, 1700 S Lamar Blvd Suite 327, Austin, TX 78704
• Fatal Fear Haunted House — haunted house, 15701 La Hacienda Dr, Austin, TX 78734
• Ghost & Murder Austin — ghost tour, 922 W 12th St, Austin, TX 78703
• Haunted ATX Austin Ghost Tours — ghost tour, 2336 S Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78704
• House of Torment — haunted house, 2632 Ridgepoint Dr, Austin, TX 78754
• Littlefield House — haunted place, 302 W 24th St, Austin, TX 78705
• Neill-Cochran House Museum — haunted place, 2310 San Gabriel St, Austin, TX 78705
• Nightly Spirits — ghost tour, Tour meets inside El Cockfight, 121 E 5th St., Austin, TX 78701
• Oakwood Cemetery — haunted place, 1601 Navasota St, Austin, TX 78702
• Paramount Theatre — haunted place, 713 Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78701
• Scream Hollow Wicked Halloween Park — scream park, 149 Split Rail Ln, Smithville, TX 78957
• Texas State Capitol — haunted place, 1100 Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78701
• The Driskill — haunted place, 604 Brazos St, Austin, TX 78701
• The REAL Austin Ghost Tours — ghost tour, 303 Red River St, Austin, TX 78701

Attraction stories

House of Torment

Listed on Hountix as a haunted house, Austin, TX. Business site: houseoftorment.com — 2632 Ridgepoint Dr, Austin, TX 78754.

House of Torment's own site introduces it as "the world-famous House of Torment Haunted House, Austin's legendary Halloween event," under a Travel Channel billing it quotes in capitals: "THE SCARIEST HAUNTED HOUSE IN AMERICA." For 2026, the business leads with an officially licensed attraction: in "Jason Universe: Survive the Night," the site says, visitors finally come "face-to-face with Jason" — Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th franchise, who "has stabbed his way through your nightmares for years." The site's pitch is pure pursuit: "When his mask emerges from the darkness, he's close enough to count every crack and scratch. You can't outsmart him. And there's nowhere to hide."

Two further 2026 storylines are described on the homepage. One is set in "the ruins of site 505," "a wasteland for the forgotten," where mutated survivors, biomechanical zealots, feral alchemic horrors and void-scarred abominations fight "beneath poisoned skies" in "a world where extinction was postponed, not avoided." The other is set in "the abandoned manor," where "an ancient cult guards a mysterious book whose pages bear no date, no language, and no sign of age," its symbols bleeding onto the paper each time it is opened, while "a silent figure watches from the darkness, waiting for the final page to be written." All three are the business's own published premises — fiction written for the season, and presented here as the attraction describes it, not as lore about the property. The site publishes no haunting claim about its own building.

The visit facts are equally specific. The season runs "select nights Sept. 12 – Nov. 8," tickets are online only and "start at only $19.99." Add-ons on the homepage include a VIP Jason experience — "Panic. Slash. Strike. Stalk." — axe throwing, five-minute mini escape games, a "GellyBall" zombie simulation, a sensory-overload experience, a 21+ secret bar, and a Respawn Pass to run all three attractions again. The business warns the event "may be too intense for children 12 & under," and minors 15 and younger must be accompanied by an adult. It is presented by Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group, "the world's largest Halloween-themed entertainment company, with over 15 locations."

Scream Hollow Wicked Halloween Park — Smithville

Listed on Hountix under Austin as a scream park. The business is located in Smithville, TX: 149 Split Rail Lane, Smithville, TX 78957 — in the lost pines area of Bastrop County, just south of Bastrop, per its own FAQ.

Scream Hollow's own site bills it as "Austin's Halloween Experience," and the scale is the story. The homepage promises "5 Distinct Attractions – Live Music – Beer & Wine – Halloween Museum – Beer Garden – Food – Bonfires – Gift Shops," and guarantees: "we guarantee Scream Hollow will terrify you." The FAQ fills in the geography: the haunted houses are "interactive and extremely scary," built across roughly 20 buildings in "a 20 acre dense forest isolated and removed from the safety of civilization," with outdoor stretches on "dimly lit forest paths between buildings." Each haunted house takes approximately 10–12 minutes, groups are limited to six people, and the FAQ warns that "this is a much scarier experience than anything you could experience in a strip mall or commercial building in the city." The event is a no-contact experience — "if you don't touch our actors they won't touch you."

The business also publishes its own lineage, and it is the closest thing Per its FAQ, Scream Hollow took "what started as the Mansion of Terror haunted house, which was featured annually on the Travel Channel and placed #1 haunted house in the Nation by Lions Gate Films, and created something next generation that is truly spectacular." That is the operator's account of its own pedigree, quoted as such. Its published premises are staged fiction — the site sells the feeling of being "in a genuine horror movie" — and it publishes no ghost legend about its own woods.

Practical facts from the FAQ and homepage: the address is 149 Split Rail Lane, Smithville, TX 78957, phone (512) 710-8267 — "710-VAMP." The attractions are recommended for ages 12 and up, children 12 and under must be accompanied by an adult, and everyone needs a ticket. Parking is free, the park stays open if it rains, wait times are aimed at under 30 minutes with the season's last two Saturday nights the busiest, and closed-toed shoes are advised for the terrain between buildings.

Sources

• House of Torment — business site (homepage text: 2026 attractions, season dates, ticket price, address, add-ons, presenter): https://houseoftorment.com
• Scream Hollow Wicked Halloween Park — business site (homepage + FAQ text: attractions, lineage from Mansion of Terror, address, phone, visitor rules): https://screamhollow.com and https://screamhollow.com/faq/
• Austin Panic Room — business site (fetched in this pass; returned no readable text): https://texaspanicroom.com
• House of Torment — reference lead in the research brief (not relied on for any claim above; the business's own site supplied every fact used): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Torment
• The Grove (Jefferson, Texas) — reference lead in the research brief, noted in the city story as a Texas lead that is not an Austin source and was not used as one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grove_%28Jefferson%2C_Texas%29