EDIT: Be careful. This is a breeding ground for Covid. Both my GF and I contracted covid from this extremely crowded event.

The definitive review!

My girlfriend and I seek out NYC area haunts every October and with quite a few haunted events under our belt (including the notable Headless Horseman in NY State), we finally had the opportunity to try Halloween Nights.

Halloween Nights come with much controversy. Pouring over hundreds of reviews, I discovered that post-COVID, the event has been getting a lot of hate for not being as good as it once was. There was a Terror Behind The Walls feature removed and a good majority of reviewers say the event has gone downhill ever since. For that reason, take this review from the perspective of someone visiting the newest iteration and not having any background of the old.

We booked the event in July, the day online tickets became available. We took a gamble on paying $25 more (plus fees) for the VIP tickets and I'll let you know whether that was a good decision for us or not in a moment.

Our entry time was 6:30 pm on a Sunday in the middle of October. We ate dinner across the street and by the time we arrived at the Penitentiary entrance at 6:00, there was already a small line of 60 people lined up for general entry. A separate line for VIP Express Entry had also just formed, but we were among the first 10 people in that line. When we were let inside, the VIP people were given preference to entry (co-mingled with the general admission crowd), but that is where the express entry ends and that could be an issue. More on that in a moment.

The Penitentiary is an excellent backdrop for this event as it makes for a very eery and foreboding atmosphere. Approximately five haunted houses take you through the smoke-filled, cell-lined corridors of the historic prison. Each house has its own "theme" with amazingly dressed up sets, eerie colorful light patterns, strobing effects, pulsating music, stunning animatronics, and actors who jump out at every corner. One of our favorite houses was done completely in 3D (you wear provided 3D glasses) and the the outward effects were off-the-charts.

The VIP experience adds two free alcoholic drinks at two specified locations, one of which is Al Capone's cell, which made it worth the price for us. Normally, we would have had to pay for a separate tour to see his cell. Unfortunately, hard liquor drinks are only provided at one location, while the other is limited to beer and wine. Normally priced at $15, the complimentary hard liquor drinks are a rip-off for the small cup that you get.

One drawback of the VIP experience is that it does nothing to give you express access to the haunted attractions once inside and this brings me to the main problem surrounding this event: there are too many people. We were lucky. We got there when it opened and were able to move through the lines quickly. We did it all within an hour (or 90 minutes to sit and enjoy our drinks). By 8 pm, we thought we would revisit some of the attractions we did, and were shocked by the size of the snaked lines to get into them. Wait times had to be 30 minutes per attraction. And then, when we exited, the general admission line just to get into the event was wrapped around the outside Penitentiary.

Would we do this again? On the quality of the haunted houses alone, I would say, yes. I can only imagine how much better this was, pre-covid when they featured Terror Behind The Walls. However, the problem is crowd size. This is an extremely popular event and it attracts thousands every year. You can spend hours waiting to get inside the event, and then once inside, waiting in snaked lines to get into each attraction. It looks like people are moved as quickly as possible through it all, but it requires a lot of patience in waiting. Additionally, I agree with other criticisms that this has become an outdoor festival that pushes food and drink sales more than its haunted attractions.