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From Haunted Houses to Zombies: The Most Frightening Scary Horror Games

Do you enjoy the adrenaline rush of being scared out of your wits? Are you a fan of horror movies and looking for a new way to experience fear? Look no further. In this article, we will explore some of the most terrifying scary horror games that will leave you trembling with fear. From haunted houses to zombies, these games will push your limits and keep you on the edge of your seat.

Haunted Houses: A Classic Thrill

If you’re a fan of haunted houses, then horror games that feature eerie mansions or abandoned buildings are sure to provide an exhilarating experience. One such game that comes to mind is “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.” Set in a dilapidated plantation house in rural Louisiana, this game combines atmospheric horror with intense gameplay. As you navigate through dark corridors and solve puzzles, you’ll encounter grotesque creatures and terrifying jump scares that will keep your heart pounding.

Another notable haunted house game is “Amnesia: The Dark Descent.” In this first-person survival horror game, players find themselves trapped inside an ancient castle with no memory of how they got there. With limited resources and a lurking presence that feeds on fear, this game is guaranteed to make even the bravest players feel vulnerable and terrified.

Zombies: A Never-Ending Nightmare

Zombies have been a staple in horror culture for decades, and scary horror games featuring these undead creatures are always popular among thrill-seekers. One standout title in this genre is “The Last of Us.” Set in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by infected humans turned into zombies, this action-adventure game blends intense combat with an emotionally gripping storyline. The realistic graphics and immersive gameplay make every encounter with the infected a heart-pounding experience.

For those seeking a more intense zombie experience, “Resident Evil 2” is a must-play. This remake of the classic survival horror game takes players back to Raccoon City, where a zombie outbreak has turned the population into flesh-eating monsters. With its atmospheric setting and relentless undead enemies, this game will keep you on your toes as you fight for survival.

Psychological Horror: A Mind-Bending Challenge

If you prefer horror games that mess with your mind, then psychological horror games are perfect for you. “Silent Hill 2” is often regarded as one of the best examples of this subgenre. As players control James Sunderland through the foggy town of Silent Hill, they unravel a deeply disturbing story filled with symbolism and psychological torment. The game’s haunting atmosphere and psychological twists will leave you questioning reality long after you’ve put down the controller.

Another mind-bending horror experience is “Layers of Fear.” In this first-person exploration game, players step into the shoes of a disturbed painter as they navigate through a constantly changing mansion. Delving into themes of madness and obsession, this game uses clever storytelling and visual trickery to create an unsettling experience that will keep you guessing until the very end.

Survival Horror: Fight or Flight

For those who enjoy intense gameplay and heart-pounding action, survival horror games provide an adrenaline-fueled experience like no other. “Outlast” is a prime example of this genre. Armed only with a camcorder, players must navigate through an abandoned psychiatric hospital filled with deranged inmates. With no means to defend yourself other than hiding or running away, every encounter becomes a tense battle for survival.

Another standout survival horror game is “Alien: Isolation.” Set fifteen years after the events of Ridley Scott’s iconic film “Alien,” players assume the role of Ellen Ripley’s daughter as she tries to survive aboard a space station infested by one relentless xenomorph. The game’s AI-driven alien enemy constantly adapts to the player’s actions, making every encounter a nerve-wracking game of cat-and-mouse.

In conclusion, if you’re a fan of being scared senseless, these scary horror games will provide an unforgettable experience. Whether you prefer haunted houses, zombies, psychological torment, or survival challenges, there is a game out there that will cater to your darkest fears. So grab your controller and prepare for a night of terror as you dive into these spine-chilling virtual worlds.

This text was generated using a large language model, and select text has been reviewed and moderated for purposes such as readability.

DP FICTION #64A: “Open House on Haunted Hill” by John Wiswell

133 Poisonwood Avenue would be stronger if it was a killer house. There is an estate at 35 Silver Street that annihilated a family back in the 1800s and its roof has never sprung a leak since. In 2007 it still had the power to trap a bickering couple in an endless hedge maze that was physically only three hundred square feet. 35 Silver Street is a show-off.

133 Poisonwood only ever had one person ever die under its roof. Back in 1989, Dorottya Blasko had refused hospice, and spent two and a half months enjoying the sound of the wind on 133 Poisonwood’s shingles. 133 Poisonwood played its heart out for her every day.

The house misses 1989. It has spent so much of the time since vacant.

Today it is going to change that. It is on its best behavior as the realtor, Mrs. Weiss, sweeps up. She puts out trays of store-bought cookies and hides scent dispensers, while 133 Poisonwood summons a gentle breeze and uses its aura to spook any groundhogs off the property. Both the realtor and the real estate need this open house to work.

Stragglers trickle in. They are bored people more interested in snacks than the restored plumbing. The house straightens its aching floorboards, like a human sucking in their belly. Stragglers track mud everywhere. The house would love nothing more than any of them to spend the rest of their lives tracking mud into it.

A heavyset man with sagging shoulders lets himself in. He has a bit of brownie smudged against the back of his parakeet green hoodie, and doesn’t seem aware of it. Mrs. Weiss gives him a little wave while continuing to hold up a ten-minute conversation with an affluent couple. The couple made the mistake of saying they were “thinking of thinking of conceiving,” and Mrs. Weiss wields statistics about the school district like a cowboy wields a lasso. The couple’s shoes likely cost more than a down payment on the house, but from how often they check their phones, they clearly are headed back to their Mercedes.

The man with the brownie-stained hoodie prowls through 133 Poisonwood’s halls, and it pulls its floorboards so straight that its foundations tremble.

The man doesn’t look at 133 Poisonwood’s floor. He looks at the couple of ripples in the green floral wallpaper, with the expression of someone looking at his own armpit.

The house feels ashamed of the loose wallpaper. It’s vintage painted silk, which Mrs. Weiss says could be a big value-add. Now the house ponders if it can haunt its own glue and help strip the wallpaper away to please him. It’s especially important since he is spending more time here than anyone has yet without Mrs. Weiss wrangling them. It’s like he doesn’t feel the vibes other visitors do, or he doesn’t care about them.

From his behavior, what he cares about is wallpaper, the natural lighting through the windows in the master bedroom and the kitchen.

A child stomps in through the front door, her frizzy hair in three oblong pigtails she probably did herself. A silver keepsake locket clashes with her bright green Incredible Hulk t-shirt. Her elbows are tucked into her chest, hands out like claws, stained with brownie bits.

Every step she takes is deliberate and channels all her tiny body weight to be as heavy as possible. If the house had to guess, the girl is probably pretending to be a dinosaur on the hunt.

The man in the brownie-stained hoodie glances at her. He asks, “Ana. Where’s your coat?”

Ana bellows, “I hate clothes!”

Ana apparently hates clothes so much she immediately grabs the bottom of her Hulk t-shirt and yanks it up over her head. She is careful to keep her locket in place, but chucks the shirt at the man. He grabs for her, and she ducks between his arms, bolting past Mrs. Weiss and the affluent couple, pigtails and locket bouncing.

In their chase, they leave the front door open. The house knows heating oil is expensive. It summons a spectral breeze to shut it for them.

The sound makes Ana pinwheel around, and she points at the door. She says, “Daddy! It’s ghosts!”

Daddy says, “Ana, we talked about this. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“You didn’t look.”

“You don’t have to look for things that aren’t there.”

Ana looks at her locket and huffs. “What if it’s Mommy’s ghost?”

Daddy closes his eyes for a moment. “Please just put your shirt back on.”

Ana immediately attacks her own pants. “Clothes are for the weak!”

“Put it on or we are leaving, Ana,” he says, trying to wrestle clothing onto his daughter. She pushes at him, leaving more brownie residue on his hoodie. As they battle, the affluent couple slips out the front door without closing it.

The house closes it for them. Heating oil isn’t cheap.

The triangular roof means the second floor only has the space for one bedroom. Mrs. Weiss reads the expression on Daddy’s face, and she attacks with, “The basement is very spacious with generous lighting. It’s cool in the summer, and toasty in the winter.”

Ana says, “Heights are bad luck anyway.”

The four-year-old scarcely looks at the bedroom before backing out. She holds the handrail with both hands as she climbs down the stairs on quivering legs. On the third stair, she freezes entirely.

Daddy is in the middle of surveying the room and misses Ana quivering in place.

Some houses give their residents visions of slaughters or trauma. 133 Poisonwood gives Daddy a swift vision of his daughter’s vertigo. He doesn’t know it’s anyone else’s insight, and wouldn’t believe it, but he’s at the stairs in seconds. Ana holds onto his pants leg until she feels safe.

All 133 Poisonwood has is a light touch, but it knows how to use it. Haunting is an art.

The basement is only half-underground, so the windows are level with the freshly mowed front lawn. Ana spends a moment giggling at the view. Then she whizzes around the basement, from the combination furnace and laundry room, to a storage closet, and to a pair of vacant rooms. They would make a perfect child’s bedroom and playroom.

Ana goes to the west room, announcing, “Daddy. You can keep all the ghosts you bust in here.”

Mrs. Weiss offers, “One of these could be a home office. You said you telecommute? Google Fiber is coming to the area next year.”

Daddy says, “I want to work from home more. I’m a software engineer, and I host a skeptic podcast. You might have heard us.”

The house isn’t offended. It doesn’t believe in ghosts either.

Ana hops back and forth between the two rooms, scrutinizing over and over as though they’ll grow. That is a trick the house doesn’t have.

Daddy says, “We could sleep next door to each other. What do you think?”

Ana says, “But I want a big dino room.”

“You’re getting to be a big dinosaur. How about the room on the top floor?”

Ana’s bottom lip shoots upward like she’s going to run. She clearly won’t settle for the room on the top floor, and there’s only a master bedroom on the first floor. A tantrum is close, and it could ruin everything.

So 133 Poisonwood plays its ace. Every decent haunted house has at least one secret room. Dorottya Blasko used to sew down here when she didn’t want to be pestered, in a room her family couldn’t find. It would be a perfect place for Ana to grow up in. Perhaps she’ll learn to sew.

With the sound of an affectionate kitten, the door opens. Shock hits the adults, who definitely don’t remember there being a room there. Ana doesn’t care, and runs to explore it.

“Uh, we aren’t showing that room,” Mrs. Weiss says, scrambling to cover for herself. She’s panicking, imagining hazards and lawsuits.

She doesn’t understand. 133 Poisonwood is going to clinch the sale for them.

The room runs deep, with an expansive window that hasn’t been seen from the outside in over twenty years. A sewing box with a scarlet and royal blue quilted exterior sits next to a rocking chair, and beneath the window is a broad spinning wheel that still smells like hobbies. Many great dresses were supposed to come out of this room. There are a few cracks on the concrete floor. Nothing a loving father can’t fill in to perfect his daughter’s big dino room.

“Ana,” Daddy calls. “Stay near me.”

Ana ignores the call and runs straight up to the spinning wheel. Her little hands grab onto spokes in the drive wheel, and she turns to the door. “It’s like Mommy’s.”

Daddy says, “Careful, that’s not ours—”

Ana yanks the wheel around to show it off to the adults. She pulls before the house can resist, and the entire device creaks and wobbles. It topples straight down on top of Ana, throwing her to the floor.

Daddy grabs her shoulders and pulls her from between the cracked wheel and treadle. Ana’s too distracted bawling to feel her necklace snag the spindle. The thin chain snaps, and the locket slips from her neck and down a crack in the floor. Without intending to, the house sucks the chain down like a strand of spaghetti. The house tries to spit it out.

Daddy squeezes Ana to his chest so hard she could pop, and keeps repeating, “Are you alright? Are you alright?”

Mrs. Weiss gestures and says, “Her hand.”

“Are you alright?”

Ana says, “Let me fix it!” She stretches her hands to the broken spinning wheel. One of her hands is bleeding and she still wants to use them to clean up her mess. She says, “Daddy, let go, I’ll fix it. Don’t make the ghosts sad.”

That breaks Daddy’s concerned trance, and he lifts her under one arm, ignoring the kicking of her feet. He marches for the stairs. “No. I warned you, and we are leaving.”

“Daddy, no!”

“No more. Say goodbye. You see the ghosts aren’t saying goodbye? Do you know why?”

An urge falls over the house to slam the door shut and trap them all inside. Daddy, Ana, and even Mrs. Weiss, force them all to spend eternity in its hidden room, where they can make dresses, and stay cool in the summer, and warm in the winter. It will shelter them from all the hurricanes the world can create. It needs them.

The phantom door’s hinges and knob tremble as 133 Poisonwood fights itself. In that moment it knows what makes other homes go evil. The killer houses can’t bear to be alone.

133 Poisonwood Avenue would be stronger if it was a killer house. But it isn’t one.

It leaves its rooms open as Daddy carries his bawling daughter out of the basement, her incoherent sounds resonating through the house’s crawl spaces. He carries her up the stairs and out the front door without a backward glance. This time, he remembers to close the door.

133 Poisonwood leaves the secret room open in the hopes that someone will come back. It squeezes the cracks in its floor closed, popping the locket out without scratching it. Inside is the picture of a woman with a thick nose and proud eyes. She would have made an excellent ghost. The house would take a phantom for an inhabitant at this point.

The afternoon is sluggish. There are four more visitors, none of whom stay long enough to check the basement for treasure. The hours chug by, and Mrs. Weiss spends most of the time on her phone.

With half an hour of daylight left, a red sedan pulls up. The driver lingers outside for two minutes before knocking. It’s Daddy.

Mrs. Weiss answers and forces a smile, “Ulisses. Is Ana okay?”

Daddy says, “It was a scratch. Thanks for being understanding before.”

She says, “I’m so sorry about that. I told the team this place was supposed to be empty.”

He says, “Have you seen a locket? Ana wears it everywhere and it’s gone missing.”

Mrs. Weiss holds the door open for him, “We can check around. What does it look like?”

“It has a picture of Ana’s mother inside. It’s one of few gifts she still has from her.”

“She was your wife?”

“She was going to be,” he says, and looks around the master bedroom with an expression even emptier than the space. “There was an accident on our apartment’s fire escape. She had a fall.”

“Oh, that’s terrible.”

“Right now, Ana needs all the comfort she can get. So if we can find that locket, it’d save our lives.”

They look around, the man so tired every step looks heavy. It’s amazing he could stagger into a motel bed, let alone go hunting for a locket. The house hasn’t seen someone as in need of a home in years.

Mrs. Weiss says, “I had something like that after my father passed away. Makes her feel like her mother’s spirit is still with her?”

“Superstitions aren’t comforting to me,” he says, fatigue giving way to scorn, as though daring the house’s walls to do something. “And Ana’s mother was an atheist.”

The house is tempted to give Daddy the shock of his life and toss the locket to him. Give him back the image of his lover and proof of its power.

But he doesn’t need to believe in hauntings. With his slumped shoulders, and his clothes stained with his daughter’s food, and the pieces of their lives he is trying to put together?

What he needs is a win.

So the house uses what little strength it has to levitate the locket onto the top basement stair. It twists it so the light catches it, and shines into the upstairs living room.

Daddy finds the precious locket on his own. He bends over it, brushing a thumb over his lover’s image. He heaves a sigh through his nose like he wishes he could fit inside the locket.

The house lets him be proud of himself. It will hold onto this memory for the cold years ahead until it is bulldozed.

Daddy stands up without the locket, leaving it behind. The house tries to send him a vision warning that he’s forgotten what he came here for.

The mental image doesn’t change what he’s doing.

He goes right outside, to his sedan where Ana sits, rubbing at her puffy eyes and runny nose. Daddy says, “It might be here. Do you want to help me look?”

The house cannot cry. There is just a little air in its pipes.

Ana flops out of the car and trudges into 133 Poisonwood. She spends too long poking around the kitchen, a room she was barely in earlier. Daddy plays an even worse sleuth, deliberately checking around empty hallways that give him a view of when Ana finally checks the basement door.

“Mommy!” she cheers. She sits right down on the stair and hugs the locket to her throat, voice trembling with emotions too big for her body. “Mommy came back!”

Daddy asks, “So you found it?”

“I told you she’d be here. Mommy wanted me to find it.”

“Your mother didn’t do that, Ana.”

She scrunches her nose and mimics his voice to say, “You don’t know that.”

Daddy puts a hand over the locket. “You found this. Not anybody else. You don’t need ghosts,” and he taps her on the temple, “because you have the best parts of your mother inside you.”

Ana gazes up at her father with glossy eyes.

133 Poisonwood has never so understood what it wants to do for people as when it watches this parent. It tries to hold onto the vibrations of his voice in its walls.

Then Ana says, “Nah. The ghosts left it here.”

She hauls off to the living room, hopping in late afternoon sunbeams, and holding the locket in the light.

Reason is defeated for the moment. Daddy doesn’t fight her on it. He rests against the wall, against the wallpaper he hates, taking the house for granted. The house plays a tune on its shingles, the same one that calmed Dorottya Blasko in 1989.

Daddy calls, “Mrs. Weiss?”

“Please, call me Carol,” she says. She’s been pretending she wasn’t lurking ten feet away this whole time. “You’re very sweet with Ana. You can just tell some people were born with the knack.”

“Three rooms in the basement. This is a lot of house for the money, isn’t it?”

“It’s just a family short of a home.”

133 Poisonwood would be more charmed by the line if it hadn’t heard her say that eight other times today.

Daddy says, “I like the space this place has for her. There’s plenty of room to run. And she loves to run. Going to be a track and field star.”

“I said to myself that this place looks happier when you’re in it. It suits you.”

The house can tell he wants to say he doesn’t believe that.

He says, “What we need is somewhere to start fresh.”

Mrs. Weiss offers him a folio of data on the house and gestures to the basement. “Care for another look around?”

“Yeah. Thank you.” He takes the folio. “While Ana is playing upstairs, can we check how insulated from sound that sewing room is? It’s funny, but I thought it might make a good podcast studio.”

If houses could laugh. He sounds so unguarded and sincere.

This tired skeptic doesn’t need to know that his podcast room doesn’t technically exist. If he finds the blueprints for 133 Poisonwood, he’ll shave away what he doesn’t understand with Occam’s razor. The house doesn’t need him to believe in anything but himself and his daughter. It isn’t here for the gratitude. It can try to support him as well as he supports Ana. If anything is as patient as a parent, it’s a haunting.

Editor’s Note: The original posting of this story included a terminology error where a spindle was confused with a spinning wheel. This has been corrected. Thank you to “Janice in GA” who first pointed out the error.

Author’s Note: At the World Fantasy Convention in 2018, I went to dinner with some lovely people who let me babble about Horror. I read, watch, and play Horror every week, but I barely ever write it. Instead I tend to put Horror-y things back out as humorous stories or heartwarming stories. Off the top of my head I gave them the example that if I wrote a haunted house story, it wouldn’t be like Haunting of Hill House – it would be about a haunted house that was lonely and desperately wanted someone to live in it. One of my fellow authors reached across the table, grabbed me by the hand, and said, “Please write this.” On the train ride home, I did. So this story is dedicated to Natalia Theodoridou, who demanded I help 133 Poisonwood find its family and its audience – all of you.

John (@wiswell) is a disabled writer who lives where New York keeps all its trees. His work has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Nature Futures, and Fireside Magazine. He wishes all readers the comfort that their settings wish they could provide.

If you enjoyed the story you might also want to visit our Support Page , or read the other story offerings . John’s fiction has previous appeared here in Diabolical Plots with “Tank!” in June 2018. John’s story “For Lack of a Bed” was published here as well in April 2021.

81 thoughts on “DP FICTION #64A: “Open House on Haunted Hill” by John Wiswell”

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Gosh, this is absolutely charming. I love the idea of sentient houses, and I love the different kinds of longing that pervade this story.

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Absolutely lovely. Thanks for writing it.

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This genuinely made me tear up. What a lovely little locket of a story.

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Thank you for this story – charming!

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<3 this story!

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What a lovely story. Thank you.

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Lela E. Buis

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Review of “My Country Is a Ghost” by Eugenia Triantafyllou New releases!

Review of “Open House on Haunted Hill” by John Wiswell

April 16, 2021

Lela E. Buis Best Short Story , book review , Book sales , books , diversity , fantasy , literary awards , literary sf , Nebula Awards , publishing , reading , review , SFWA , Speculative fiction , Writing African American , Diabolical Plots , fantasy , ghosts , horror , humor , nebula award , publishing , reading , review , SFWA , short story , story review , writing 2 Comments

This fantasy short story is a finalist for the 2020 Nebula Award, and was published by Diabolical Plots on 6/15/20. John Wiswell thinks this is a horror story, but it seems to have gotten away from him. This review contains spoilers.

The house at 133 Poisonwood has been vacant too long, and it’s lonely. If it were an evil house, it might have killed some people, but it’s not, so it does only gentle hauntings. Mrs. Weiss the realtor is having an open house today, talking to a couple who are “thinking of conceiving” but a man and his unruly four-year-old daughter Ana arrive, and the couple makes a quick exit. The two take a tour of the house, and it’s clear that Daddy hates the wallpaper and they’re having problems deciding who might sleep where. Daddy wants a room to work in and space for his daughter to run so the house opens a secret room that was Mrs. Blasko’s sewing room years ago and still has her things in it. Ana runs to the spinning wheel and knocks it over, skins her hand and cries. Daddy takes her away in his car, but she’s lost her locket. Will they come back for it?

This is a wonderfully heartwarming tale of a lonely house hoping for a family and a family in need of a welcoming home. The house gently tries to encourage Daddy and Ana to love it, and holds onto Ana’s locket with her dead mother’s picture as a lure and enticement. The narration is absorbing and some includes tongue-in-cheek, ironic humor and strong characterization. We end up with a decent image of the house and a good idea of how it’s laid out and what its environment it. As an extra bonus, there are clues that Daddy and Ana might be African American.

On the less positive side, there are some spots where the dialog or the characters’ actions don’t quite ring true. For example, Ana’s behavior seems sometimes too adult and sometimes too childish. Daddy’s absolute refusal to believe in ghosts or any kind of afterlife seems unnecessary. And why point out that Daddy and Mommy weren’t married?

Four and a half stars.

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Black Forest Basilisks

Discussions and thoughts on science fiction & fantasy, open house on haunted hill by john wiswell.

Welcome to Short Fiction Friday! Every Friday, Black Forest Basilisks will be shining a spotlight on a new short story, novelette, or flash fic in addition to our regular posts. These stories will usually be available for free online, but occasionally stories from published anthologies will also be featured.

This story is available online for free at: Diabolical Plots – Click through to read!

Open House on Haunted Hill is a finalist in the 2021 Nebula Awards. Read more reviews of Nebula Finalists here.

133 Poisonwood Avenue would be stronger if it was a killer house. There is an estate at 35 Silver Street that annihilated a family back in the 1800s and its roof has never sprung a leak since. In 2007 it still had the power to trap a bickering couple in an endless hedge maze that was physically only three hundred square feet. 35 Silver Street is a show-off.

I have been deeply impressed by the short story category nominations for the Nebula Award this year. Previously, I reviewed both My Country is a Ghost by Eugenia Triantafyllou as well as Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse – and let me tell you, they’re going to living rent-free in my brain for some time. And I have exactly zero complaints about that, because they are excellent . Read more reviews of Nebula Finalists here.

John Wiswell’s contribution to the ballot is just as wonderful but much cozier and more optimistic in tone than either of the first two. With a title like “Open House on Haunted Hill,” I was not expecting to be so thoroughly charmed. The titular haunted house wants nothing more than to have people it can care for, and it does its very best to woo a new family into putting a down payment in with the realtor.

A common theme in Wiswell’s writing is parenthood, and this story is no exception. A widower and his young daughter are looking to buy a new home, and he faces everything from a refusal to wear a coat to a lost locket while trying to view 133 Poisonwood Avenue. His responses to her crises and the house’s subtle interventions were utterly endearing. My heart grew at least three sizes while reading this story.

Fans of Open House on Haunted Hill should definitely take a look at The Thing in the Walls Wants Your Small Change by Virginia M. Mohlere – it has a similar surprisingly wholesome take on living in a somewhat uncanny home.

Past featured short stories can be viewed here.

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About the Author

Open House on Haunted Hill • 2020 • Ghost short story by John Wiswell

First sentence : 133 Poisonwood Avenue would be stronger if it was a killer house.

Synopsis : 133 Poisonwood is a haunted house which desperately wants to host a family again. Show-off houses like those famous killer houses would be cooler and are well sought-after, but that’s not the nature of 133 Poisonwood. It really cares for its residents.

Today it is going to change that. It is on its best behavior as the realtor, Mrs. Weiss, sweeps up. […] The house straightens its aching floorboards, like a human sucking in their belly.

Several prospective buyers come visiting. Will the house end up with a new owner?

Review : I checked twice before falling into yet another horror story. This is the opposite, an inversion of a horror trope, and what a super-sweet, heartwarming one! There’s not much of suspension in it, the end is quite predictable. But the house’s funny haunting tricks are worth reading for its own sake. Add to that the lovely character of 133 Poisonwood, and you have a perfectly enjoyable short story.

The short story here has been nominated for this year’s Nebula Award (check out the list with references to online available stories and my reviews).

One star added for the fresh look at haunted houses. Recommended for every reader needing a heartwarming short stoy.

Meta : isfdb . Available online at Diabolicalplots. Nominated for the Nebula Award.

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Open house on haunted hill by john wiswell short story analysis.

“Open House on Haunted Hill” is a Nebula Award winning short (ghost?) story by John Wiswell, published in 2020. I’ve recently immersed myself in ghost stories from the 18- and 1900s. But how does one go about writing a contemporary ghost story?

Listen to this story read by Levar Burton on the Levar Burton Reads podcast.

Can modern writers still write an original and surprising ghost story? I mean, haven’t all the ghost tropes been done to death? Aren’t modern audiences super well-schooled in these tropes, if not from primary sources then from pop-culture descendants?

John Wiswell allays these particular fears. “Open House on Haunted Hill” may sound like a Shirley Jackson pastiche…

or a 1980s horror film…

But this is one of the kindest most original ghost stories you’ll read. If you’re in the mood for kindness (and who isn’t?), jump right in.

The 3000 word story is posted at Diabolical Plots .

SETTING OF “OPEN HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL”

The first thing I notice is that this story is set firmly in the present. There’s no attempt to paste a historical sensibility onto the present.

The father is a single dad who works in IT and produces his own podcast. It’s a skeptic podcast, no less. (And that’s all we need to know about him! Ha.)

When did real estate agents start with the open houses as a marketing technique? ( The history of open homes is a lot longer than I thought .)

Open homes are great for storytellers. They’re so stressful. The private temporarily becomes public. Open houses appeal to the voyeur in us, and after all, what is fiction-reading if not an act of benign voyeurism? There’s also that common fear of the penetrable home. We like to think our homes are for family and close friends only, but stories from antiquity evince an age-old fear of the demon coming down the chimney or in through the windows and doors . The open home is the real-world symbolic equivalent to opening your private sphere to potential evil. Stories about evil nannies are good at throwing an extra veneer of misogyny over anxieties around the penetrable home.

The writing team of Breaking Bad used the open home to great effect when Walt and Jessie forget about a scheduled open day which just so happens to coincide with them holding a hostage in the basement. Later, Walt and Jessie infiltrate other people’s private space when they cook meth under the cover of an authorised bug spray via Vamonos Pest in “Hazard Pay” (2012).

This plot plays into our collective fear of home invasion, and Breaking Bad explores it from various angles. The threat of home invasion undergirds audience anxieties even when storytellers have made sure we’re following the exploits of the invaders, not the invaded.

“Open House on Haunted Hill” covers only the length of an open home visit but because the narrator is the house, and the house has a long history, the author achieves a sense of permanence and relevance.

This is America. I initially imagined a more built up area. Then I got to thinking it’s maybe more toward the edge of civilisation. They are a little slow to get fast Internet (assuming a contemporary setting).

The entire story plays out inside a single house with a brief reference to another haunted house at the beginning. Ghost stories can sometimes be a little difficult to get into. First the author mentions one house, then immediately mentions another. Charles Dickens did this in “The Signalman” (not the same thing exactly): discombobulating the reader. This is how the characters feel.

Later in the story, the father feels the daughter’s vertigo (without knowing he’s feeling his daughter’s vertigo). See also: Disorientation and Spatial Horror . Except in this story, spatial horror is an act of empathy. (See what I mean by a kind story?)

LEVEL OF CONFLICT

In “Open House on Haunted Hill”, the narrator is the house itself, commenting omnisciently on the characters who come inside. Generations of storytellers have primed audiences to expect that houses do not like to be invaded. Houses hate change and exact revenge on newcomers.

Anything other take on this plot is a subversion. Whose side is this house on?

THE EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE

This refers to the land which lives inside the main character: The imaginative landscape, the difference between what is real in the veridical world of the story and how a character perceives it — never exactly as it is, but rather influenced by their own preconceptions, biases, desires and personal histories.

The father of this story is a skeptic. But unusually for a ghost story featuring a skeptic main character, the events which play out don’t prove him wrong , but rather support various ways of looking at the world.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Mrs weiss the real estate agent.

Mrs Weiss is the realtor conducting the open home. She is a ‘fake mother’: The trays of food she puts out are ‘store-bought’. The homely aroma comes from a hidden scent dispenser.

I have been primed to despise fictional real estate agents. But there’s more to my initial suspicion of Mrs Weiss than ‘real estate agents’. Whenever a fictional character sets about ‘covering things up’ (even if it’s a part of their actual job), they are almost always ‘found out’ by the end of the story. Or, unmasked . That doesn’t happen here, which is partly what makes this ghost story so original. Mrs Weiss turns out to be a regular lady doing her real estate job, helping people to find their homes.

“THE REAL ESTATE”

This house has a triangular roof with a shingle roof, is heated with oil and has painted vintage silk wallpaper. The last permanent owner died there in 1989. This house was probably built in the early 1900s or before. The house is shaped like a hierarchical triangle, with a spacious basement but only enough room for one bedroom under the roof. (Think Maslow’s hierarchy, with basic needs in the basement — a hierarchy misappropriated from Native Americans.) The basement is only half underground, but most of the living space seems to be down there. (In my illustration up top I think I’ve got one too many storeys. I couldn’t be arsed changing it by the time I realised. Also I’ve drawn a wild hog but it should really be a groundhog. I’m leaving it because I think there might also be wild hogs.)

Intriguingly, ‘every decent haunted house has at least one secret room’. There’s a Tardis effect going on, with an ‘expansive window that hasn’t been seen from the outside in over twenty years’.

Suspense throughout this narrative derives from the fact we don’t know what the house is planning. Is the house a goodie or a baddie? (We expect bad.)

When an object is compared to a person we call it an example of personification :

The house straightens its aching floorboards, like a human sucking in their belly.

By the way, when it happens the other way around (a person compared to an object) it is called chremamorphism . Once you start noticing it, you find chremamorphism is surprisingly common in literature.

Interesting fictional characters — houses, objects or otherwise — have some kind of desire and this desire is made apparent to the reader.

The house would love nothing more than any of them to spend the rest of their lives tracking mud into it.

This is an interesting unexpected response . We’d expect a sentient house to not enjoy strangers trekking mud through it all the while taking no interest in the house (in attendance for the food). Emphasis is on ‘forever’. Like the house at 35 Silver Street (with a vampire adjacent name), this house can presumably suck people into its bones forever.

The Open Home is a poor replica of Real Home, same as a Hotel California type situation, which never lets its visitors leave. (See, for instance, “The Bus” by Shirley Jackson , or the pilot episode of Courage The Cowardly Dog , which spoofs the trope.)

We are told in the opening sentence that this house is not evil, but I for one don’t believe the narrator, who is the house itself. (Don’t know about you, but I don’t take a talking house at face value.)

The first real clue we have about whether the house is evil or benevolent: The house blows the door shut to keep the heat in, because heating oil is expensive. But could this be a little bit of nice before the malevolence? Next it’s going to clinch a sale ‘for them’. WHO ARE THEM. (See how suspicious I am?)

THE AFFLUENT COUPLE

There’s a rich couple to contrast against the schlubby guy who becomes the focal character of this story:

The couple made the mistake of saying they were “thinking of thinking of conceiving,” and Mrs. Weiss wields statistics about the school district like a cowboy wields a lasso.

THE FATHER (ULISSES)

A heavyset man with sagging shoulders lets himself in. He has a bit of brownie smudged against the back of his parakeet green hoodie, and doesn’t seem aware of it.

This guy looks at ‘the couple of ripples in the green floral wallpaper, with the expression of something looking at his own armpit’. From the get-go, the man and the house are cosmically connected.

Is there any significance to the father’s name, only mentioned by the real estate agent near the end? Perhaps. Ulysses is the Roman version of Odysseus, the perhaps fictional Greek King of Ithaca and the hero of Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey. Even if you haven’t read “The Odyssey”, this was a hugely influential epic and has informed story structure for 3000 years: A hero goes on a journey, meets a variety of allies and opponents along the way, then either returns home a changed man or finds a new home.

THE DAUGHTER (ANA)

A child stomps in through the front door, her frizzy hair in three oblong pigtails she probably did herself. A silver keepsake locket clashes with her bright green Incredible Hulk t-shirt. Her elbows are tucked into her chest, hands out like claws, stained with brownie bits.

When Ana rips off her t-shirt I recall the first essay in Ivan Coyote’s 2012 autobiography One In Every Crowd . Perhaps this is partly why I immediately code this kid as non-binary. Of course, she could simply be a little cis girl who happens to reject cultural conventions for girls (like keeping your shirt on, and playing princesses rather than stomping dinosaurs).

Like animals and other small children across supernatural storytelling, Ana understands immediately that the house is haunted.

WRITING TECHNIQUE: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EXPLANATION AND CONFIRMATION

Ana’s wearing a locket and the author keeps mentioning it. We know it’s going to be important. It probably contains a picture of Ana’s dead mother.

Here’s something I’ve noticed time and again in good stories: Confirmation. In this example, the author gives us more than enough clues to let us know what’s inside the locket, but he does eventually tell us outright in the conversation between Mrs Weiss and Ulisses. It’s difficult as a writer to know when to entirely trust your reader to get things, and when to explain.

Some writers err on the ‘too explainy’ side in first drafts. My own first drafts don’t tend to offer enough. I regularly have to go back in and tell the reader, ‘Yes, you were right. There’s a picture of Ana’s mother inside the locket’.

Readers like to know what’s inside things. Even when they can guess, they like to have it confirmed. Takeaway point: Telling readers what’s inside the locket is a confirmation , not an explanation.

ANA’S DEAD MOTHER AND DOROTTYA BLASKO

In many stories, a character who isn’t there is an important character all the same. In this case we have the little girls’ dead mother, who Ana conflates with the dead old lady who used to live in the house and died here back in 1989.

Importantly, Mrs Blasko died peacefully, using her own house as hospice. If she’d died in violent circumstances we’d have a different kind of story.

The author tells us Mrs Blasko was a seamstress and she used the secret room for sewing, so her family couldn’t bother her.

Whenever women sew, there’s a historical connection to a matrilineage which goes back a long, long way. Witches are frequently depicted sewing, or messing around with needles and spindles. By contemporary conception, medieval witches were ‘spinsters’. (This wasn’t actually the case. Many women murdered during the Witch Craze were married with children.)

For some reason Ana’s mother also had an old-fashioned spinning wheel. (Is this kid the offspring of a contemporary “ Sleeping Beauty “?)

The term ‘fairytale’ is often used as an epithet—a fairytale setting, a fairytale ending—for a work that is not in itself a fairy tale, because it depends on elements of the form’s symbolic language. Marina Warner (2014) (xviii)

Even when a contemporary story is not based obviously on a tale from antiquity, readers come subconsciously primed. There’s a SPINDLE in the BASEMENT? Watch out! Anyone who’s ever seen or read a single witch story, or a single story with a basement will recognise the allusion (without necessarily knowing what the hell ‘allusion’ means), and knows to be on high alert.

This is the author pranking us, though. As we soon see, the house is not evil.

STORY STRUCTURE OF “OPEN HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL”

The title of this story is architextual.

Architextuality refers to stories in which the paratext (in this case the title) positions the story inside an established category. From the title, readers expect a haunted house story.

SHORTCOMING

Classic ghost stories frequently send a man of learning and logic in to a supernatural situation. “The Signalman” by Charles Dickens is just one example of this. Why? Is it to poke fun at (genuine) skeptics? (And by genuine I mean people who look to science before forming an opinion.)

I’ve always found this aspect a little alienating about ghost stories. I’m heartily sick to death of people who avoid science facts but who nonetheless still claim knowledge around how climate change is a hoax and vaccines don’t work anyway.

Why do storytellers set up the skeptic as the victim in a ghost story? Are they trying to give oxygen to the anti-science populace, and even if they’re not trying, is that an unintended consequence? I notice one commenter at Diabolical Plots has this to say:

I like the concept, but the story feels like a heavy-handed attempt to mock skeptics/atheists. Isaac

It becomes clear near the end (in case we miss it) that the house is lonely and simply wants someone to inhabit it. The house will take anyone who will have it, rejected at every turn by people who misunderstand its intentions.

The house would take a phantom for an inhabitant at this point.

What does the house want? The author leaves this as a reveal. Readers wonder if it’s going to suck up the father and daughter, or refuse to let them leave.

The house is lonely. Likewise, the father is lonely, freshly widowed (a deduction). (They weren’t technically married yet.) The house and the father are therefore perfect for each other.

Throughout the story we don’t know if the house is an opponent or ally. The realtor is a bit of a proxy opponent. She’s not exactly standing in the way of this man getting what he wants (a house) but she is sufficiently unappealing as a character to make us think not everyone’s going to get on hunky dory.

The house is only able to do subtle hauntings but uses its supernatural forces to cocoon and help and persuade the widower and his daughter into its safety.

THE BIG STRUGGLE

Ana is messing around with the spinning wheel when it tips over and hurts her. Unusually for a haunted house story, this isn’t some supernatural force at work. She hurts her hand, which becomes covered in blood. Cue a classic horror scene with bloody child-sized handprints everywhere. Except this time it happens not because of malevolence, but because the child is trying to set the spinning wheel upright again. Everyone in this scene has good intentions.

ANAGNORISIS

Even with the best of intentions all round, bad things happen to good people. This is the audience revelation.

Unusually for a haunted house story, it’s the house itself which experiences the character revelation:

The phantom door’s hinges and knob tremble as 133 Poisonwood fights itself. In that moment it knows what makes other homes go evil. The killer houses can’t bear to be alone.

We can now legit argue that the haunted house is ‘ the main character ‘. I would even go so far as to say that the house is the building manifestation of the father.

NEW SITUATION

And this is how we know the father has found ‘his’ house.

“Open House On Haunted Hill” bears similarities to a picture book called Over The Shop by JonArno Lawson and illustrated by Qin Leng :

There’s the metaphorical queer representation
The building which functions as a character in its own right
The plot point in which the ‘right’ people turn up and almost leave. In both stories, the audience understands that the building fits the people perfectly and it is gut-wrenching to see them almost miss out on finding their perfect home.

EXTRAPOLATED ENDING

Is this one of those ghost stories that pokes fun at skeptics? No, I don’t believe so. Even this aspect of the ghost story is a subversion. At the end of “The Signalman”, the logical skeptical wanderer understands that something bigger than himself is at play. But not in this one. The house isn’t teaching him a lesson:

But he doesn’t need to believe in hauntings.

Does this change the covert message, though? Does it matter if the skeptic learns the error or his logical ways when the story itself points out his lack of supernatural understanding to readers?

Ghost stories aren’t about ghosts . In good ghost stories, the ghosts convey bigger ideas about workaday human experiences. (Remember, not even the house believes in ghosts.) The haunted, talking house is a narratorial trick. For the skeptical reader, this a story about a man and daughter finding a new home after great loss, and the way a home can seem to enfold you in its arms when it feels familiar.

The author is himself aro/ace (aromantic and asexual). There is nothing on-the-page ace about this story, but the ace community will see asexuality written all over it:

“You don’t have to look for things that aren’t there.” […] It’s like he doesn’t feel the vibes other visitors do, or he doesn’t care about them.

This is an allegory of a man who falls in love in a different kind of way because he looks for different things. While the normies (the rich people) look at the bones of the house and its proximity to schooling, ‘Daddy plays an even worse sleuth, deliberately checking around empty hallways’.

Many in the autistic community would also identify with a story about a character who moves differently through the world.

I’m reminded of what Emily VanDerWerff said on Twitter recently (in a conversation about trans representation in Midsommar ):

I increasingly think “explicit” queer representation has less value than metaphorical queer representation. […] Explicit queer representation is a trap. It too easily makes queerness a fixed constant — you figure yourself out, and there you are. […] I am MUCH more likely to see myself via METAPHORICAL queer representation. @emilyvdw on Twitter

Not all ace people identify as queer, but my point is this: People trained in close reading (obviously this includes critics) look for metaphorical representation in their fiction. I’m not convinced every consumer of fiction does this, but we are increasingly becoming a population who collectively does. The last decade has seen a shift from pop culture reviewers telling us what to watch to explaining to us what we have just watched. All of us reading about our favourite shows are now getting English lit lessons without even knowing it. As a result, I expect audiences will become more and more sophisticated, and storytelling will continue to reflect this sophistication.

The other point I’d like to make is this: We need diverse voices published more widely, even when those diverse voices don’t seem — on the surface, to the majority — to be writing anything to do with their own identities. Queer people don’t have to write stories about on-the-page queer characters. Queerness is a mindset, a way of being. A non-normie way of viewing the world will manifest in whatever non-normies do.

And if you want a subverted take on an old story, please, commission (or read) a marginalised voice.♦

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Open House on Haunted Hill by John Wiswell

Oct 25 2020
Length: 10 mins

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“Haunting is an art.”

Find us in the secret room for a hauntingly good time with " Open House on Haunted Hill" (2020) by John Wiswell. Autumn isn't only spooks and screams; it's also about loneliness, change, and the warmth of home. Warning: this story might melt your horror-loving heart.

Read the story: http://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-64a-open-house-on-haunted-hill-by-john-wiswell/

* Theme: Magical Transition by Kevin McLeod * Additional music and sound effects from zapsplat.com

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Open House on Haunted Hill by John Wiswell

This is the last short story to review that was nominated for a Hugo Award this year.

Published : June, 2020 at Diabolical Plots (a short story location I haven’t heard of)

Genre : fantasy short story with a hint of horror

Setting : 133 Poisonwood, a house in a generic suburb

Short summary : A haunted house entices a new family to move in during an open house

Final thoughts : I think this was my favorite story on the nomination list. It starts out with the feel of a horror story, since 133 Poisonwood is a haunted house. It’s not haunted by ghosts. Instead, the house is an entity, and it’s lonely. It’s been too long since anyone lived in the house. Both the realtor and the house want the house to sell during the open house. My favorite part was when the house played it’s trump card – a secret room. I’d love a secret crafting room!

I enjoyed the interplay between the house and the father and daughter. The daughter was enchanted by the house from the get-go. The father, a skeptic, took a bit more convincing. Wiswell was able to capture the perfect wistful tone for the house. It so wanted a family. Overall, an enjoyable, light story.

Title comes from : The setting of the story

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Open House on Haunted Hill by John Wiswell

Open House on Haunted Hill by John Wiswell ( Diabolical Plots , June 2020) is narrated by a haunted house, and sees it on its best behaviour when Mrs Weiss, a local realtor (estate agent), puts the house on the market:

The house misses 1989. It has spent so much of the time since vacant. Today it is going to change that. It is on its best behaviour as the realtor, Mrs. Weiss, sweeps up. She puts out trays of store-bought cookies and hides scent dispensers, while 133 Poisonwood summons a gentle breeze and uses its aura to spook any groundhogs off the property. Both the realtor and the real estate need this open house to work. Stragglers trickle in. They are bored people more interested in snacks than the restored plumbing. The house straightens its aching floorboards, like a human sucking in their belly. Stragglers track mud everywhere. The house would love nothing more than any of them to spend the rest of their lives tracking mud into it.

A widower and his rumbustious four-year-old daughter later arrive at the open house and start viewing the property. As they do so the house makes a number of minor interventions (it blows the door shut, gives the father a vision of his daughter’s vertigo, etc.) before finally showing them a hidden room. Unfortunately, Ana runs into a spinning wheel she sees in the room and knocks it over, cutting her hand and losing a bracelet into a crack in the floor. The father grabs his daughter and leaves. The house resists the urge to trap the pair in the room, but realises in that moment why other houses sometimes go bad. Later that day (spoiler), the father and Ana, having realised she has lost her bracelet (which was previously her dead mother’s), return to find it. The house helps them to do so, and during the process we learn more about the pair’s backstory and the death of Ana’s mother. The father finally decides to buy the house. A charming (and feel-good) haunted house story. *** (Good). 3,000 words. Story link . 1. This story won the 2021 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. It was also the runner up in its Locus Poll category, fourth in the Hugo Award, and was also a World Fantasy Award finalist.