Ghost hunting has changed in recent years due to AI chatbots, and paranormal enthusiasts are concerned

Ghost hunting is a tech-heavy pursuit. When Amy Waine and Jarrad Cutting investigate haunted locations, they’re loaded up with software of their own design, such as an app that assigns signals from a phone’s sensors to different words in a database. In the age of ChatGPT, the ghost-hunting pair is probing the world of AI. They describe one of their latest inventions, an app called GhostTube Seer, as “the world’s first AI Ghost Hunting tool”.

In the hands of paranormal investigators, scientific tools like EMF meters (used to detect electromagnetic fields) are repurposed to identify changes and anomalies that they believe indicate supernatural activity. Seer is, in many ways, simply an expansion of that practice, another way to scan an empty room and believe that something may be there. The app, which requires a paid monthly subscription, has more than 1m downloads, according to its Google Play store listing.

But for others in the ghost hunting world, AI is an unwelcome presence. Since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, AI-generated ghost stories and images of the supernatural have flooded online spaces, so much so that popular forums like the r/Nosleep subreddit, meant for scary stories, have implemented a strict policy against AI-generated material.

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© Illustration: Guardian Design/Getty Images

© Illustration: Guardian Design/Getty Images

© Illustration: Guardian Design/Getty Images

In the placid LA suburb of Burbank, residents spend months – and thousands of dollars – turning their homes into Disney-style attractions. Why does it go so hard for Halloween – and is it becoming too popular for its own good?

Every night, starting in mid-September, Diego Linares puts on a serial killer costume and stands in his front yard for three hours. The 40-year-old alternates outfits: some nights he’s Michael Myers, the masked murderer from the Halloween films. Other nights he’s Jason Voorhees, from the Friday the 13th franchise.

His family’s modest suburban yard in Burbank, California, has been transformed into a slasher movie set. Fake mist leaks out of the door of a cabin labeled “Crystal Lake”. Jack-o-lanterns, monsters, corpses and illuminated gravestones jostle for space across the ground. From the roof above the front door, a giant skeleton blinks its digital eyes.

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© Photograph: Maggie Shannon/The Guardian

© Photograph: Maggie Shannon/The Guardian

© Photograph: Maggie Shannon/The Guardian

In the placid LA suburb of Burbank, residents spend months – and thousands of dollars – turning their homes into Disney-style attractions. Why does it go so hard for Halloween – and is it becoming too popular for its own good?

Every night, starting in mid-September, Diego Linares puts on a serial killer costume and stands in his front yard for three hours. The 40-year-old alternates outfits: some nights he’s Michael Myers, the masked murderer from the Halloween films. Other nights he’s Jason Voorhees, from the Friday the 13th franchise.

His family’s modest suburban yard in Burbank, California, has been transformed into a slasher movie set. Fake mist leaks out of the door of a cabin labeled “Crystal Lake”. Jack-o-lanterns, monsters, corpses and illuminated gravestones jostle for space across the ground. From the roof above the front door, a giant skeleton blinks its digital eyes.

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© Photograph: Maggie Shannon/The Guardian

© Photograph: Maggie Shannon/The Guardian

© Photograph: Maggie Shannon/The Guardian

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© Illustration: Stephen Collins/The Guardian

© Illustration: Stephen Collins/The Guardian

© Illustration: Stephen Collins/The Guardian

Use our tool to look up your trick-or-treat forecast.

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For Halloween, Guardian writers have picked the most efficiently terrifying films outside of the horror genre from How to Have Sex to The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Minor spoilers ahead

Hiding in plain sight throughout Lee Chang-dong’s deliciously enigmatic Burning, in which a spirited young woman (Jeon Jong-seo) disappears, and a wealthy playboy (Steven Yeun) gives serial killer vibes, is a disaffected male rage. That’s perhaps the most commonplace horror of our times, whether on the internet or politics, and you feel the tremors of it steadily breaking the surface in Yoo Ah-in’s performance. He plays Jong-su, an aspiring writer, quietly frustrated with his lot in life. Jong-su works odd jobs and tends to his incarcerated father’s dilapidated farm, growing more desperate to grasp some sense of control over the world around him, which is where the scary part comes in. Lee is the master dramatist who with Burning tilts violently into thriller territory, navigating elements from Taxi Driver, The Vanishing and Michael Haneke’s Caché, using the language of horror movies to conjure up a creeping anxiety and dread that erupts into pure existential fear. Radheyan Simonpillai

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© Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

© Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

© Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

From a ghostly hill fort on the South Downs to a haunted farmhouse in remote Northern Ireland, you guide us to some frightfully scary places

• Tell us about an escape in the wilds of Scotland – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Dunnottar Castle, perched on cliffs above the crashing North Sea, is one of Scotland’s eeriest places. The most haunting part is the Whigs Vault, where more than 160 prisoners were confined in dreadful conditions in 1685. Standing in that dark chamber, it’s impossible not to imagine their fear and suffering. With my Fraser ancestry, the castle’s history feels especially poignant. The names of multiple Frasers are recorded, their details written on the wall. The wind whistles through the stonework, the waves thunder below, and there’s a sense that the past hasn’t quite left. It’s beautiful, tragic and wonderfully spooky, especially beneath Aberdeenshire’s brooding grey skies.
Rosie

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© Photograph: Charlotte Graham/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Charlotte Graham/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Charlotte Graham/Shutterstock

You’ll be safe from trick-or-treaters in a grand home at the end of a long driveway or a Grade II-listed farmhouse tucked away in a hamlet

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© Photograph: Morgan Aps

© Photograph: Morgan Aps

© Photograph: Morgan Aps

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump handed out candy to hundreds of costumed kids outside the White House residence at Thursday's annual Halloween celebration.

At Norfolk’s ‘premier scare attraction’ there are ghouls, chainsaws, satanic cults and a haunted hospital. But what goes on behind the scenes?

‘We always say to the scare actors, you’re going to think the boys will be the worst. They are not.” Backstage at PrimEvil, billed as “Norfolk’s premier scare attraction”, park director Ben Francis is sharing the advice he gives each year to his new crop of performers, before they set out to give punters the fright of their lives – or at least their Saturday night. As Francis covers each demographic, he ticks them off on his fingers. Teenage boys “scream like banshees, and run in packs”. Teenage girls tend towards being unimpressed: “Do your scare and move on, because they will get nasty.” And mixed groups? “There will be an alpha and he’ll be wearing a North Face top.” Francis’s advice is to not waste time. “He will not react to anything … Aim for the weaker one at the back.”

This is part of the workplace induction at PrimEvil, one of many immersive “scream parks” that pop up across the UK in the lead up to Halloween. For about £40 a ticket, groups of all ages spend the night roaming themed attractions and being terrorised by actors and special effects. Though the risks are minimal, the spikes in heart rate are very real.

‘It’s the best form of therapy and you get paid to do it’ … park director Ben Francis

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© Photograph: Ali Smith/The Guardian

© Photograph: Ali Smith/The Guardian

© Photograph: Ali Smith/The Guardian

The author Nick Medina recommends novels that capture the vibes of beloved scary movies like “The Thing,” “Scream” and more.

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Hit London plays 2:22, Paranormal Activity and A Ghost in Your Ear are now spooking audiences on and off Broadway amid high demand for communal experiences

As we escaped the restrictions of the pandemic, with many also trying to escape the smartphone addiction that was exacerbated by it, there was widespread desire for the in-person communal experience. It was a slow crawl back with casualties along the way but as the Hollywood and Broadway box office return to pre-pandemic levels this year, our craving for IRL thrills appears to be stronger than ever.

It’s why Imax and 4DX formats are breaking records, concert attendance is at a new high according to a mid-year report and the most recently tracked season of New York theatre grossed more than the previous. It also helps to explain why the hottest tickets of the fall are for plays in the most communal genre of all: horror.

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© Photograph: Matthew Murphy

© Photograph: Matthew Murphy

© Photograph: Matthew Murphy

Whether you favour spooky fairtales, satanic card games or infernal hijinks at the chip shop there are all manner of fresh top scarers at large this witching season

Tis almost All Hallows’ Eve and naturally, the thoughts of all good video game players are turning to horror. 2026 has already been a bloody good year for the genre with Resident Evil Requiem and Silent Hill: Townfall leading the rabble. But this autumn sees a festering surge of indie horror releases, featuring everything from cursed card games to Nazi-hunting penguins. Here are eight terrifying titles we think you should sample while jack-o-lanterns burn and spirits walk the moonlit streets.

Allogloom (PC)

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© Photograph: Question

© Photograph: Question

© Photograph: Question