The 5 Most Unusual Haunted Houses in Horror Cinema

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if you haven’t watched Hausu yet, you are most definitely missing out.

A group of schoolgirls goes to visit one of their aunts, only to find her beautiful, far-flung home possessed by ghosts. With lurid visuals and some of the best psychedelic effects ever featured in a horror film, things quickly devolve with the girls facing off with a man-eating piano, a supernatural mirror, and a disembodied head that flies through the air.

Add in an ethereal white cat named Blanche who seems to be at the center of the haunting, and you’ve got a house that you don’t want to visit for any reason. Except, of course, to stream it as soon as possible.

Based on the novel by Jeffrey Konvitz, The Sentinel isn’t your typical haunting. Instead, the particular brownstone at the center of the story might just be a portal to hell.

Fashion model Alison, played by a pitch-perfect Cristina Raines, learns this the hard way when she gets a great deal on an NYC apartment. Soon, she finds herself surrounded by strange neighbors only she ever seems to see, while also attending cinema’s greatest cat birthday party (it’s even weirder and more fun in the context of the film).

At once claustrophobic and profoundly lonely, the apartment building makes the audience feel extremely isolated—despite the film being set in America’s largest and most bustling city.

With an all-star supporting cast that includes everyone from classic film icons Ava Gardner, Burgess Meredith, and Eli Wallach to then-newer stars like Christoper Walken, Jeff Goldblum, and Chris Sarandon, this might just be the best horror movie you’ve never seen.

I know, I know: plenty of people don’t consider horror-comedy to be real horror. I, however, am not one of those people.

Beetlejuice belongs in the horror canon just as much as any other ghost story. If nothing else, it’s got an instantly recognizable haunted house right at the center of the story.

From the sandworms looming outside the door to portals leading to the other side to that honestly creepy little town the Maitlands keep in the attic, this place has got all the trappings of one very cool and very weird haunted house.

And if all of the afterlife shenanigans aren’t strange enough, then you’ve also got Delia Deetz’s absurd sculptures.

It's a haunted house that’s simply overflowing with style.

At first glance, the home in William Castle’s fabulous and ghostly shocker House on Haunted Hill seems like a typical haunted house.

Lots of stuffy, ornate bedrooms that might be brimming with spirits? Check.

An extensive floor plan that’s as gothic as it is disorienting? Check.

A weird room filled with an acid bath in the basement? Check.

But it’s the exterior shots that truly put this place over the top.

Eagle-eyed cinema fans will notice that this is the same house that was also featured in the film Blade Runner. It’s called the Ennis House in California, and it was designed by none other than Frank Lloyd Wright.

To up the spooky ante, Wright’s designs during his time in the Los Angeles area are often said to be reminiscent of tombs, due in part to his mourning period for his longtime lover Mamah Borthwick, who was murdered only a few years before.

Chilling real-life horror meets fictional horror.

And to finish off the list, let’s go with this very strange house, which serves as virtually the only locale in 1934’s Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi collaboration.

This one’s not necessarily haunted in the traditional sense of ghosts in chains, but if there’s ever been a home in the horror genre that contains more than meets the eye, then it’s the breathtaking abode in The Black Cat.

A gorgeous Art Deco design with a sleek, modern staircase, along with bedrooms that open inexplicably onto each other, the upstairs living quarters are truly spectacular. But it’s what lurks beneath the house that makes it utterly terrifying.

From an inexplicable laboratory and some dungeon rooms to a space for Satan worshipping and a Bluebeard-esque collection of beautiful dead women kept in glass coffins, there’s an array of violent horrors at every turn.

Plus, the whole estate is built on the former battlefield where Karloff’s character betrayed his own troops to the Russians, condemning thousands of men to their untimely deaths.

There’s a whole backstory in The Black Cat that’s only touched upon, and the creepy house is always at the center of it.

A true horror show of a home if ever there was one.