The Winchester Mystery House is an American cultural icon. It’s what the city of San Jose is known for and really, built around. story of the house is about as scary and frightening as anything a writer can think up. However, this year, the Winchester Mystery House is turning into an undead hotel for September and October. They’re bringing the grounds and the house into the spooky season with their event Unhinged: Hotel. The story follows a charismatic man who opened up a hotel in the 1940s, the Hotel Bloomwood. You and your guests have run into car troubles for the night and have to stop at the hotel. What you find is a seemingly deserted hotel that’s actually filled to the brim with vampires. Not just vampires though, there are other spirits, monsters, and creepy characters hanging out in the hotel.

That’s the basic story that takes you through multiple floors of the Winchester Mystery House and onto the grounds surrounding the house. So unlike Halloween Horror Nights or Fright Fest, this isn’t multiple houses that you’re traipsing through. This is one single house that clocks in at about 30-45 minutes to walk through, depending on how fast or slow you go. As for pictures or videos of the inside of the house, no photography is allowed during the haunt inside the house, so all we can show is the outside areas. Winchester Mystery House Unhinged: Hotel runs from September 13th to November 2nd on select nights. You can check out the full schedule here.

The haunt starts on the ground floor as the manager introduces you to the hotel and the rules of the haunt. It’s a clever way to stay in universe while also giving the guests the rundown on instructions not to touch anything, and be aware of their surroundings. The Mystery House might be scary on its own, and haunts are fun, but you’re still walking through a historical landmark. From there, it’s an “elevator” ride up to the hotel’s ballroom, and the haunt really begins.

The path on the haunt takes you up and down throughout the house, including an area where they hand you hard hats because of pipes on the ceiling. I would really not recommend pre-gaming any alcoholic beverages before doing this haunt, between the low ceilings, and pretty windy pathways. That only adds to the intrigue of the haunt though, where every room and crevice could be a scare. The house is the star of the show and that’s how it should be.

I went through at just around sundown, when the sun was still shining a tiny bit outside, and it would have been a better experience going through when the sun was all the way down. There are lots of lights and environmental effects that work much better when its pitch dark outside. That’s not to say that it wasn’t a scary experience though. It was still pretty terrifying going through at dusk.

For people expecting a more extensive production, there are constraints around where and how they can put up pieces of the haunt inside the house. They can’t drill into the walls, move really anything, and they can’t hang objects from the ceiling. So it makes it harder for the house designers and writers to give you the scares. Luckily, they’ve figured it out here to bring a happy medium between haunts and the house. The house itself is already scary enough, with the stories of ghosts and other spirits occupying its grounds. So when you add to that the scary actors and sets in the house, it’s a masterful combination.

The constraints make it so a scare actor could feasibly occupy every room you pass by, and the ones that aren’t are dark, and your mind plays tricks, thinking that something could be lurking. Adding to that, the house has some cool environmental effects, like lasers, fog, and an ice tunnel. The story of vampires occupying the hotel was an excellent start, but it gets even better when all the other monsters are added to the equation. The head of the hotel has a collection of beasts, and they break free from their cages. I would have liked a bit more vampire-on-monster battles.

The scare actors throughout the house do a great job of immersing guests into the world as well. They talk to you, interact, and some (like the Sarah Winchester-looking ghost) follow you for a good bit of the route. The Chef asks if you want some of their gross cuisine, ballroom dancers ask if you’d like to join with them in the toxic waltz, etc.

Outside of the haunted route, there’s an outdoor area with scare actors, multiple bars, food, a gift shop, a Halloween museum, and a spooky-themed shooting gallery. These are pleasant distractions from the haunt and are suitable for all ages or people who might not want to get the crap scared out of them all the time. The bars have a nice mix of drinks, I got one of the blood bags, which was a nice treat. The food options are equally diverse, with some excellent options. The Halloween museum goes through a private collection that ranges from the early days of Halloween all the way up to the 90s and 00s with VHS tapes and Goosebumps books.

Winchester Mystery House Unhinged: Hotel exterior

If you’re in the Bay Area of California, or just want to take a spooky vacation, the Winchester Mystery House Unhinged: Hotel is one of the best haunt experiences you can go on. The haunt takes you through an already terrifying historical landmark and adds Halloween goodness to it. You can buy tickets right here for the Winchester Mystery House Unhinged: Hotel on select nights that run through November 2nd.

For more on Halloween, check out Fright-A-Thon, the Halloween article marathon.

Keep Reading:

Halloween Horror Nights 2024 Review – The Best Scares Ever [Fright-A-Thon]