Kings Island Halloween Haunt 2025 – All 7 Haunted Mazes Ranked

On Saturday (October 18) I had the pleasure of visiting Kings Island Halloween Haunt. I’ve been going to the event almost every year since 2018, and each time there’s something new to check out. The park always develops various new experiences to go alongside their old haunts. This time, I’m going to compare each haunted maze and see how they stack up. With one exception we’ll get to shortly, there’s going to be no mention of the scare zones, as those aren’t traditional “haunted house/maze” experiences.

Also, the park was one of four Six Flags/Cedar Fair parks to debut The Conjuring: Beyond Fear attraction. This is being billed as an “interactive” experience and is an up-charge walkthrough that is NOT included in the regular Haunted Maze access. Therefore, Kings Island isn’t considering it to be a true “haunted maze,” instead thinking of it as a next-level experience. I understand that, but in my opinion The Conjuring: Beyond Fear has far more in common with the other mazes than the park would have you believe. It’s a really neat addition to the park, but (spoilers) I wouldn’t even call it the best haunted maze at the park.

Anyway, let’s kick of the list with something that’s not technically a maze, but I still think is worth noting:

Honorable Mention: Farmers Market in Pumpkin Eater Scare Zone

I didn’t see this advertised anywhere, but the Pumpkin Eater Scare Zone had a mini haunted maze called Farmers Market. It isn’t nearly as long as the other mazes–only lasting about 2 minutes if you walk at a normal pace–but it’s a cool idea to add a tucked-away walkthrough in this area. It’s just themed in-line with the rest of the scare zone, being an area where these odd pumpkin creatures roam around, but it adds to a bit of the lore that the scare zone is a “town” taken over by the stilt-walking Pumpkin Eater creature and his demons. Perhaps since they’re vegetables with their own farmers market, they sell parts of humans there? Ew. I don’t want to think about that anymore.

7. Cornered – Located in Action Zone

Cornered is the only one that I have a hard time remembering well. The premise is that you’re walking through a corn field avoiding some alien-looking farmers, but it doesn’t feel like they go the full way with it. I expected a bit more of a “corn maze feel,” but that never really happened. It’s just mostly one path, and at some point it’s kind of implied the farmers aren’t actually human, which makes me think they’re aliens. Regardless, it’s not clear, and I wish there was a bit more of a story in it. Also, there’s not really a lot of noise in the maze. That might sound eerie, but it just leaves the maze feeling a bit empty–like it’s missing something. It’s not a bad maze, and there’s some decent scares in there, but it’s definitely the weakest of the seven.

6. Killmart – Located in Coney Mall

Killmart is a classic, but it wasn’t nearly as good as I remembered it being a few years ago. Since I started going to Kings Island Haunt in 2018, this always stuck out to me as a unique premise for a haunted maze. The idea that there’s a grocery store that you have to walk through during an apocalypse is so interesting. Still, I remember it being a more “cohesive” experience. Instead, it’s just walking through a lot of empty aisles with gore everywhere and a few scare actors jumping out at you. Luckily, there’s a cool effect with a car seeming like it’s going to drive at you. It definitely feels like a real grocery store though. I mean the fact that you exit by the check-outs is great. There’s also a nice amount of humor to this one; the actors are always cracking jokes like the scariest thing being “their high prices.” It balances out with the extreme levels of gore very well.

5. Alien Abyss – Located in Area 72

I expected to like this one a lot more, but it’s still a solid maze. Alien Abyss definitely still feels pretty new, as it has a neat (albeit short) video pre-show where a commander of an alien research base alerts you that there’s been an accident and thus, your base tour is canceled. You then have to rush out of the maze and try to avoid any aliens. It definitely pulls a lot of influence from the Alien franchise, but that’s not really a bad thing. However, the one thing I really disliked about this one was the excess strobe effects towards the end and the section that was completely pitch-black. I know that they were trying to use those effects to add to the chaotic feeling of the base’s crew being murdered by aliens, but as someone who is bothered by flashing lights, this gave me a pretty bad headache. I think they could’ve conveyed the same “stressful” environment with just a slower flashing red “alarm” light. The pitch-black section doesn’t bother me, but I also feel like it’s a bit of wasted space. Like when you hear someone say “touch the left side of the wall” you know you’re not actually going to get lost or take a wrong turn in the darkness, so to me it just feels like a lazy excuse to not have set-pieces in the section. I know those were two larger complaints, but other than that the theming was spot-on and the costuming was really good.

4. Slaughter House – Located in Rivertown

Similarly to Killmart, the Slaughterhouse maze is one of those classic Kings Island walkthroughs that I think of when Haunt is brought up. It’s a pretty standard “gory butcher shop” theme, with all sorts of fake animal and human meat hanging up around you. While it’s not anything outstanding, there’s quite a few well-developed set-pieces that could make you a bit nauseous if you look at them for too long. Also, the scare actors in here are probably the most intense out of the whole park–at least during the day I was there. There was a character crawling on all fours at us towards the exit, and he continued to follow us out until we had basically made it back to the park path. Now that’s some dedication to scaring.

3. Hotel St. Michelle – Located in Coney Mall

I didn’t expect much from this one, when walking up to it. It takes place at the back of the park in some old performance venue near Wind Seeker. If I’m being honest, I didn’t even know there was it was back there. We actually almost completely missed Hotel St. Michelle, and it was the last one we needed to do. Overall, this was actually a really neat idea for a haunted maze though. I’d say it’s the least traditionally “scary,” but it still has an eerie, haunted feel to it. The maze uses that 1950s-style hotel theme that The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney’s Hollywood Studios uses. Of course, Disney executes it way better, but Kings Island still makes it work, and for most of the walkthrough you actually feel like you’re in a haunted hotel. There’s this one section where you’re walking through a long hallway with hotel rooms, and it feels like someone could pop out of them at any moment. There’s also a lot of space for the actors to crawl above you, which allows for some pretty creative scares. Even the exit reminded me of the Tower of Terror gift shop, being a check-in/check-out area for the hotel. Overall, this is a super neat theme that could be the best if they made it a little longer and maybe gave it a more concrete storyline–because right now it’s just “past guests are wandering the hotel ruins.” Which is cool, but could be even better.

2. The Conjuring: Beyond Fear – Located in Rivertown

So this is the controversial placement. I love the Conjuring franchise–it’s probably my favorite horror franchise to be honest. I love the idea of real-life paranormal investigators collecting haunted objects, each with a story of there own. And to hear this was an interactive experience where you’d have to grab different objects, talk to the actors and crawl around or hide in different spaces was awesome. The Conjuring: Beyond Fear executes on almost all of this, but I feel like most of it could’ve been a bit better. On a positive note, all the set-pieces were spectacular. It really did feel like we were traveling to different parts from the movies, and the near 20-minute runtime allowed us to see so much. Nearly all the “important” demons from the series appeared, and it was cool to see some lesser appreciated ones like the…coin-eye guy (I don’t know his name). Even the newest movie that came out in September 2025 got some scenes, with the serial killer guy walking through the room, forcing us to hide around it. I ended up behind a curtain half peeking out like this:

But this maze does have some serious problems. For one, the walkthrough doesn’t feel that much more in-depth than the other mazes. Especially compared to the number one we’ll get to in a bit–that walkthrough felt even a bit more themed and technologically advanced than The Conjuring. Also, the actors just didn’t seem nearly as into it as the other mazes? Maybe it’s just because they had to play specific characters–I could imagine that being stressful–but for an experience advertising intense scares with monsters that can actually touch you, I was kind of expecting them to go all-out. Also, they send you in the maze in groups of 10, and that honestly felt like too many people? Like they have about 7 or 8 interactive parts, so almost everyone gets to actually touch something or grab a haunted artifact. Not everyone does though, and I kind of feel like they should either be incredibly stingy with it (only one or two people get to grab things to make it extra special) or have 10 interactive sections for each area. Maybe there were supposed to be more, and some effects just weren’t working properly. I mean, we didn’t even end up crawling under the armoire from the first film like you’re supposed to anyways. So it didn’t seem like everything was operating at 100%. Maybe this truly is the “Rise of the Resistance” of theme park haunted mazes, and it’s a rare occurrence for everything to go off without a hitch. I do really hope they keep it around next year and continue to improve upon it though, since I think if they iron out a lot of those kinks, it could be a perfect haunted maze and truly deserve the “screamium” moniker they’ve given it.

1. Order of the Dragon – Located in Action Zone

So if Conjuring isn’t at the top, then what is? Well, I’d place Order of the Dragon there, which is the only brand-new “traditional” maze for 2025. For starters, the premise written on Kings Island’s website sounds pretty dumb. It’s essentially walking through a Vampire King’s catacombs, but he also seems to worship a dragon? The story and blend of theming isn’t 100% obvious, and it’s made even more vague by this odd outdoor section you have to wander through before you get to the entrance of the catacombs:

There was a scare actor that managed to jump out from behind one though and actually freak me out, which is a rarity these days, so I appreciate that. But then you get to this incredibly detailed and ominous catacomb entrance, and everything picks up from here:

Once you walk in, you’re greeted by a dining hall with a long table. The Vampire King sits at the end of it, and it reminded my girlfriend and I SO much of the Nosferatu movie from 2024. After some loud vocals booming over the room, he actually lunges at you and flies over the table, thanks to a neat hoist mechanic. You actually get to walk around this dining hall twice, so you can get a really good look at the vampire as he tries to get you. From there, it’s a blur of rooms with all sorts of cool theming, such as various victims that are ripped apart or fuzzy, large vampire bats hanging from the ceiling. The maze culminates with an appearance from the aforementioned dragon, who’s giant head bursts out as if it’s trying to eat you. It just felt so technologically advanced for a simple haunted maze, and the energy of the scare actors combined with it’s detailed, gothic set-pieces and unique theme easily place it at number one for me. If I had the option to do any of the mazes for a second time, I would definitely pick this one just so I could take in my surroundings even more.

What do you think of this ranking? Do you love it? Hate it? How would you rank it? Let me know down in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

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