Hauntville

Overview

Ghosts and ghouls of Melbourne, you're about to come up against some tough competition. This October, for the first time ever, a festival dedicated to all things truly scary is popping up in your city. Across two terrifying weekends, you can wander through haunted houses, drink around bubbling witches' cauldrons, get your thrills in spooky games and run into spine-chilling performers.

At the festival's dark heart will be two haunted houses. We're not talking about the mild kind that might've rolled into the local fairground when you were a kid. We're talking epic, high adrenaline, immersive experiences, akin to stepping inside the scariest of horror movies. In Cirque du Slay, you'll find yourself surrounded by a troupe of crazy clowns and twisted creatures, while, in Yarra River Coffinworks, you'll enter a damp, dusty, coffin factory, infested with spiders, rats, snakes and, we're thinking, plenty more to make your skin crawl. Yep — this is not for the faint of heart.

To take a break from such extreme horrors, explore the festival grounds and snack at food stalls. Also stop by at the Fright Night Bar, where you can sip on 'spooky' sangria and pumpkin ale. The Halloween Carnival will be offering creepy games, and you can listen to a live ghost story over at the Haunted Graveyard. Wherever you wander, don't turn your back: zombies, freaks and scary circus performers will take any opportunity to catch you unawares. We recommend rounding up a big group to visit with — safety in numbers and all that.

Hauntville is set to take over Burnley Circus Park, Hawthorn, from October 19–28, opening on Fridays and Saturdays, 4pm-11pm and Sundays, 4pm-10pm. Entry is free, but you'll need tickets for the haunted houses, which you can pre-purchase online.