1. Dent School House

    1. Dent School House

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    Cincinnati, OH

    Dent School House

    3.7 (55 reviews)
    Closed Closed
    Updated 3 months ago

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    Outside area
    Jane G.

    Super fun place to go if you want to be mildly-to-very scared by clowns with chainsaws, zombies, and a fantastic maze of horrifying haunts. Great for teens and up around Halloween!

    Stephanie A.

    Great haunted house!!! My husband and I were very impressed! The special effects were incredible and the costumes/makeup were extremely realistic! In many cases, we could not decipher between a real person and a figurine. It was amazing!! It is a bit expensive, but for a once a year thing we were willing to spend the money. For regular admission tickets, the line was VERY long. Those people had to have waited for about an hour. We splurged on the fast pass tickets and waited about 20 minutes, which was the perfect amount of time to have some spooky characters walk up to us in line and get our anticipation going and hearts racing a bit - exactly what we wanted before going in! They also offer "front of the line" tickets which were even more expensive and I did not think those were necessary. After experiencing it, I would do the fast pass tickets again. If you're looking for a haunted house in the Cincy area, I highly recommend Dent School House!

    Dent
    Dianna B.

    I was lucky to catch an off season showing of this haunt because they opened for the Midwestern Haunter's Convention. I've seen the Dent School house on the travel channel before, and though this was a lights up tour, I understand why they talk about it. Other than some minor safety concerns, this place is AWESOME. The attention to detail is here, the new areas are going to be amazing, and over all, they REALLY put a lot into their scare... PLUS the building is actually haunted. What more could you ask for? I'd love to see this up and running, but alas, I'm ALWAYS busy during haunt season.

    Dent Schoolhouse
    Tabitha W.

    This is considered Cincinnati's scariest haunted attraction, and it has received a number of awards, including the #1 spot on Buzzfeed's list of 19 Insane Haunted Houses and it's been featured on the Travel Channel, HGTV, and the Huffington Post. The Dent Schoolhouse was built in 1894. Several of the School's students began disappearing between 1942-1952 and people started noticing an odd smell coming from the basement. Charlie McFree, the School's janitor, convinced everyone that it was just backed up pipes. In 1955, 7 more children disappeared, and the smell in the basement started again. A mob formed and broke into the basement, where they found the rotting corpses of the missing students. No one was able to find Charlie the Janitor. Now the school is haunted by the ghosts of the murdered children, and Charlie's still looking for more victims. Or so the legend goes... We headed over to the Dent Schoolhouse on a Friday night around 8:30, and the line was fairly lengthy. We probably had about an hour wait. They had a couple of screens up with videos playing, so that helped to pass the time in line. Plus, there were characters walking around to interact with the crowd. After the "first" line, you take a group photo with whomever you're visiting with and then move through the next part of the line, which is built around the Fall Festival theme. So, an hour or so worth of waiting later, was it worth it? For me...well, I'm glad we finally made it to this star attraction, but I doubt I'd ever spend the time to go again. I think haunted attractions like these boil down to what you make of your time there. Do you like to be scared and want to milk every moment of it? Then you'll probably love it. I'm not an easy scare - although there was one spot inside the schoolhouse that made me give a short yell. Let's just say that some of the actors come at you from unexpected angles. The couple behind us was terrified. In fact, the guy was literally gripping the back of my jacket through much of the school. This place makes use of a lot of the classic horror house elements, including that dreaded chain saw. At this point, I barely even glance up. After you exit the school, there is a maze out back to go through. There are also a handful of port-a-potties. Hearing maze, I thought we'd be lost for a while, so I decided to make use of the bathrooms first. It took us all of five minutes to "find our way out of the maze", so I probably would've been okay. In summary, if you love to be scared and want to check out a decent haunted attraction, go for it! If you're a bit jaded like me, this probably isn't going to give you much of a scare, but you might still have fun checking it out!

    Rachel R.

    So as far as Haunted Houses go... this one is killer :) I don't know about everyone else, but I love a good Haunted House with a story, an actually haunted house. The actors here really have a passion for what they do. They go all out and love every minute of it. There are drop boxes and hidden panels in walls and bookshelves and ceilings and who knows what else! You never know where someone's going to pop out at you! They're anamatronics are pretty spectacular as well. This place is not for the faint of heart, especially if you know the back story to this place. It really is creepy... but well worth the money.

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    11 years ago

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    10 years ago

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    8 years ago

    One of the better haunted houses I have been to on the east coast. Dent has good special effects, a solid theme, well spaced out scares.

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    14 years ago

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    9 years ago

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    6 years ago

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    11 years ago

    Very much less than mediocre. They boast 60+ actors. I would probably say 30 at best.

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    12 years ago

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    12 years ago

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    8 years ago

    Long lines. Low energy. Constantly running into groups. Even if you go in September, it's still the same case. Extremely disappointing.

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    15 years ago

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    11 years ago

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    7 years ago

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    12 years ago

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    12 years ago

    I live over by the dent school house and I went for the first time in 2013 and it was fun. I was in a big group and we had a ton of fun!

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    Page 2 of 2

    Ask the Community - Dent School House

    Review Highlights - Dent School House

    Price: $20 regular / $30 fast pass / Parking is $2 right across the street - The extra $10 for a fast pass is a MUST!

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    Nightmare Manor

    Nightmare Manor

    4.2
    (13 reviews)
    25.9 mi

    Boo. Yes. Well,…read morethat about sums it up because the first rule about Nightmare Manor is that you don't talk about Nightmare Manor. The second rule is "see rule number one". I'll do it like this: Is it scary? If that's what you like and you get scared, then yes. It is. If you're not easily scared and you like haunted houses for what they are, you will have a great time. Is the decor good? it is fantastic. Are the people good? Absolutely. They do a phenomenal job. Make up and costumes are great. How cool of a job would that be?!?!? Is it worth the money? Absolutely. If I remember correctly, it does take 15 to 20 minutes to get through it. They do space people out so you're not shoved up against, or being shoved by, a bunch of strangers. Would I go back? Totally. This is great fun every year. I'd suggest getting there early though. The line, although it moves steady, can get long and the wait can be quite long. Can't tell you how long because we always try to get there as early as possible. I would not say that this is exactly an "accessible" place for wheelchairs, scooters, etc. I could be wrong, but I know there would be some challenging areas for those types of accessibility aides.

    This House is awesome! The decorations are of high quality and realistic. There are more rooms…read morethan I can count and they are all well themed. The actors are really good and costumes are amazing. There is an outdoor trail portion that adds a lot to the overall appeal. I would highly recommend!

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    This is how they treat their

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    This is how they treat their
    The Haunted Hotel

    The Haunted Hotel

    4.0
    (28 reviews)
    90.3 mi

    Very scared , it's amazing . The actors are so cool…read more ............ I recommend you this place

    For our first haunted house, and especially being one of the very few open during the Covid-19…read morepandemic, my friend and I were very excited to visit the Haunted Hotel. Firstly, I'd like to commend the staff on a few things. There were attendees outside who were enforcing the six foot rule, were making sure people were wearing protective masks, and were keeping the line lively with costumed actors chasing people around. It set a great atmosphere that showed you what to prepare for inside, that it would be both safe and unsettling. The interior of the haunt was tremendous, as each room and even the transition spaces were decorated well. A variation of atmospheres made for an exciting journey through what felt like an endless maze. Where Haunted Hotel really lost myself, my friend, and our teenage accomplices is the actors. Several actors only stood motionless, staring "creepily" as we passed by. Not intimidating or scary at all. A few that were great included the first actor, who introduces you, the man in the elevator, and the girl in the church. One girl at the bottom of the stairs tried and performed well, but beyond them, a lot of people were either ill-prepared to scare people or simply pointed and said "that way" to guide us out. One girl, dressed as the nun from the Conjuring series only said "hurry the f*ck up" as we passed, not doing anything to scare us. As we were leaving, prepared for the inevitable chainsaw chase-out, the actor was smoking and we startled him as we entered the room. Not the best thing to see to leave a lasting impression. Overall, you can tell the love that was put into the building as the sets were phenomenal. For most of the actors though, a scare class is needed. What I will compliment the business on is that each actor had a mask that was compliant with the restrictions. Sadly though, after spending $25 to enter and then waiting in line for two hours, my high excitement was deflated rather quickly. Here's hoping they improve as the season continues.

    Photos
    Courtesy of Life Of The Party Entertainment
    Courtesy of Life Of The Party Entertainment
    From website
    From website
    The faccade

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    The faccade
    USS Nightmare

    USS Nightmare

    3.6
    (45 reviews)
    9.7 mi

    The USS Nightmare…read more The USS Nightmare is not your traditional haunted house. It is immersive storytelling on a boat. To be quite honest I didn't expect much from this attraction based on the outward appearance of the boat and the lack of advertising, so I was pleasantly surprised. My husband and I opted for the RIP experience, therefore we had additional scenes and a more hands-on experience than the standard ticketed guest. I highly recommend doing RIP. We were given a flashing necklace and were directed to a special queue line. We were our own group to start, however about halfway through the attraction the actors put us together with a larger group of teenage girls. The story is basically that the boat had a terrible accident and those aboard are lost spirits. I really enjoyed the way in which characters would introduce us to future characters through story and requesting we complete certain tasks when we meet them. It was fun anticipating what the Captain and Ana would be like based on the little info we had received. We did our best to complete tasks such as asking the clown a question, giving an object to Ana, however we realized after we left that we completely forgot to tell the captain something we were supposed to. It makes me wonder if that would've given us a different experience or made no difference at all. We did notice we were covered in clown weave by the time we finished and not sure if that was something we did or random. The path was interesting starting with an intense elevator ride and taking us throughout the boat. I loved the use of maze elements. I found the repetition fun throughout the walk and felt it must represent being stuck in a loop as some hauntings appear to be. The decor on the boat was good. The props and effects were well suited for the story for the most part. The make-up and costumes were fine. There were a few really fun effects, that although I've seen them used in other haunts, still caught me off guard since I didn't expect to see them on a boat. The actors worked very hard to give a great performance. Some were more gifted than others when it came to interaction and improvisation, but they all seemed to know their characters well. I found the clown with the large weapon to be just incredible, as well as the actor at the beginning and the elevator operator. Some of the characters had to interact with the audience more than others, such as getting us to eat and drink things or reach into buckets to fish out objects with our hands. They did a great job as a cast. Overall USS Nightmare is a fun immersive theatre piece. I wouldn't call it a standard walkthrough haunted house if you upgrade to the RIP Experience, I can't speak to regular admission.

    We had a lot of fun. It's immersive and can get hands-on but the actors are pretty respectful and…read moredidn't cross any boundaries. Well worth the money on RIP and fast pass. The separate pull away rooms for RIP made it worth it. Also, if you are a person who is going to leave a bad review because of the lines, then buy a fast pass. Not that expensive and worth it. All in all, they put on a good show. Highly recommend.

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    USS Nightmare
    The view of cincy from the boat
    The view of cincy from the boat
    USS Nightmare

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    Dent School House - hauntedhouses - Updated July 2026

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