Haunted Arizona
Scary Places in Arizona: Where the Real Fear Lives
Scary places in Arizona, sorted honestly: real haunted mining towns, homegrown cryptid legends, and the one Halloween haunt built on purpose in Mesa, Arizona.
Allen Thompson
Director of Operations
- Haunt Production
- Immersive Attractions
- Seasonal Operations
- Guest Experience
Allen Thompson is the Director of Operations at Scarizona Scaregrounds, the family-owned haunted attraction on Alma School Road in Mesa. Under his direction the haunt has run its October seasons for over two decades, earning a spot on thrill-seekers’ annual tours across the East Valley and greater Phoenix.
He runs the show like a production. The cast, the set, the special-effects makeup, and the intellectual property are all built and staffed in-house: an immersive post-apocalyptic scaregrounds meant to play, in his own framing, like the equivalent of a movie or a TV show you walk straight into.
That approach earned outside recognition in 2024, when The Scare Factor named Scarizona’s cast the Highest Rated Cast in the Southwest, with a 9.0/10 cast score inside an 8.35/10 overall review. It is credit for a real, in-character cast and hand-crafted, single-artist SFX makeup rather than shortcuts.
Every October he and the seasonal Scream Team rebuild and reimagine the attractions, and the door stays open to Arizona locals who want to stop being just ticket buyers and join the cast and crew for the season.
From the Blog
Written by Allen Thompson
Behind The Screams
Designing a Post-Apocalyptic World: Inside Scarizona's Gravel-Lot Set
Scarizona's post-apocalyptic haunted house sits on an open-air gravel lot in Mesa: the design logic behind the sightlines, the midway, and the ground underfoot.
Haunted Arizona
The Mogollon Monster: Arizona's Bigfoot-Like Cryptid
The Mogollon Monster legend, Arizona's Bigfoot: what the story says it looks like, where sightings are set along the Mogollon Rim, and how it gets told.
The Rest of the Crew
More of the Team
Madison
Director of Strategic Operations & Administration
Madison keeps Scarizona running as Director of Strategic Operations and Administration, a decade deep in the haunt and the person who turns October’s chaos into a plan that holds.
Karlye Guerra
General Manager
Karlye Guerra is Scarizona’s General Manager, three seasons in and the steady hand on nightly operations from the box office to the last scare.
Maddox
Production Manager & Tech Specialist
Maddox is Scarizona’s Production Manager and Tech Specialist, eight years of making the animatronics, lighting, and effects fire on cue.
See the Show They Run
Three haunts on one price, minutes from Phoenix. Pick your night and come walk it.