FYI Philly's guide to scary good Halloween fun, eats around Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Alicia Vitarelli and TaRhonda Thomas show you spooky good fun to fill your Halloween needs around the region.

Halloween Nights at Eastern State Penitentiary returns with spooky fun
Halloween Nights is a massive festival, covering the entire 10-acre complex of the historic Eastern State Penitentiary.

You can choose your own adventure-from haunted houses to themed bars and lounges, live entertainment, history tours and a kaleidoscope hall.

If you want to make it super scary, make a stop at the opt-in booth and grab a glow necklace.

That signals that you've opted in for a more intense experience.

There are five haunted houses: a 3D haunt called Delirium, the dark and scary Machine Shop, a haunt called Nightmares that brings your most terrifying nightmares to life, and The Crypt, which the folks at Eastern State describe as their biggest and scariest haunted house with bloodthirsty vampires in search of a sacrifice.

Outside the circus-themed Big Top Terror, you can relax and regroup in Bizarre Bar with a circus crew performing tricks.

There's a vampire-themed lounge called Bloodline with a wide variety of live entertainment.

And then there are the Boogie Monsters, Eastern State's dance team.

They perform every 30 minutes in Pumpkin Plaza.

If you want a more chill experience, gather around the fire pits at S'mores & Lore, where you can roast marshmallows and watch ghost stories.

The Fair Chance Beer Garden serves drinks and food from Fair Chance employers like Triple Bottom Brewing and Down North Pizza.

There's also a speakeasy set up just outside Al Capone's cell.

The Speakeasy at Al Capone's cell is a VIP experience that costs extra, but it also gets you two free drinks and express entry into the entire festival.

Halloween Nights is a massive fundraiser for America's first penitentiary with proceeds enabling the museum to continue its mission of educating people on the criminal justice system.

Halloween Nights at Eastern State Penitentiary | Facebook | Instagram
2027 Fairmount Ave, Philadelphia, Pa. 19130

Winding Brook Farm turns hayrides and corn fields to fears and frights
Winding Brook Farm is a traditional family-run farm by day and a Halloween spectacle at night.

Through the month of October, three attractions are open: the Corn Walk of Horror, the Haunted Hay Maze, and the Night Chills Haunted Hayride.

All ticket sales are onsite-only, they are priced separately and some are not recommended for young children.

Weekends also feature the annual Fall Festival starting at 11 a.m., and there will be pumpkin picking on Halloween.

The working farm is in its fourth generation, and is preserved through the Bucks County Agricultural Preservation Program.

Winding Brook Farm | Facebook | Instagram
3014 Bristol Road, Warrington, PA 18976
215-343-8880
Fridays-Saturdays, 7:30-10:00pm
additional dates: Thursday 10/24, Sunday 10/27

New Hope Railroad opens spooky attraction called No Hope After Dark
No Hope After Dark is New Hope Railroad's Halloween festival.

Experience a thrilling roundtrip train ride from their New Hope station to their Lahaska station.

Riders will board the train at the New Hope station by going through a haunted maze in a haunted Long Island Car.

The 30-second walkthrough leads passengers right to their seat for a 20-minute ride to Lahaska.

Along the ride, you'll get a Halloween story of different haunts along the line and witness actors lurking through each cart to give you a fright.

When you arrive in Lahaska, you will have stepped on the festival grounds with local bands, fire pits, vendors, and food trucks.

There's games, another haunted maze, and an opportunity to take some fun pictures with family and friends.

No Hope After Dark is a 90-minute experience of Halloween fun for all ages and ends on Halloween night.

You can purchase your tickets on the New Hope Railroad website.

Website|Instagram |Facebook
32 W Bridge St, New Hope, PA 18938

Glow lights up South Jersey for first Halloween drive-through experience
The Spooky Speedway is a brand-new attraction from the Glow team that made headlines last year for winning The Great Christmas Light Fight.

The 1.2-mile drive-through event features more than nine million addressable lights synchronized to an evolving Halloween playlist that you can listen to on your car radio as you make your way.

The abandoned TD Bank parking lot has been transformed into a Route 66-themed journey with notable towns along the way transformed to fit the spooky season.

The event runs through November 2.

Glow Spooky Speedway | Facebook | Instagram
217 Berlin - Cross Keys Road, Washington Township, NJ 08081

Grace Tavern turns into into Frankenstein's Cocktail Lab for Halloween
Frankenstein's Mad Scientist Cocktail Lab is a festive pop-up that launched last year in partnership with Bucket Listers.

Bucket Listers is the go-to guide for things to do in your city and expanded Frankenstein's Mad Scientist Cocktail Lab to Grace Tavern this year.

A ticket to the Halloween pop-up includes one entry cocktail and a 90-minute experience inside Frankenstein's laboratory.

With the help of mad scientists, beakers, and test tubes, you'll craft a thrilling cocktail or mocktail.

The mad scientists wear the lab coats and interact with you to make your spooky concoction. They also offer small bites like hand-cut french fries, sliders, and blackened green beans.

Be sure to take advantage of the spooky photo ops inside and for an additional cost, you can have your fortune read by a tarot card reader.

You can enter Frankenstein's laboratory the whole month of October through November 2nd to make bubbly and smoky drinks.

To purchase a ticket visit the Bucket Listers website for a night of fun.

Website| Instagram | Facebook
2229 Grays Ferry Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19146, USA

The End Times Boutique is Philadelphia's shop of oddities
Enter The End Times Boutique and you'll see snakes, spiders and all kinds of skeletons and skulls, along with antiques, crystals and the largest clam in the world.

Adam Hutter is the owner and curator of this oddities shop.

He runs a nationally touring convention called the World Oddities Expo.

During the pandemic, he decided to open a brick and mortar to put all of his curiosities under one roof for all to see.

From a two-faced kitten, a dwarf cow, a two-headed duckling and a three legged guinea hen, he claims to have one of the largest private collections of "real freak animals."

There's a moist cabinet, dedicated to wet specimens like a monkey and a water monitor, which is the second largest lizard species after the Komodo Dragon.

There's a section devoted to funerals, which Adam dubs The FUN-erary, and a Bug Box where you can see captured spider webs (Adam promises no spiders are harmed and that everything in the shop is responsibly sourced.)

The items he curates come from all over the world.

There's a two-toed sloth that's been sagittally bisected so you can see the internal anatomy on the one side and the external anatomy on the other.

Look up and you'll see a massive Nile Crocodile hovering over the shop.

A gift from a prominent taxidermist, it is the one thing in the shop that is not for sale.

Hutter says some people are just shopping for unique home decor but for those who come curious, there are QR codes on the specimens that you can scan to learn more.

He hopes the space will become a destination location for curious shoppers.

The End Times Boutique | Facebook | Instagram
2152 East Dauphin Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 19125

See the mansion that inspired Walt Disney's The Haunted Mansion
The Harry Packer Mansion attracts history buffs and Disney fans alike.

Built in 1874, the Victorian mansion served as the inspiration for Disney's Haunted Mansion.

Now, the bed and breakfast features twelve guest rooms, each named after members of the Packer family, including Harry's original bedroom.

Some guests have reported ghostly encounters, adding to the mansion's allure.

Ideal for romantic getaways, the mansion offers a cozy atmosphere and weekend activities, such as murder mystery shows.

Curio Theatre Company Presents 'The Thanksgiving Play'
'The Thanksgiving Play' turns the stage into a classroom at the Calvary Center for Culture and Community.

Tim Martin is directing the production.

The play was written by Larissa FastHorse, a Lakota playwright.

"She wrote a play about four white people," says Martin. "They're tasked with making a culturally sensitive Thanksgiving play for elementary school students."

These four would-be playwrights don't want to ruffle any feathers.

"This is just a hilarious cast," he says.

There's Logan, an elementary school drama teacher, and her boyfriend Jaxton.

"Sort of super woke activists," says Martin.

"I'm playing Caden Green who is an elementary school teacher, but an aspiring actor as well," says actor Paul Harrold. "And he knows so much about American history."

"I'm playing Alicia, who is the one professional actor who's been hired," says actor Felicia Leicht.

Alicia got the job because Logan thought she was Native American.

"My look is super flexible," says Leicht as Alicia.

"It's absolutely a comedy," says Martin. "They show us the myths that we all learned in elementary school, which were absolutely just false."

When the play opened on Broadway last year, Larissa FastHorse became the first known Native American playwright to have a show produced on Broadway.

"At the heart, they're all four very, very well-meaning people," says Martin. "We think about everybody else's stories in terms of ourselves, and through this play, one of the things that we learn is how to listen to those stories that aren't being told."

Curio Theatre Company presents 'The Thanksgiving Play', October 23-November 9 at the Calvary Center for Culture and Community in West Philadelphia.

Curio Theatre Company | 'The Thanksgiving Play' | Tickets
The Calvary Center for Culture and Community
4740 Baltimore Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19143