A guide to Denver’s biggest haunted houses and outdoor frights

Halloween attractions continue to hold a power position in Denver’s rapidly mutating, nationally renowned immersive-art and entertainment scene. Namely: They were here first.

Whether or not you like them, haunted houses, corn mazes and their carnival equivalent (funhouses) already cornered the market on interactive, 360-degree entertainment decades before the immersive trend began. Is it not artistic to be plunged into dark corridors populated by jump-scare zombies? To lose your wits on a bumpy hayride? Maybe not. But it’s fun.

In honor of Halloween, here are five of the biggest metro-area haunted houses and attractions that will make you forget about the world outside, however traumatically. The selection of larger names is a bit thinner this year, following the absence of mainstays such as Parker’s Fright Acres, Henderson’s City of the Dead, and Denver’s Undead: Abominations.

What remains, at least, is suitably demented. (Coffin Simulator Ride, anyone?). And don’t forget about other family operations, such as Littleton’s historic Reinke Brothers (reinkebrothers.com, open now) or Fritzler’s Scream Acres (fritzlerscreamacres.com, opening Friday, Sept. 23).