Texas Haunts – Haunted House And Halloween News and Reviews

Screams Halloween Theme Park will open on October 1, for the first time since 2019. No details are available yet, but it’s likely that the park will open at 7:30pm and will remain open to 1:30am, every Friday and Saturday in October. Five major haunted attractions should return, along with several smaller attractions, the Full Moon Cafe, Taboo Tavern, Scaryoke, live music on the main stage, a food court, games, and merchants.

I haven’t seen Screams in two years, so I’ll be there on opening weekend. If we’re lucky, it will be business as usual everywhere by October and we can have a normal Haloween season!

Spirit has announced most of it’s store locations for 2021, although more locations will be added over the next month or so. Click here for the store locater.

Also, Michael’s and At Home (Gardenridge) are beginning to stock Halloween merchandise. I usually wait until the second to the last Saturday of July to check out those stores. By that time, Michael’s has most of it’s Lemax display in place, and Gardenridge has more than half of it’s Halloween displays out. July 24 is the beginning of my Halloween preseason this year.

Update July 24: Michael’s has yet to stock Halloween merchandise. They probably won’t have any out until early August.

It looks like things are returning to normal, so the outlook for the 2021 Halloween season is bright. I was surprised by how many haunted attractions opened last year, and it looks like the rest will reopen this year. I expect that Halloween parties and movie theaters will be back to normal in 2021 as well. The new Halloween movie, which had been scheduled for last year, will be out in October. There may be some mask requirements, but I’m thinking that most places will allow vaccinated people to not wear masks, and will use the honor system for that.

Halloween is on a Sunday this year, which is my favorite night for Halloween. Halloween on Saturday is great, but with Sunday, you get to celebrate all weekend long. Haunted house opening dates and the statewide listings will be updated in late July. The first haunted attractions of the year will be opening in mid September, so hopefully we can all make up for last year’s hamstrung season!