Books Horror Six Horror Stories Set in Theme Parks and Carnivals  Thrills, chills, and spooky carnival music abound in these movies and short stories… By Lorna Wallace | Published on September 15, 2025 Credit: New Line Cinema Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: New Line Cinema Theme parks and carnivals are known first and foremost as places of fun, but it’s undeniable that they can also be pretty frightening. Not only do they often feature rides that are calibrated to thrill, shock, and scare us at every turn, but screams of fear and screams of joy are virtually indistinguishable on any rollercoaster or fairground ride. With (playful) terror already baked into the theme park and carnival experience, it’s only fitting that some authors have chosen these settings as the perfect backdrop for scary stories.Personally, I have a particular affinity for stories about theme parks and carnivals. I’ve been on more than a few theme park-focused vacations, my favorite book—Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962)—is about a very spooky carnival, and throughout university I worked at the amusement rides section of the local safari park. The rides were admittedly not at all scary—they were all kid-friendly, like spinning teacups, bumper cars, and a carousel (though that calliope music still haunts me to this day…)—but even the tamest rides can easily be given a sinister edge in the hands of a skilled horror writer.I’m not the only one who enjoys this kind of story—Reactor already has lists of novels set at theme parks and carnival-related books—so I’m instead going to focus on a selection of scary short stories and movies. Here are six picks that might make you think twice before you take that end-of-summer trip to a theme park or traveling carnival… “The Companion” by Ramsey Campbell (1976) Stone is a fairground enthusiast who regularly ventures around the UK in his quest to visit as many of them as possible. One October night, he’s at a fairly run-down fairground in Merseyside, on the North West coast of England, and decides to ride the carousel. He then learns from the ride’s attendant that the abandoned remnants of the original funfair are only five minutes away. Exploring a derelict fairground in the dark—and during the spookiest month of the year, no less—isn’t my idea of a good time, but Stone can’t resist. The horror of “The Companion” slowly creeps in bit by bit. The atmosphere feels vaguely unsettling from the start, and eventually builds to a final section—and particularly a final sentence—that is perfectly spine-chilling in an old-school, kids-scaring-each-other-at-a-sleepover kind of way. “Skullpocket” by Nathan Ballingrud (2014) “Skullpocket” is a dark, weird, and whimsical short story. There are three timelines in the tale, which are woven together, rather than being told in chronological order. The main through-line is set on the opening night of the annual Skullpocket Fair and sees a priest visit the mansion of Jonathan Wormcake—a ghoul who is now near death but who many years ago played an integral part in the creation of the Fair. The other two threads explore the priest’s and Wormcake’s childhood experiences of the creepy carnival and its less-creepy predecessor. That might all sound like a bit too much for one short story to handle, but Ballingrud pulls it off with macabre style. The characters are complex, the worldbuilding is rich and imaginative, and all three storylines swing seamlessly between horror, beauty, and tragedy. “Zimmer Land” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (2018) The lack of ghosts, monsters, and/or gore might make “Zimmer Land” seem like the least scary of all of the stories on this list, but it engages with real-life horrors in a near-future setting, and that can be easily as scary as supernatural creatures and copious amounts of blood. Main character Isaiah is an employee at Zimmer Land—a Westworld-esque park full of simulations that allow visitors “to explore problem-solving, justice, and judgment.” In non-corporate speak, the park allows white patrons to play out their racist and murderous fantasies. Isaiah works on the Cassidy Lane set, where he dons a mecha-suit—which beefs him up and offers protection—and then loiters outside the mock suburban houses. The customer plays a homeowner who gets to see how they would react in such a situation: call the cops, shoot to kill, or fight with fists? “Zimmer Land” offers cutting commentary on the intersection of racism and capitalism, and the grotesque theme park feels all the more terrifying in not seeming all that far-fetched. Ghoulies II (1987) Now onto this movie portion of this list, with Ghoulies II up first. You don’t need to have seen the first Ghoulies (1985)—which, while fun in a so-bad-it’s-good kind of way, is definitely light on ghoulie screen time—to enjoy the second. The titular ghoulies hitch a ride with a traveling carnival and proceed to take over the haunted house attraction, tormenting everyone who passes through. That’s pretty much it as far as plot, with the main driving force of the film being the ghoulies themselves and their interactions with the carnival setting and patrons. The creepy little monsters—which are vaguely reminiscent of different animals, including a rat, a monkey, and a toad—are comically brought to life via both puppetry and stop motion. Ghoulies II may not reach the heights of other horror movies that feature chaotic little creatures—think Gremlins and Critters—but it’s still a lot of fun and the climax of the film is a truly over-the-top showstopper. Final Destination 3 (2006) Although it’s only the opening section of Final Destination 3 that is set in an amusement park, it’s so iconic that I had to include it, here… High school senior Wendy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is having fun at a theme park with a handful of her classmates. A group of them decide to go on a rollercoaster called the Devil’s Flight (with horror icon Tony Todd voicing the gigantic Devil statue at the ride’s entrance). If you’ve ever seen a Final Destination film then you know what’s coming next: Wendy has a premonition in which an unlucky chain of events leads to the coaster derailing and everyone dying in nightmarishly gory ways. Although the rest of the film takes places around the fictional town of McKinley—with Death tracking down everyone who was saved by the premonition—we continually get to revisit the theme park through the photographics that Wendy took that night, as she uses the clues in the photos to try and outwit Death. Zombieland (2009) What could possibly make rollercoasters even more thrilling? Zombies of course! Like Final Destination 3, Zombieland is only partly set at a theme park, but it makes such great use of the setting that it earns a spot on this list. The majority of the film is essentially a road trip through a zombie-infested America and it all culminates at Pacific Playland. Zombie-killing expert Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) is in his element when hordes of the undead descend upon the now-lit-up park. While Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) attempts to rescue Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin)—who are trapped at the top of a tower drop ride—Tallahassee serves as a distraction. While he’s technically putting himself at risk by drawing so much undead attention, Tallahassee’s joyous laughter proves that he’s having the time of his life going on all of the rides while doing what he does best: taking out a horde of ravenous zombies. If you’ve got any theme park, carnival, or fairground-related horror story recommendations of your own, please feel free to leave them in the comments below! As fun as it was to operate the rides, it’s much easier on the feet to watch and read about them instead, so I’m always on the lookout for more stories that take advantage of this type of setting…[end-mark] The post Six Horror Stories Set in Theme Parks and Carnivals  appeared first on Reactor.