a real scream

18 scream-worthy events for a frightfully fun Halloween weekend in Houston

Get your scream on at 13th Floor Haunted House Houston.

13th Floor Haunted House Houston/Facebook

It's time to break out those costumes, Houston. Halloween is here and myriad events and spectacles are vying for your patronage. From haunted houses to pet-friendly activities to boozy bashes, these 18 events are a real scream.

Some events are already on; many start Thursday, October 28 and run through Halloween weekend.

The 13th Floor Haunted House features three separate attractions, including Dead in the Water, Bad Blood, and The Dollmaker. It also features axe throwing, mini escape games, the shooting game Zombie Apocalypse Live, and Bar13, where patrons 21 and over can enjoy spooky libations before or after experiencing the haunted house. Through Saturday, November 6. 7:30 pm (7 pm on Halloween).

The Big Bounce America’s 2021 tour stop continues in Houston, Friday through Sunday at AVEVA Stadium. To celebrate Halloween, the largest touring inflatable event in the world will give out prizes for “best dressed” costumes and candy, alongside its four inflatable attractions. 9 am.

Over in Rosharon, Creepy Hollow Haunted House features three haunted attractions — 288 Scare Factory, Dark Woods, and Pitch Black — as well as Freak Show, Creepy Hollow World Of Oddities, Voodoo Lounge, Axis Pole, and Fire by the Pits. Through Saturday, November 6. 7:30 pm (7 pm on Halloween).

Haunted Trails boasts acres of mortifying scenes and unnatural creatures await eagerly to quench the monsters' undying thirst for screams. What lurks among these trees? What sinister beings have you in their sights? It also features Pyscho Hollow 3D and the new Escape the Guillotine escape game puzzle. Through Sunday, October 31. 8 pm (7:30 pm on Halloween).

During the day, Haunted Houstonopoly will be decked out in seasonal decor and ready to welcome little ones of all ages with Halloween photo ops and plenty of family-friendly fun. When the sun sets, it’s transformed into an interactive fright fest for 16-and-older souls, as sets change and creatures lurk in the darkness, waiting for players to roll the dice and attempt to make their way around the game board. Through Sunday, October 31. 5:30 pm.

The Heights House Hotel & Space Cowboy will host two Halloween events on Saturday. The first is “A Dog Pop,” a Halloween party for dogs at 11 am. There will be a variety of vendors, DJ and three categories of dog costume contest with cash and other prizes. Later that evening, there will be a “Noche de los Muertos” Halloween party at 7 pm. The party will also include several vendors, a DJ and costume contests with cash prizes, as well as Loteria.

House of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée is a peculiar experience unlike any other. Visitors can freely roam a bizarre residence and experience a night of themed cocktails, mystifying magic, sinister séances, tarot readings, strange roaming specters, live music, hidden secret games, giant Ouija boards, and more. Guests are encouraged to dress up for the soirée in any time period specific fashion, costume, or elegant dress. Through Saturday, November 6. 6 pm (3:30 pm on Halloween).

On Thursday night, the Houston BARC Foundation presents Tails from the Crypt, its second-annual, Howl-o-ween cocktail party. Along with frightfully fantastic cocktails and fun surprises, there will also be a thrilling auction full of items sure to disappear quickly like a ghost into the shadows. 5:30 pm.

The Houston Scream Fest prides itself on being the first haunted event in Texas with a midway featuring carnival games and a food court with adult beverages. Guests can also participate in the Zombie PaintBall attraction. Through Saturday, November 13. 8 pm.

Channelview’s Houston Terror Dome is the most terrifying of all Houston haunted houses. They will have improved rooms, new effects, and new characters. New for 2021 is the Nightmare Alley Selfie Saloon, a one-of-a-kind experience that combines a haunted bar with haunted house themed selfie adventures. Through Sunday, October 31. 7 pm.

The Kemah Boardwalk’s annual Boo on the Boardwalk celebration returns with Freaky Fridays, Scary Saturdays and Spooky Sundays, each night featuring free activities, live music and ghostly entertainment. Guests of all ages can enjoy a variety of festive and spooky thrills, including the Little Boo Haunted Fun House, Halloween-themed crafts, balloon artists, vampire stilt walkers, creepy creatures, and live concerts. Through Sunday, October 31. 6 pm (2 pm on Halloween).

Speaking of Kemah, Kemah Aquarium will present the Halloween Kids Bash on Sunday, offering families Halloween events and activities. Ghouls and boys can enjoy a variety of games and activities including Keeper Chats, trick-or-treating, Halloween-themed arts & crafts, and more. Mummies of the year can also treat their little ones to .99 cent kids meals at the Aquarium Restaurant with the purchase of an adult entrée. 11 am.

There’s something for every ghost and goblin at Margaritaville Lake Resort during the Second Annual Halloween Adventure, going down on Saturday. The all-day shindig will have a Supernatural Morning Stretch, Pumpkin Painting, a Family Costume Contest, a Halloween Bar Crawl and an Adult Costume Contest. 9 am.

Ouzo Bay and Loch Bar will go all out on Halloween night. The Halloween party will include a toga-wearing stilt walker dressed as Barbarella’s Pygar and special performances featuring a belly dancer and a sword and candle show. Additionally, Loch Bar will transform into a retro-futuristic “Loch Barbarella” costume party featuring retro sci-fi posters, disco balls and entertainment by stilt walkers. 8 pm.

Phobia Haunted Houses features five single attractions, including Dawn of the Machine, Mind Control, Genetic Nightmare, Clown Mania, and Darke Institute, as well as the triple attraction Exile, featuring Darke World, Savage Ground, and Contagion. Through Saturday, November 6. 8 pm.

Formerly known as the Kingwood Asylum, Purgatory Scream Park in Porter is a nationally-ranked haunted house featuring intense and realistic haunted houses. The experience features over 27,000 square feet of pure terror and lasts around 40 minutes. Through Saturday, November 6. 8 pm.

Redrum Fear Park in Richmond features four different attractions, including Twisted Circus Rewired, Cinegore, Deadwood Asylum, and Redrum Lazer Fury. The park offers a wide array of entertainment, as well as live music, outdoor seating, food, outside crowd actors, merchandise, and indoor climate-controlled restrooms on-site. Through Saturday, November 6. 7 pm.

For the weekend, Space Center Houston’s Galaxy Frights features a number of Halloween-themed activities. Visitors can dress up and join the costume parades in the main plaza, see Spidernaut, NASA’s spider-like robot prototype, and visit multiple candy stations for socially distanced and safe trick or treating. 10 am.

event-planner families holidays

Movie Review

Star-filled pickleball comedy The Dink aces on Apple TV+

Photo courtesy of Apple TV+

Mary Steenburgen and Jake Johnson in The Dink.

While the sport of pickleball was invented way back in the 1960s, it has exploded in popularity in the 2020s. It was only a matter of time before someone figured out a way to make a movie about the craze, and a comedy like the new Apple TV film The Dink provides the best way to honor and make fun of the divisive sport at the same time.

Dusty Boyd (Jake Johnson), aka The Hammer, is a former tennis phenom who’s now working as an instructor at a club owned by his dad, Chuck (Ed Harris). While the two don’t always see eye-to-eye, they have a mutual hatred for pickleball, which they have begrudgingly allowed on the property by giving it the worst court.

Dusty is hoping to stop all future pickleball expansion by winning a one-on-one grudge match, but when he injures his wrist, he’s given a prescription of pickleball as a form of rehab. Older women like Candace (Mary Steenburgen) are the only people he can find to play with, and despite his disdain for the sport, he soon falls prey to its low-key charms.

Directed by Josh Greenbaum (Will & Harper) and written by Sean Clements, the film is probably the best advertisement pickleball will ever have. Dusty’s introduction to the sport serves as a lighthearted tutorial for the uninitiated while still getting in some nice digs at its expense. The other players — Candace, Gail (Cleo King), and Judy (Lynn Marie Stewart) — are equally welcoming and critical of Dusty, who initially has trouble adjusting to the game’s different rules.

The film’s approach to the story is silly but never stupid. Dusty is a blowhard, but he’s also able to admit when he’s wrong, especially when Candace introduces him to multiple things he had never considered before. A long-standing feud between Dusty and Andy Roddick provides more than just a goofy cameo for the real-life tennis star. The film also pushes right to the edge of being over-the-top before pulling back, allowing it to keep a semblance of reality to it.

Clements’ story follows a tried-and-true formula, making the film very predictable but enjoyably so. Where it earns its comedy credentials is in its finer details, like Dusty’s love for his 1999 Buick LeSabre with under 200,000 miles on it, his trunk full of old VHS tapes, or his interactions with his assistant PJ (Aaron Chen), who manages to be the comic relief in an already funny film.

Johnson, probably best known for starring in the sitcom New Girl in the 2010s, has the right amount of smarm and niceness to pull off the role, letting viewers laugh at and root for him at the same time. The film is full of comedy all-stars in small roles like Oswalt, Chris Parnell, and Ben Stiller, but Harris steals everyone’s thunder. The line readings by the four-time Oscar nominee give an extra punch to his character’s jokes, especially one that hints at the sordid history of the tennis club.

It’s a shame that The Dink is only playing on a streaming service as there’s a dearth of good comedies like this in movie theaters. With a solid joke-telling approach, a respect for its subject matter, and a cast who all play off each other well, this is a film that deserves to be seen by more than just those with an Apple TV subscription.

---

The Dink is now streaming on Apple TV.

movies sports pickleball film