the architecture of fear: iconic horror movie sets and how they came to life

Revisit iconic horror movie sets for halloween

This Halloween 2025, we explore some of the iconic horror movie sets and architecture and revisit how they came to their production life. From Psycho, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Shining to Suspiria, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Exorcist, architecture plays a role in instilling fear into the viewers, but not all of them are shot organically. Some of them are fabricated, transformed by the production’s team specifically for the movie. For several landmark horror films, the primary ‘house’ was less a building. For Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), the Bates House and Bates Motel that were built in 1960 inside Universal Studios in California were not full houses but were mostly facades, or outside walls made for the camera. The rooms inside were filmed in different soundstages, mainly Stage 28 for the house and Stage 18 for the motel. 

Behind the motel, the studio used a painted background called a matte painting to make the area look larger than it was. In the end, the house was moved three times within the Universal backlot to make space for other film projects. In the iconic horror movie The Shining (1980), the Overlook Hotel was realized with a mix of a real hotel and studio sets. Director Stanley Kubrick captured the exterior shots at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood in Oregon, while the inside of the hotel, including the long hallways and main lobby, was built at Elstree Studios in England. The real Timberline Lodge is a working hotel and ski resort, and the hotel room used in the book, Room 217, is now known among guests. In the film, Stanley Kubrick changed the room number to 237 so the hotel could avoid too much attention. He also designed the interior sets to make the hotel look confusing. Rooms do not connect correctly, and windows appear where they should not to make the viewers feel lost.

Psycho (1960) | still image courtesy of Universal Pictures via Movieclips on Youtube

Horror cult classics that used existing residential homes

Then, there’s Beetlejuice (1988) by the filmmaker Tim Burton, which used East Corinth, a small town in Vermont, as the location for the town of Winter River. The main house of the Maitland family was not real but was a shell built on a hill to make it easier to control how it looked on screen. The interior scenes, including the Day-O sequence and the Neitherworld waiting room, were shot at Culver Studios in California. After filming, the house was taken down. Today, visitors to East Corinth can view the landscape and the hill where the house once stood, but the physical structure no longer exists. Other iconic horror movie sets, especially the ones from the 1970s and 1980s, used existing residential homes, referring as well to the familiarity of the American suburb. In Halloween (1978), the childhood home of Michael Myers in Haddonfield, Illinois, is, in reality, a dilapidated Victorian dwelling located in South Pasadena, California, built in 1888 and often called the Century House.

During production for John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, the film crew executed only minimal changes, primarily cosmetic: they fixed up the exterior and whitewashed the entire front and bottom right-hand side to achieve the desired appearance for the opening sequence. The film was shot entirely within this practical house, and the architecture later on was slated for demolition in 1987 to clear the way for a hospital project. Luckily, the structure was salvaged and physically moved from its original address at 709 Meridian Street to its current location at 1000 Mission Street. The house occupied by Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), supposedly located at 1428 Elm Street in Springwood, Ohio, is in reality a two-story Dutch Colonial in the Spaulding Square neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The exterior of this house has been featured in other productions as well, including John Carpenter’s Halloween, and after filming, it has been renovated, even repainting the recognizable blood-red door, a nod to the film’s theme, with a stately black color.

The Shining (1980) | still image courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment via Youtube

real-world events inspired the movie sets

In the final act of Scream (1996), Stu Macher’s house is a remote hilltop mansion known today as Spring Hill Estate, located in Tomales, California. Director Wes Craven chose the house specifically for its remote location in Sonoma County, which was essential for isolating the characters during the lengthy final sequence. The house’s architecture and layout were so integral to the film’s atmosphere that its design was replicated on soundstages for sequels, including Scream 3 and Scream 5. In the years since the film’s release, the Spring Hill Estate has been transformed into a highly successful commercial venture, with its owners converting the property into an event venue for weddings and specialized Scream-themed tours. The other iconic horror movie sets draw their design from real-world events. With The Amityville Horror (1979), for example, it is the mass murder site at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island, New York. For the 1979 film adaptation, the actual Long Island house was generally avoided for privacy so the exterior filming went for substitute locations across three different New Jersey towns. The Dutch Colonial house is distinctive for its attic windows, which resemble glowing jack-o’-lantern eyes.

For the MacNeil residence in The Exorcist (1973), the filmmakers used a real house at 3600 Prospect Street in Washington, D.C. They built an extra part on the side of the building and added a fake third floor so the story’s key scenes matched the layout shown in the film. The interior sets were built in New York City, and the crew used special cooling machines inside the studio to make the actors’ breath visible. The staircase next to the house became one of the most famous film landmarks, and in 2019, it was recognized as a historic site. The house itself remains private property. Then, there’s the Victorian-era farmhouse in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), which served as the primary setting for the film and was originally situated on Quick Hill Road in Round Rock, Texas. Like the Myers House, this structure faced demolition because of the suburban development, so it was moved to Kingsland for preservation. It now stands inside the Antlers Inn resort and was restored into a restaurant named Hooper’s, after the film’s director and a bench near the entrance includes an engraved line from the movie.

Beetlejuice (1988) | still image courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment via Youtube

One of the iconic horror movie sets focuses more on abstract, hyper-stylized design rather than the precise or practical locations. That’s Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977), which was set around the fictional Tanzakademie (Dance Academy) in Freiburg, Germany. Inside the academy, the visual identity was characterized by lavish golden columns and vibrant pink walls, but the building itself was not real. It was a studio creation, a set built for the camera that no longer exists. The exterior facade was meticulously replicated on a soundstage, taking inspiration from the Neo-Gothic Haus Zum Walfisch (Whale House) located in Freiburg. 

The resulting set design used a highly saturated color palette to create an unsettling presence, and for this style of horror, the architecture is secondary to the psychology of visual design. Some parts of the movie were filmed in real German cities such as Munich, and one scene was filmed in Königsplatz square while another used the BMW Tower as a location. The set for the academy no longer exists, but Haus Zum Walfisch still stands and can be visited. The architect and iconic horror movie sets have different futures. Some stay on studio grounds, some become landmarks, and others turn into businesses. Whether they are facades on a backlot, remodeled homes, or themed venues, each demonstrates how architecture and cinema stay linked through ongoing design and function.

Halloween (1978) | still image courtesy of Compass International Pictures via Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers on Youtube

Scream (1996) | still image courtesy of Paramount Movies via Youtube

The Amityville Horror (1979) | still image courtesy of American International Pictures via Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers on Youtube

The Exorcist (1973) | still image courtesy of Hoya Productions via Movie Clips Classics on Youtube

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) | still image courtesy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre via Youtube

project info:

movies: Psycho (1960), The Amityville Horror (1979), Halloween (1978), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), The Exorcist (1973), The Shining (1980), Beetlejuice (1988), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Scream (1996), Suspiria (1977)