The Most Iconic Haunted Locations in Fiction

The best haunted places in fiction are never just a backdrop. They are characters with moods, memories, and a hunger to keep their visitors. A crooked hallway, a hotel that closes for the winter, a foggy town that should not exist, and a house that seems to be watching you from the hill. Once a story gets the setting right, the monsters almost become optional.

That is why these locations have outlived the plots built around them. People who have never read the book or seen the movie still know the name of the hotel, the motel, the camp, or the mansion. Here are ten of the most iconic haunted locations in fiction, with the stories and creators that gave them their reputations, and a few of our own favorite reads along the way. If you are still figuring out which flavor of fear you like best, our beginner’s guide to every subgenre of horror is a good place to start.

Hill House From The Haunting of Hill House

Every modern haunted house story owes something to Hill House. Shirley Jackson published The Haunting of Hill House in 1959, and it was a finalist for the National Book Award. The setup is wonderfully simple. Dr. John Montague, an investigator of the supernatural, rents the mansion for a summer and invites guests who have had paranormal experiences. Only Eleanor Vance and Theodora accept, and the young heir Luke Sanderson joins them. The novel never says where the house actually sits, which makes it feel like it could be anywhere.

The story has been adapted several times. Robert Wise directed the faithful 1963 film The Haunting, a 1999 remake was widely panned, and Mike Flanagan’s 2018 Netflix series reimagined the story around a family called the Crains. Our review of that series, The Haunting of Hill House: Tears Before Fears, found it more heartbreaking than terrifying, which is a big part of why it connects. If you want to know the author behind the legend, we also took a look at Shirley Jackson, including how she drew on historical accounts of haunted houses.

The Overlook Hotel From The Shining

Stephen King’s third published novel, The Shining, arrived in 1977 and became his first hardcover bestseller. The Overlook Hotel is an isolated resort in the Colorado Rockies that closes for the winter, which is exactly when the story begins. King has said the idea came from a night he and his wife Tabitha spent at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, when they were nearly the only guests. He has also pointed to his own struggles with alcoholism as inspiration for Jack Torrance, and The Haunting of Hill House was one of the books that influenced him.

Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film turned the hotel into a pop culture landmark, even though King was disappointed by the adaptation. Decades later, Mike Flanagan’s 2019 film Doctor Sleep served as a direct sequel to the Kubrick film while drawing on King’s sequel novel, and King approved of it. The Overlook has plenty of company on our lists of classics, too. The Shining is one of the picks in our look at retro horror from the 80s.

The Bates Motel and House From Psycho

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho premiered in New York on June 16, 1960, and it forever changed what a roadside motel could mean. The film was based on Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel, which was loosely inspired by Wisconsin murderer Ed Gein. Anthony Perkins played Norman Bates, the shy motel proprietor who lives with a mother who cannot be ignored.

The house on the hill is as famous as the motel. Its look was modeled on Edward Hopper’s painting House by the Railroad, and the original exteriors still stand on the Universal Studios backlot in California, where they have long been a stop on the studio tour. The story has also stretched far beyond the original film. We followed the A&E series Bates Motel through its final season in Bates Motel: Final Season Scoop, proof that the little motel with the big secret keeps finding new guests. And if you like visiting famous sets, our list of real life places you can visit from movies and TV includes another iconic horror house, the Murder House from American Horror Story.

Camp Crystal Lake From Friday the 13th

Summer camps are supposed to be safe, which is exactly why Camp Crystal Lake works so well. Sean S. Cunningham directed Friday the 13th, which hit theaters on May 9, 1980, on a tiny budget of an estimated $550,000 to $650,000 and went on to earn about $59.8 million worldwide. The story begins with a prologue in 1958 and then jumps to Friday, June 13, 1979, when a group of counselors arrives to reopen a camp with a troubled history. A young boy had drowned in the lake in 1957, and the locals are convinced the place is cursed.

The movie was shot at a working Boy Scout camp in Hardwick, New Jersey. That fact makes the setting feel even more ordinary, which helps. The franchise grew to include a dozen slasher films and eventually left the lake for places like Manhattan and outer space, but fans know the woods around Crystal Lake are where it all began. For a full tour, check out our ultimate Friday the 13th franchise guide, and for the rest of the camp genre, our list of movies that take place at summer camp covers the lighter side.

Elm Street From A Nightmare on Elm Street

Not every haunted location needs walls. On Elm Street, the haunted house is the place where you fall asleep. Wes Craven wrote the screenplay in 1981, drawing on his own nightmares and childhood bullying, and the low budget film from New Line Pictures arrived in 1984. Freddy Krueger turned the suburban street into a nightmare no lock could keep out, and Robert Englund spent decades defining the role.

The setting works because it takes the safest place in the world and gives it a rule. Staying awake is the only protection, and eventually everyone has to sleep. We celebrated the movie’s legacy when it turned 40 in Dream On: A Nightmare on Elm Street Turns 40, looking at the sequels, spinoffs, and the uncertain future of the series.

The Spencer Mansion From Resident Evil

Video games gave haunted houses a new kind of fear, because you cannot look away. Capcom released Resident Evil on March 22, 1996, in Japan and April 1, 1996, in North America. Director Shinji Mikami sent players into the Spencer Mansion, a former Umbrella research facility hidden in the fictional Arklay mountain region. Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, members of the Raccoon City Special Tactics and Rescue Service, known as S.T.A.R.S., take shelter there while hunting for missing teammates. It is a mansion full of locked doors, strange puzzles, and things that should not be walking around.

The game is credited with coining the term survival horror, and it sold about four million copies by December 1997. The series later returned to the mansion in a 2002 GameCube remake that added new environments and story details. Nintendo fans know the exclusive well, and we revisited that era in Nintendo Is Making a Horror Game Comeback.

Silent Hill

Some haunted places are whole towns. Konami released Silent Hill in North America on February 23, 1999. Team Silent developed it, with Keiichiro Toyama as director. Harry Mason searches for his missing adopted daughter, Cheryl, in the fictional American town of Silent Hill, where he discovers a cult trying to revive its deity.

The fog became the town’s signature. The developers used fog and darkness to hide the limits of the PlayStation hardware, and it ended up making the world feel more unsettling than any detailed environment could. When the town shifts into the Otherworld, a nightmarish reflection built from someone’s delusions, the fear becomes personal. A 2006 film directed by Christophe Gans, released on April 21, loosely adapted the story. Why do games like this hit so hard? We explored the answer in why horror games feel scarier than horror movies.

Bly Manor From The Haunting of Bly Manor

Henry James published The Turn of the Screw in 1898, and the story of a governess, two children, and a house with secrets has been retold ever since. Mike Flanagan brought it to Netflix as The Haunting of Bly Manor on October 9, 2020, mostly adapting James’s novella with elements from his other stories and some original material. The series follows a young American au pair, played by Victoria Pedretti as Dani Clayton, who arrives at a countryside manor in the United Kingdom to care for two children and discovers the house is haunted.

Bly is different from other haunted houses because its horror is built on grief and love as much as fear. Flanagan also directed Ouija: Origin of Evil, which we revisited in our Game of Nerds Movie Club pick, and the same emotional approach runs through his work. If you want more series with haunted settings, our list of five hauntingly good paranormal series has plenty to choose from.

The Haunted Mansion at Disney Parks

Not every haunted house wants to scare you. Disney’s Haunted Mansion opened at Disneyland in August 1969, and it set the standard for ghosts with personality. Marc Davis and Claude Coats were two of its main designers, with Davis favoring comedy and Coats leaning toward scares. X Atencio combined their visions and wrote the lyrics for the theme song, while Yale Gracey and Rolly Crump created the illusions. Paul Frees voiced the Ghost Host.

One of its best stories involves the Hatbox Ghost, who was part of the ride at its 1969 opening but removed because his head illusion did not work well enough. He returned to Disneyland on May 9, 2015. The attraction has inspired two films, a 2003 comedy directed by Rob Minkoff and starring Eddie Murphy, released November 26, 2003, and a 2023 version directed by Justin Simien, released July 28, 2023. For more haunted fun for younger viewers, our list of Halloween and horror movies for kids under 13 is a good next stop.

The Maitland House From Beetlejuice

Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, released March 30, 1988, flipped the haunted house story by making the ghosts the homeowners. Adam and Barbara Maitland are a recently deceased couple trapped in their house in Winter River, Connecticut, and they hire a so called bio exorcist to drive out the new owners, the Deetz family. The result is a haunted house comedy that leans into the afterlife with sandworms, waiting rooms, and a model town.

Winter River is fictional. Outdoor scenes were shot in East Corinth, a village in Vermont, while the interiors were filmed at The Culver Studios in Culver City, California. The film won the Academy Award for Best Makeup, and the 2024 sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, brought back Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara on September 6, 2024. We celebrated the original in Jump in the Line for Beetlejuice’s 35th Anniversary, talked about the follow up in Beetlejuice 2: The Juice Is Loose, and looked back at that time Beetlejuice had his own TV show. And if you prefer your haunted houses with a witchy twist, our Hocus Pocus review covers the Sanderson sisters.

What Makes a Haunted Location Iconic

Look across this list and a few patterns appear. The best haunted places are isolated, whether by snow, fog, or a locked gate. They have a history that the characters cannot escape, like the drowning at Crystal Lake or the secrets in Bly Manor. And they have a personality. The Overlook is hungry, Silent Hill is grieving, the Haunted Mansion is a party, and Hill House simply wants to keep what it has.

That is why these places last. They give a story somewhere to live, and they give audiences somewhere to return. Some of them even have real world cousins, which we looked at in our roundup of the top five most scaring films based on real events. If you are just starting out in horror, our beginner’s guide to the best horror movies is the perfect companion.

Which fictional haunted location would you never set foot in, and which one would you move into tomorrow? Let us know in the comments.