If there is anything America loves on Halloween it’s a good ghost story — and better yet, a good ghost and a big fright.

While ghost sightings are not always guaranteed, Halloween 2018 offers a universe of scary places where ghosts may or may not show up, but should certainly be active on this night of all nights. What these places do guarantee are thrills, chills and explorations of dark rooms that will undoubtedly draw some screams.

And some cheers as well — Halloween is big business, after all.

What is not readily known is that Halloween is the second largest commercial holiday in the United States, just after Christmas. More than $10 billion annually pours into candy, costumes and Halloween attraction activities in the United States alone, according to Hauntworld, a Halloween attraction and rating site.

Easily 90 percent of all households with children will participate in a Halloween activity, although the key demographic for this holiday remains teens and young adults. Halloween as an industry can be expected to generate more revenue in 60 days than the Hollywood film industry will generate from January to October.

The big bucks come from haunted houses that charge $20 to $50 per person (major amusement park haunts charge as much as $100 for entry into their events), giving people an experience they cherish: being scared while in a safe environment. Hauntworld estimates there are more than 4,000 Halloween attractions and 300 amusement facilities in the U.S. pairing fear factors with small fortunes.

America Haunts, the nation's leading haunt industry association, reports that the four of the top fear-based attractions are expected to collectively entertain more than 200,000 people across the United States.

These haunts are newly innovative and set the bar for the coming generation of haunted houses, which require sophisticated operations and significant investment to compete.

Haunted attractions rely on a combination of darkness, creatively staged props, live actors, and special effects to scare audiences that have already been exposed and jaded by the continuous barrage of tech EFX exposure. However, the wizardry among the best remains mind-blowing: interactive holograms, gravity-defying gear, magical illusions, projection mapping, and stunningly realistic wounds and disfigurements managed through makeup, prosthetics, and basic artistry.

Note: The best haunted houses are not suited for young children or the faint of heart. That said, America’s top Halloween haunts, according to the association are:

NETHERWORLD in Stone Mountain, Georgia (Atlanta metro)

NETHERWORLD was one of the first attractions to use original high-quality special effect foam and silicone monsters and developed massive moving scares that immerse the customer. The attraction created dozens of unique and terrifying stunts for its actors, and digs deep into complex themes and story lines.

Cutting Edge in Fort Worth, Texas

This is possibly the world’s largest haunted house and is called Cutting Edge because it is in an abandoned meat-packing factory. But its innovation is literally cutting edge.

As a working factory, is offers a lot of realism, so much so that people frantically run from the strikingly realistic props and effects, fearing they'll end up on a meat hook. The illusions continue in the cemetery with the undead and what lurks in the Jurassic-style swamp, all scored with scary musical beats that intensify the experience.

13th Floor in San Antonio, Texas

Thrills and psychological horror build through a pulsating, state-of-the-art sound system at 13th Floor. Animatronics come with built-in technology that allows props to see, hear, sense and move according to who or what is passing by.

Further surprises come from inside the laser swamp that makes it impossible for visitors to see below their waists as monsters of the deep emerge.

13th Gate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Known for its ultra-realism and detail, this haunt blurs the lines between nightmares and reality. Forty-thousand square feet of scary additions to their nightmare factory will carve new forms of fear for their victims. Newly added CarnEvil, a haunted midway full of twisted sideshows, creepy characters, virtual reality games, one-of-a-kind escape rooms, and nightly concerts give a new spin on fear across this landscape.

Image: America Haunts

Ghosts, zombies and more undead

Other top spots for ghost sightings and zombie mongerings are:

Haunted Hotel in San Diego, California

The Haunted Hotel sends visitors on a stroll down a dark, zombie-infested alley where, unlike the walking dead of Hollywood, the undead are in hot pursuit of their victims.

The apocalyptic nightmare continues into the swamp with triggers that beckon sea creatures and beasts to surface. The fearless may press on to the hospital with its shining examples of creepy and petrifying clowns.

Headless Horseman Hayrides and Haunted Houses in Ulster Park, New York

This attraction’s 65 acres in the historic Hudson Valley has seemingly endless options for spooking. Haunt illusions, special effects, animations, and detailed costumes won't feel like folklore as the monsters and creatures make a 4D attack on everything human.

This mega haunt has 375 cast and crew members to work at the hayrides, corn maze, ten haunted attractions, choice of eateries and gift shops for a screamingly fun time.

13th Floor Haunted House in Phoenix, Arizona

This intense, graphic, theatrical show takes the courageous on a gut-wrenching journey of visceral thrills and psychological horror. The haunt features 60,000 square feet of shocking twists and horrifying turns as visitors wind their way through two haunted houses.

In the chaos, walls close in, floors shake and vibrate — and swarms of zombies and creatures stalk and pursue their victims. The cast uses multiple zip lines to jump and float from above.

Nightmare on 13th Haunted House in Salt Lake City, Utah

There are no stones unturned to frighten at this haunted attraction. The haunt draws on the psychology of fear with its 45 different rooms, including the Ossuary and the Bone Lord, Goblin mines and X-scream attraction. The scaring uses the latest bungee systems to make the haunt cast appear to have supernatural powers.

Dent Schoolhouse Haunted House in Cincinnati, Ohio

Dent is an actual haunted school where, as legend has it, former janitor named Charlie murdered a number students many years ago. Guests walk through the spooky old schoolhouse in marvel and dread as advanced projection mapping technology makes the most wholesome of picture frames and statues appear eerily alive and menacing.

The school's cafeteria is now part of the tour, but guests are warned not that lunch is not what it appears to be.

Image: Holospark

True Ghost Adventures

Finally, the most haunted of all the draws may not be a house at all …

They say you will know it when you have walked through a ghost. Your hair stands up on end; you suddenly feel a chill and it will happen so suddenly and imperceptibly you may not even notice a spirit is near.

But at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia, you will know. The lumbering Civil War era structure is a veritable warehouse of ghost stories and ghost activities that vary with each floor and each wing according to the histories these spaces hold.

The behemoth Victorian structure that stands four stories high and nearly a quarter mile long has always been a hospital for the insane, the ill or just misunderstood, treating — and mistreating — its isolated residents from 1864 to 1994.

Today, it is an attraction of sorts — a repository of a sordid history of a time when aberrant relatives were “sent away” and forbidden to maintain contact with family members as a matter of treatment; of a time when lobotomies and electric-shock therapy were de rigueur; and a time when overcrowding (the facility was designed to house 250 patients but had more than 2,400 patients at its peak) was an accepted practice.

For those who want to slip through a paranormal door and enter the world of this unseen past, the asylum runs a variety of ghost tours and encounters are all but guaranteed.

Two rules apply: do not aggressively provoke the spirits and leave the Ouija Board at home. Ghost monitoring equipment is encouraged and a flashlight is essential. This is not only useful for navigating dark hallways in the middle of the night, it is also something spirits like to play with and often turn off and on at will or in answer to questions.

Finally, guests should not be alarmed if a spirit follows them home. This is event is common but does not last long. Visitors can always ask the spirits to stay home. If they are intelligent energies, they will hear.