Amusement Park of Doom

The Joker: Well, it's garish, ugly, and derelicts have used it for a toilet. The rides are dilapidated to the point of being lethal, and could easily maim or kill innocent little children.
Estate Agent: Oh. So you don't like it?

The Joker: Don't like it? I'm crazy for it.
—Batman: The Killing Joke

An Amusement Park without the amusement, unless you are amused by Everything Trying to Kill You. Maybe the place has been abandoned for years, everything covered in filth and on the verge of falling apart. The rides are old, rusty, and creak eerily in the wind; If they still function at all they are horrifying deathtraps. Or maybe the park merely has been... refurbished by a new owner or owners; the place seems quite normal until the roller coaster brakes fail and the monster house turns out to be filled with lethal traps or real monsters... or both. Whatever the case, there is something unspeakably wrong with that amusement park, except of course if you happen to be a Monster Clown or some other variety of Eldritch Abomination, in which case you can go right ahead and make yourself at home.

Truth in Television to an extent, since abandoned fun parks are eerie on a level usually reserved for abandoned hospitals and asylums and likewise suggest a terrible or supernatural presence lurking in wait for the unwary. Compare Circus of Fear. Contrast Crappy Carnival, which might still be creepy, but the only thing that's dangerous is the food. May have started life as Souvenir Land before it went deadly.

Examples of Amusement Park of Doom include:

Anime & Manga

  • In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Kaiba puts Yugi and his friends through "Death-T", a section of his "Kaibaland" amusement arcade laden with deathtraps, as revenge for the Penalty Game Kaiba was put through in his first appearance. The threats include a game of laser tag against hired mercenaries where the opponents shoot guns that give fatal electric shocks, a booby-trapped haunted house with a Serial Killer running around, and a sealed pit where giant Tetris-like blocks fall from the ceiling.
  • In book 8 of the Gunnm manga, the final lair of Desty Nova, Granite Inn, looks like an amusement park, but of the nightmarish kind. The attractions, constituted by his experiments, are alive—for example, the horses of the roundabout are real horses, pinned by the metal poles going through their bodies, but still living.
  • In horror-centric episode of Cowboy Bebop "Pierrot le Fou", the titular mad assassin arranges a showdown between himself and Spike in one of these. Features, among other things, dangerous looking indoor roller coaster, and cute giant robots that don't mind trampling people who get on their parade route.
    • It should be noted that the theme park is of regular affair which wouldn't look too bad if it was working as it normally would. Pierrot just happened to be controlling it at the time.
  • In Bobobo-Bo Bo-bobo, A-Block Amusement Park is run by Jellly Jiggler and the Hair Hunters who are after the title character; same goes for Halekulani's Hallelujah Land who destroys attractions if they aren't making profits especially with people inside. Then Neo Hair Hunt Land MAX which is the battlefield for the Bo-bobo gang against the former Hair Hunt generals of the previous era.
  • Two episodes of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman are set in closed amusement parks that are actually fronts for the Galactor organization. (Both were also adapted for Battle of the Planets.)
  • Friend Land in 20th Century Boys, though the "doom" isn't from the rides[1] but the whole place being a Brainwashing facility.
  • Episode 2 of the three-part OVA Amuri in Star Ocean has the three heroines stumbling across one of these places in a space junkyard. Just the sight of said park triggers a Heroic BSOD in one of the girls, while the other two have to fight off an army of Murderous Mannequins.
  • The titular Deadman Wonderland is this, though the doom is generally reserved for the employees and prisoners rather than the park-goers. Unless the Wretched Egg were to get in the wrong place...
  • In the short manga Jet Coaster, the amusement park employees take a sick delight in watching people suffer and/or die...so in the middle of a roller-coaster ride, they suddenly stop the coaster, at the top of a loop at that, and warn the eight passengers to hold onto the safety bar before dropping their seats out from under them. The eight people must try to hang on for dear life, falling one by one to their deaths until only one remains. And all the employees are in on this, so no one is coming to help them. Also? It's not the first time this has happened.


Comics

  • The textbook example is of course any amusement park The Joker has moved into. For some reason, Gotham's Zoning Commission never figures out that he's going to renovate any such facility they approve of. In The Killing Joke, the story quoted above, he even leaves the grinning corpse of the estate agent sitting on a carousel horse as a "welcome" sign.
  • The Marvel Universe villain Arcade is known for his Murderworld, often by letting his victims think it's a real amusement park before the carousel tries to kill them. It also includes a giant pinball machine of death. Every now and then, the X-Men (and other Marvel heroes) wake up here and say "Oh Crap, it's going to be one of those days." Murderworld is arguably the most fun level in Marvel Ultimate Alliance, with its various mini games as well as the plot twist that you originally think it's Castle Doom, though the organ music is the first clue that something isn't right.
    • Other hints include the bad haircut on Doom's pictures all over the place, the way the poles can be bashed open to reveal swirly poles, and the occasional chests that open to reveal large squeaky hammers that hit you on the head.
    • Cable would go on to rent out one of these, and use the deathtrap filled park as a training ground for his team. But then, that's Cable for you.
    • Arcade's actually making lots of cash lately by letting supervillains use it as a training ground.
  • Marvel's Slapstick got his start trying to save his friends from Evil Clowns From Dimension X. No, really.
  • Many, many examples of this from EC Comics: Tales From the Crypt, The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear. One strip involved a pair of sleazy amusement park owners who agree to buy the design for a brilliant new rollercoaster to revive trade for their dilapidated park, but don't bother to test the ride for safety, with nightmare-inducing results when they agree to take first turn at the unveiling of the rollercoaster.
    • Specifically, the designer they murdered so they wouldn't have to pay him for the rollercoaster hadn't finished testing it for G-forces, and their necks snapped after the first loop. And the cherry on the cake? This is Truth in Television. Read about the early looping coaster The Flip-Flap Railway here.
  • Dazzleland from Wonder Woman #122, where the life force is drained of park visitors to maintain the cryogenically frozen corpse of park founder Wade Dazzle.

Films -- Animation

  • In Spirited Away, Chihiro and her parents find what they think is an abandoned amusement park, but turns out to be a bath-house resort for spirits and gods, with the result that Chihiro's parents are turned into pigs.
  • In Disney's Pinocchio, boys who come to Pleasure Island can have as much fun as they want—but they're also turned into donkeys.
  • The extras DVD for The Incredibles included a Show Within a Show cartoon called "Mr. Incredible and Friends" where Mr. Incredible, Frozone, and Mr. Skipperdoo go to one of these to find and fight the villain Lady Lightbug.


Films -- Live Action

  • Welcome to Westworld, with countless Ridiculously-Human Robots for you to interact with! And have sex with, or shoot, or blow to bits with dynamite! Don't worry, we're absolutely certain they're not intelligent, and they're certainly not biding their time, waiting to kill us all!
    • At least Crichton's "Futureworld" didn't get remade with dinosaurs. That said...
  • Jurassic Park: Let's bring back some of the most fearsome carnivores in (pre-)history, and mix in a bunch of tourists. What could go wrong?
  • The climax of the film noir The Lady From Shanghai takes place in one of these, famously featuring a Funhouse Mirror Of Doom.
  • In Zombieland the main characters face off against thousands of zombies inside an old amusement park.
  • Final Destination 3: The roller coaster "Devil's Flight" breaks and kills a bunch of people, and everything else in the park is a "sign" of the cast's impending death.
  • The antagonists in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 live in a kind of a run down theme park.
  • Inverted in The Warriors, where (at least for the titular delinquents) Coney Island is the one part of New York City that does not spell doom.
  • "Abusement Park" Killer clowns and all.
  • The After Dark Horrorfest flick Dark Ride was, as the title suggests, set in such a place.
  • In the remake of House on Haunted Hill, amusement park mogul Steven Price plays with this, having designed a roller coaster that will fling the train ahead of you off the track, making you think you're about to die horribly... only for you continue along the same stretch completely unscathed. He's kind of a sick bastard.
  • When Reznik takes Marie's son into the Route 666 "funhouse," in The Machinist.


Literature

  • Pleasure Island from The Adventures of Pinocchio. It seems just like an ordinary amusement park, until you realize its true purpose is to turn naughty children into donkeys. The Disney version adds another layer by having rides catering to a child's less acceptable impulses—pool halls, smoking rooms, a model home expressly built for demolishing, and the like. One half expects an Opium Den or peep show on the premises.
    • Those were described in the book, as well.
      • As a representative of Pleasure Island's legal department, I resent your description of our park as a sleazy piece of crap.
  • The Goosebumps book One Day at Horrorland and its related media.
    • Also the Give Yourselves Goosebumps line began with "Escape from the Carnival of Horrors" which was practically made from this trope. The original series even ended (before the 2000 line) full circle with "Return to the Carnival of Horrors" in which you, a friend from the previous book and a cousin are tricked into coming back.
  • The Point Horror trilogy The Forbidden Game has this as the setting for book 3.
  • The thriller novel Utopia by Lincoln Child is set in a futuristic theme park which becomes deadly when a group of terrorists take control of its technology.
  • Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman. Survive seven rides, and you get out -- not that anybody's ever done so. Fail, and either you're operating the rides for all eternity, or you're dead and your screaming face is somewhere in the scenery.
  • The Fun Fair in The Unnatural Inquirer. You know an Amusement Park of Doom is really bad when even the Nightside crowds avoid it like the plague!
  • In Flora's Dare, Flora learns that the Woodward's Gardens & Fun Fair caters to a different sort of clientele after hours.
  • The third installment of the Friday the 13th book series "Tales from Camp Crystal Lake" by Eric Morse, called The Carnival.
  • Fantasy World in the Dean Koontz novel Hideaway. It's been abandoned for years and demonic serial killer Vassago lives there now. And he displays the corpses of his victims in the basement of the funhouse.
  • Downplayed with the Caligari Carnival, the setting of the ninth book of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The place is originally a third-rate, failing carnival until Count Olaf offers them a chance for more profit by offering them a pack of lions, requiring an act where the freak show members - the three Baudelaire children - are Fed to the Beast. The book ends with the whole carnival burned to the ground.

Live Action TV

  • Max and 99 are trapped in a KAOS amusement park in the Get Smart episode "The Wax Max". Max comments that whoever designed the Tunnel of Love had a lot to learn about togetherness.
  • In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Shore Leave" the crew visits a planet which will read your mind and cater to your wishes, safe or dangerous, with no safety feature except for a nifty method of body repair that, evidently, resurrects any visitors who die on the premises.
  • The Kent Brother's Carnival, a.k.a. 'the Carnival of Doom', in Ace Lightning.
  • The Devastator in Mr. Show.

TWO WHOLE MINUTES UNDERWATER!


Tabletop Games

  • The 5th editon Champions supplement Champions: Battlegrounds is marketed as a series of set piece adventures that feature Superheroes confronting Supervillians in classic genre fight locations. The chapter in which Black Harlequin, a Captain Ersatz of both Toyman and the Joker takes over an amusement park is, by an order of magnitude, the deadliest chapter in the book for bystanders.


Video Games

  • Puzzle Gallery: At the Carnival has a seemingly normal carnival with 40 sections (counting attractions and non-attraction concenpes such as the title). Each one of them is either fatal, results in injury, or is repulsive. In some cases, the attraction may end up closed (e.g. First Aid station). There is only one amusement that has no injury on the ride: The Ferris Wheel, but that's not counting falls off said ride. Not even shutting down the park and replacing it with a city stops the bad fortune.
  • The Lakeside amusement park in Silent Hill could possibly qualify as this, especially the one from the third game that includes a killer roller coaster, a lethal haunted house and a boss battle on a carousel. Oh, and let's not forget the blood-drenched, Donnie Darko-esque rabbit mascot.
  • Area H of Mega Man ZX, which was the amusement park Vent/Aile was in when it was attack by a Maverick Raid ten years ago. Features giant Metool mascots that try to kill you, popcorn machines designed into weapons that try to kill you, and those UFO Catcher things that try to pick you up and drop you into Bottomless Pits in an attempt to kill you. Capping it all off is a fight with Purprill, which is fueled (especially in Vent's case, where he is explicitly told) by rage induced by You Killed My Mother.
    • Predating this is Clown Man's level from Mega Man 8. Killer robot and trains that try to run you over on sight. Magic Man's level from Mega Man and Bass has the same theme and obstacles due to resource reuse.
  • Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation inexplicably has a level based around one of these, which includes a room with spike pits that can only be seen in a mirror reflection and a target-shooting game that dumps the player into a spike pit if they don't complete it in time.
  • Banjo-Tooie had an exaggerated version of this in Witchyworld. The food vendors are unsanitary, the big top doesn't even bother having seats for an audience, the employees are grumpy and tend to attack visitors, security is so lax that a shaman and a medicine woman have set up shop in the park unmolested, and such rides as there are kind of suck. In spite of this, Boggy's spawn still seem to be enjoying themselves too much to be all that cooperative when it comes time to leave. A sign outside the level announces that the park is closed due to their "appalling safety record", and that it will reopen once the autorities have been bribed. A second sign mentions that anyone surviving all the attractions gets a fanclub membership. Current number of members: 0
  • Donkey Kong Country 2 has Krazy Kremland, an amusement park full of brambles and massive Zinger hives, built near a disgusting swamp. The roller coasters are even broken down, making the rides fast paced fights for your life.
  • Ape Escape (the first one of the Playstation) had a deadly Amusement Park of Doom to traverse through in the second-to-last level. Everything from an evil killer clown, a deadly remote-controlled car and a deadly roller coaster ride.
  • The secret stage from the first episode of Blood is called "House of Horrors" and features among other things a deadly ride on a water slide. It can be accessed from the stage called "Dark Carnival".
  • The video game Max Payne 2 features a level in which the hero shoots it out with villains in an abandoned fun house of horror that mirrors his own story.
    • Three levels: fighting your way in, fighting your way out (with control of the mechanisms to use as traps), and on fire.
      • The first time is a subversion, as it's a cool-down level in a game that so far featured Everything Trying to Kill You. Even after Max's monologue Lampshades the harmlessness of the cliche haunted house animatronics, players are still likely to jump from the non-lethal surprises, with guns drawn.
  • Mischief Makers features Spike Land, which as its name suggests is an inexplicable amusement park devoted to Spikes of Doom.
  • Sonic Unleashed: Eggmanland. Roller coasters regularly going off the rails, bottomless pits beneath the ferris wheel, open lava pits, free-roaming monsters, and more robots than should even be legal. And the less said of what Eggman used to build this joint in the first place the better.
    • Carnival Night Zone from Sonic 3 qualifies, too, what with all the spikes, robots, and the infamous rotating barrel.
    • Sonic Colors has Eggman build another from entire planets and alien technology. Not quite the standard look for this trope, what with the bright colors and the Level Ate, but still not a place to take the kiddies thanks to killer robots and the alien enslavement. Eggman's PA announcements also indicate this place to be extremely unsafe.
  • The title park from Illbleed.
  • The old Swat Kats SNES game's Madkat level was an amusement park where children had been disappearing, though you only see them in the opening clip and after the boss is beaten. How was he able to get zoning for the tiers of water slides that sometimes drop you off into endless pits? Not that it matters, but you gotta wonder...
  • Even Rollercoaster Tycoon had this in the Corkscrew Follies expansion pack. Two Words: Fiasco Forest.
  • The Big Whoop Amusement Park/Carnival of the Damned from Monkey Island 2 Le Chucks Revenge and The Curse of Monkey Island.
  • One of the stages in Bubsy for the SNES was an alien-controlled fun fair.
  • The second campaign in Left 4 Dead 2 is called "Dark Carnival", and features zombie clowns in an abandoned (but still functioning!) amusement park. Its tag line: You must be this tall... TO DIE!
  • Rocket: Robot on Wheels takes place entirely in a robot-operated amusement park. The "attractions" include a rickety minecart ride and a funhouse with bottomless pits. This is all handwaved as the handiwork of a disgruntled mascot who has taken over the park, but he is only in control for about a minute by the time Rocket enters to discover the above-mentioned changes, as well as a toxic lake, an active volcano surrounded by pools of molten lava, turrets loaded with explosive ordnance, and many more deadly obstacles.
  • BioShock 2 features the abandoned amusement park Ryan Amusements. The "of doom" part comes from the fact that, like the rest of this game, it's riddled with crazed mutants you have to fight off. Expect the usual shock horror moments and creepy audiologs, with the added bonus of rather disturbing propaganda designed to scare children out of wanting to leave Rapture and visit the surface world.
  • Bowser Land in Mario Party 2 is an evil theme park in Bowser's own image. It has all kinds of reversed mechanics, like the banks that loan money instead of ask for it, but force anyone who lands on the space to pay it back in full. Or the parade which causes players to lose 2 coins a space as they march back to the start.
  • This is the entire setting for the arcade rail-shooter Carn Evil.
  • Level 6 in Silent Assault combines this with aliens.
  • Doki Doki: Yuuenchi, a 8-bit Nintendo game never released outside of Japan, took place entirely in one of these.
  • In Disney's new Epic Mickey game for the Wii, we'll get to see sweet ol' Disneyland (Walt's original theme park) and Walt Disney World (the biggest and most popular of all Disney resorts) mixed together and then turned into this. The land itself is named Cartoon Wasteland, and was originally created by Yen Sid from Fantasia as a home for forgotten Disney characters. Originally bright and happy, it was completely screwed up after Mickey Mouse accidentally spilled paint thinner on it and caused the Shadow Blot to take over. Forgotten Disneyland/World attractions will also be making appearances as levels or Easter Eggs in addition to current attractions (although a few of them have been confirmed to have different, darker names such as "Dark Beauty Castle" a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty's Castle or "Lonesome Manor" a.k.a. Haunted Mansion). As you go through the levels, you'll can either help rebuild or cause more destruction in the world you're supposed be saving by using your paintbrush and tools (namely, regular paint or paint thinner).
  • The amusement park in Professor Layton and the Curious Village qualifies.
  • Adventures in The Magic Kingdom had you getting the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World open for the day. No explanation is given, however, for why the rides have suddenly turned homicidal.
  • Author of the Mac/Dos puzzle game At The Carnival wrote the game based on his experience of one. Practically every attraction is a death-trap at best.
  • The Goosebumps PC game Escape from Horrorland is fondly remembered by children of the 1990s as the reason they are scared of everything now.
  • The "House of Fear" level in Batman Doom. Not an entire amusement park, as the name implies, but fits the bill all the same. It's basically a bunch of twisty corridors with false doors and a frequent fire trap or two (as well as an occasional scream to give you a Jump Scare).
  • The Joker's Funhouse in Batman: Arkham City, a renovated factory once owned by Black Mask, turned into the Joker's base, complete with a deadly rollercoaster which new recruits to his gang must ride and survive.
  • The Wii game Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon features an abandoned and decrepit theme park where he meets Crow.
  • The setting of the second Haunted Museum game or "Frightmare Land".
  • Syd Garden in SD Snatcher.
  • The setting of Phase 7: Scream Park, in Splatterhouse (2010)


Web Animation

  • In James Farr's Xombie, Zoey and Dirge's car breaks down right in front of one of these.


Web Comics

  • This trope provides the setting for Carnies.
  • The amusement park in Anti-HEROES starts out normal enough, but becomes this trope when the enemy shows up.


Web Original

  • An upcoming explorable area on Grave Academy is called: Deathpark, so it is probably this.
  • The League of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions visited Disney World only to have it turn into one of these.
  • Bucketheadland exists completely on the descriptions given on its web site, probably written in part by Buckethead himself.
  • SCP Foundation features the SCP-823, aptly named "Carnival of Horrors". Nor do you want to get lost in their Mirror Maze
    • There's also SCP-097, the remains of a 1969 fairgrounds overgrown with some very strange plant life.
  • One of the locations in Survival of the Fittest v4 is an abandoned fairground, with a ferris wheel and carousel, and a Hall of Mirrors nearby. Need we say more?
  • Neopets has the Deserted Fairground in the Haunted Woods. You can play games and buy things there.


Western Animation

  • The Joker (who else?) sets up shop in one of these in the "Be a Clown" episode of Batman the Animated Series. It comes complete with giant robotic clown and authentic Houdini water trap.
  • The Simpsons parodies much of the above with the episode "Itchy & Scratchy Land", where, right on cue, the various robots simultaneously all go amuck at once. Krustyland in the comics follows the trope pretty well too.
    • Well, not quite on cue. Frink forgot to carry the 1.
    • The alcohol-themed "Duff Gardens." While it's not explicitly "doomy," it's hardly a place you'd want to take your kids: rude costumed characters, robots that go haywire, sleazy souvenirs....and to top it all off, the "water" in one of its boat rides is actually beer mixed with LSD.
      • The amusement park Ned Flanders bought and refurbished into "Praiseland" was originally closed because a child somehow got his head cut off at the park.
    • It's strongly implied that Krustyland fits the bill:

Kent Brockman: We now go to Krusty's press conference where he denies that his products are unsafe, his amusement park is a death trap and that he's selling video tapes of Tonya Harding's wedding night.
Krusty: ... so I contend that those tourists were decapitated before they entered the Krustyland House of Knives.

  • Thailog and Demona of Gargoyles trap the Clan in one when they decide to unveil their evil clones.
  • Scooby Doo features this trope several times.
    • In an episode of Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, the gang look into the odd goings on of Funland, an amusement park that has been shut down temporarily, and has a malfunctioning robot running around causing damage.
    • An episode of What's New Scooby Doo? has the gang visit a theme park haunted by the Roller Ghoster who tampers with rides endangering the guests.
    • The live action movie takes place in a spooky-themed theme park where monsters take over visitors' bodies. At one point, one of the attractions goes haywire, nearly killing the gang.
    • In Scooby-Doo and the Cyber-Chase, the final level of the video game in which the gang gets trapped is a boardwalk carnival, and haunted by duplicates of classic Scooby-Doo foes. Except this time they're not just thugs in costumes....
  • An episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes subverted this: Heloise tricks Lucius into letting her build one (because Jimmy wanted one) by describing it as if it where something terrible. Then it's played strait when Lucius realizes the truth and straps her and Jimmy into a rollar coaster that's meant to kill them.
  • Freak Show of Danny Phantom, with the power to change all of reality in the palm of his hand, opts for a roller coaster of doom to dispose of Danny's parents. Not the most creative villain.
  • In The Real Ghostbusters episode "The Bogeyman Is Back," the titular villain transforms an ordinary theme park into "the perfect place for fear to grow and thrive."

Winston: Boy, they don't make them like this anymore.
Peter: They never did make them like this! Bogeyman's been redecorating.

  • Filmation's Ghostbusters has Ghost Park, which is not actually an Amusement Park of Doom, but is definitely made to look like one. The safe, obviously playful scares quickly turn real, though, when Apparitia and Brat-a-Rat get involved...
  • The one in Dungeons and Dragons didn't look like one, and most of the rides are harmless, but the heroes managed to hit just the wrong one.
  • Ben 10 Ultimate Alien in one of the episodes, the whole Pier becomes this trope when Ben and gang go up against Zombozo, Charmcaster, and Vulkanus.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants has the episode "Glove World R.I.P." where SpongeBob and Patrick go to the titular park, which in previous episodes was structurally sound but now is dilapidated to the point that every ride is prone to causing injury. They try to keep it from getting closed, their efforts eventually culminating in them chaining themselves to the front gate at night. Not only were their efforts pointless because the creators were planning on building a new park over it, they weren't able to unchain themselves because Patrick threw the key in a lake.


Real Life

  • New Jersey was once the home of Action Park (AKA "Traction Park", among other uncomplimentary names, to Jersey natives), which came about as close to this trope as a real life amusement park can; a total of six people died either at the park or in offsite hospitals from complications, and an unknown number of other patrons were known to suffer serious injuries. However, as many have rightly contested, most of the incidents were not actually due to poor design or mechanical failings. The most common root factors were the easy availability of beer in the park, a victim's own reckless stupidity, the teenaged staff's indifference towards the safety rules, or some combination of the three. Regardless, the park was shut down in 1996, which only added to the legend of its lethality. It reopened as "Mountain Creek Waterpark" in 1998 and operated under that name (and apparently with a greater regard for safety) for fifteen years. Mountain Creek then closed, and the park re-re-opened under the original name in 2014, and has operated since without incident.
  • The Chernobyl evacuation zone, off-limits to human occupation since the region was contaminated by radiation, contains an amusement park that was scheduled to open mere days after the nuclear accident. Rusting, unused rides from this real-life APoD were exhibited in the first Life After People.
  • Universal Studios Florida's "Halloween Horror Nights". At nighttime the theme park alters the entire park with their annual horror theme with complex and elaborate haunted houses, street decoration to turn the streets into a zombie apocalypse or carnival covered in freaks and clowns, and various actors (known as "scareactors", rhymes with "characters") who play the part of killers, victims, monsters, and various other horror characters to chase and scare the guests.
    • Even creepier—many of the haunted houses are built in the queue lines of rides. For instance, to get into one, you may find yourself going backwards through the ET ride line, which is darkened to make it look uninhabited. Brrr...
  • Some amusement parks invoke this trope on themselves as a means of tongue-in-cheek self-promotion. At Six Flags Great America, crowds waiting in line for "The Demon" are entertained by recorded accounts of how an actual demon has possessed the roller coaster, gets spotted by terrified witnesses, and fiercely resists humorous attempts to kill and/or exorcise it. Likewise, the "Batman" indoor coaster at the same park displays fake newscreeds for waiting crowds, some of which imply that The Joker has sabotaged the ride and turned it into this trope.
    • Others go the whole nine yards for Halloween. The Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver hosts 'Fright Nights' during the last two weeks of October, during which time half the games are turned over to haunted houses, and 'roamers' wander the park dressed as all manner of horrifying abominations. They even have a diabolical circus built into the park, for a two-in-one.
  • The abandoned Six Flags over New Orleans, which was possibly the inspiration for the "Dark Carnival" campaign from Left 4 Dead 2.
  • While not an entire park in itself, the infamous Haunted Castle at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey became a symbol of amusement park doom when in May 1984 a horrific fire roared through it, killing eight.
  • The abandoned Gulliver Kingdom park in Japan, featuring, well, the giant abandoned lifeless corpse of Gulliver. It’s also located conveniently close to Aokigahara forest, Japan’s number 1 suicide spot, and to the former headquarters of infamous doom cult Aum Shinrikyo.
  1. ↑ Though one is a rather horrifying re-enactment of a tragic event earlier in the series.
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