Festival Fright Nights At Winchester Mystery House Is A Spooky Delight
- Alex Tran
- 2 minutes ago
- 6 min read
It's three months post San Diego Comic Con 2025, and I am still basking in the aura of it. I know, it's OCTOBER, but I'm a sucker for immersive experiences and it's hard to get my fill for that once I am back home and back to reality. But when Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group presented me an opportunity to check out Festival Fright Nights, an immersive haunted attraction and Halloween experience developed in partnership with Winchester Mystery House, I did not hesitate, even though maybe in the spirit of an invite to a possibly Haunted House, I should have.
I've lived my entire life here in San Jose, and the Winchester Mystery House has been here in my town since 1886. It opened as a tourist attraction 9 months after Sarah Winchester's death in 1922. For those not familiar, Sarah Winchester had inherited a vast fortune from her husband, the heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. After Sarah had lost her husband and infant daughter, local legend says that she had consulted a spiritual medium. The spiritual medium had told her that she was being haunted by the spirits of all those killed by Winchester rifles. In order to appease the spirits, she was advised to build the house continuously and never stop construction — or else the spirits would claim her.
For 36 years construction continued day and night, resulting in a labyrinthine mansion with bizarre features and countless rooms to house all the restless spirits. The house also gained notoriety when it was featured in a film of its own in 2018's Winchester, starring Helen Mirren as Sarah Winchester, and even before that had been the site of numerous ghost hunts and investigations.
The premise of the attraction is that it’s Halloween night, 1924. Two years after the death of the enigmatic Sarah Winchester, her sprawling estate, Llanada Villa, has stood silent with its mysteries locked away behind winding corridors and sealed doors. Now, under a mysterious new ownership, the mansion has reopened for a grand Halloween Masquerade Ball. Hosted by Lord Gideon Gray, the ball served up an unforgettable night of glamour, music, and startling revelations.
We checked in about 8:30pm and were guided over to the front of the mansion to a Masquerade ball where we received our masks and a welcome cocktail before we entered the house doors. Instantly, I was in awe. I could not tell where the actual Winchester Mystery House started and ended, and the immersive experience of Festival Fright Nights began (in the best way).
We started off by entering The Masquerade of Shadows, a lavish ball hosted by Lord Gideon Gray that spirals into supernatural terror when an ancient portal unleashes vengeful spirits upon the house. This allowed me to venture throughout the house, its narrow and confusing corridors, giving me a unique look at the various rooms in the most hauntingly way possible (with a few hidden speakeasies in some of the rooms).
Once I was able to make it out, I ventured into The Root of All Evil, where the mansion’s gardens are decked out to be deadly and terrifying. I was actually impressed by how Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group took it upon themselves to use every bit of the mansion that was accessible to those that dared to venture in.
My journey ended with The Final Descent, a forbidden wing of the Winchester Mystery House where a seance rips open the veil between life and the afterlife, as Sarah Winchester's lingering shadow haunts the halls, and the basement becomes a battleground between the living and the dead.
I was able to speak to Brett Bertolino, Director of Special Projects for Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group, after the experience to get an idea what it took to organize and construct such an immersive pop up in such a strange place.
NPN: What is the creative concept behind Festival Fright Nights at Winchester Mystery House? How did you keep the allure of the house but also keep it immersive?
Brett Bertolino: When we began working on this project with Winchester Mystery House, we dove into the history of the house, the history of Sarah, and we really wanted to understand what was special here. The stories are special, the history is special, the house is special. We took that as our inspiration. Our goal was to create something that felt authentic to guests. We have this beautiful architectural house that's unique and has a huge history to it that's mysterious, and it's also reportedly haunted. So, we took all that inspiration to think of what kind of story we wanted to tell. We knew that the story here was more important than some of our other haunted houses because of the nature of the property.
Our research found that Harry Houdini really came to the property in 1924 with the goal of disproving spirits exist. So, the whole premise is you're stepping back into 1924, and the new mysterious maestro of the property is having a Masquerade on Halloween night. As you go through these attractions, there's lots of little details, lots of little easter eggs about the real history here. We've tried to be as respectful as we can to the real history, but to give our own take on it. It's an immersive world; we want you to feel like you're back in 1920.
NPN: I was really taken aback by how immersive everything was, I couldn't really what was part of the experience, and part of the house. Did you guys have any difficulties setting up the paths and navigating people through?
Brett Bertolino: Winchester Mystery House is like a giant maze. I feel like the first several times we visited here, we got completely confused. It is just naturally confusing to walk through this space. When we started working on this project, we met with a lot of the staff at Winchester Mystery House. We talked to a lot of people. What stories resonate? What spaces in the house resonate? We wanted to make sure we had all the fan favorites on the tour, the basements, and we wanted to activate the entire property. That is what is different about this event, we really are activating every space that is safe for visitors to go.
In addition to the main attractions, I was invited to try out some of their attraction addons, like The Underhouse tour. This addon gives those who dare a guided journey through the basement of the Villa, guided by cryptic whispers from an arcane philosopher. Donning a hard hat and a flashlight, I made my descent into the mansion’s pitch-black basement.
Outside on the grounds of the mansion, guests were able to check out the food and beverage offerings in a garden party! Festival Fright Nights made sure to respect the mansion's history, while also paying homage to lore.
Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group is no stranger to hauntingly immersive popups. Most notably with other events at the most auspicious of places like Old Joliet Haunted Prison and infamous Queen Mary.
I love scary stuff, and I was most likely desensitized at an early age by an uncle who loved horror movies. However, my wife, who I invited with me, does not do scary. Was Festival Fright Nights at Winchester Mystery House scary? I wouldn't say I was terrified at every corner. But in a sense that it was eerie and strange, like a party at the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, it definitely gave me chills. My wife survived the night and based on that notion alone I would say this experience is definitely suitable for the entire family in the most unique and respectful way possible.
I asked Brett Bertolino if they were able to confirm if the house was haunted while setting up the attractions:
That's a great question! Working at this property that is super creepy, I'm not personally a believer in ghosts but I will tell you this, when our team has been here at night and it's just been us there have been many times where we've been freaked out, where we hear things. I can't say for certain if there's ghosts or not, but I will tell you there's a lot of visitors that come here that believe there are paranormal experiences, I've talked with a lot of staff that believe there's paranormal energy here. I will just tell you that if you come here, you're just going to have to decide for yourself.
If you're in San Jose, California, Festival Fright Nights at Winchester Mystery House is now open and runs through November 1.