Halloween Haunts

While most people will go out of their way to avoid ghoulish characters, others seek them out. For those Angelenos crazy for Halloween, now the second-highest-grossing holiday for retail sales in the nation, here’s a sampling of horrifying haunts available this weekend and on Halloween.

Caped Crusaders for Justice

5013 Macafee Road

Torrance

A 6-foot Spiderman and other life-size superheroes including Batman, Superman and Captain America invade the frontyard of Comic Bookstore owner Geoffrey Patterson. The Pattersons’ annual Halloween night bash features graveyard and “Hall of Horror” tours from 6 to 9 p.m., free comic books, and a magician from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Haunted Hallow

430 W. 64th Place

Inglewood

Los Angeles County Firefighter Derek Bart, along with friends and neighbors, has spent the last dozen years getting into the spirit of Halloween night with a graveyard full of authentic-looking monsters and surprises in the dark. Donations of canned food to benefit the homeless at the Los Angeles Mission are welcomed.

Factory of Nightmares

1349 Oat St.

Santa Monica

Sound effects editor Adam Johnston scours garage sales and junkyards to find materials for his creative robotic monsters and scenes of terror. His front yard becomes a high-tech haunted house, with a knife-wielding killer who reacts to the sound of thunder. From 7 p.m. to midnight, Monday and Halloween. Donations only.

Spooky House and Haunted Forest

Topanga Canyon and

Victory boulevards

Woodland Hills

Spooks, ghouls and goblins invade a 14,000-square-foot, two-story Victorian-style mansion and 60,000 square feet of back woods. The mansion and woods cast a spell on visitors with computerized special effects, digital sound and animatronics. Today and Saturday from dark till midnight; Sunday and weeknights from dark till 10 p.m. Admission is $12.50 for one attraction or $18.50 for both. Spooky House Adventure, a less frightening attraction in the light of day for children and families, is open Saturday and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. $6.

Haunted Knightmare Mansion

21440 Soledad Canyon Road

Santa Clarita

This new 40,000-square-foot attraction has two mazes, a makeshift movie museum and a Halloween store with such things as prosthetic horns and severed limbs. Producer Ed Marks, a 15-year veteran of the theme park industry, and a 75-person staff hope three nightly shows will attract 40,000 customers (ticket prices range from $10 to $20). Visitors move through the house and laboratory of a fictional crazed doctor and through a fun house where those who don 3-D glasses enter the mind of one of the doctor’s equally zany patients. At one point, a full-size police car appears to smash through a wall. Visitors also can have their pictures taken in a mock guillotine for $4. Open 6 to 10 p.m. weekdays and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Hillman’s Haunt

19215 Calla Way

Canyon Country

Stroll through a mad scientist’s body parts collection, a haunted mine shaft and a spooky graveyard with mechanical monsters at Richard and Debbie Hillman’s ninth annual backyard haunt. This 1,400-square-foot maze sponsored by the Santa Clarita Valley Newhall Optimist Club has eerie music, flashing lights and hair-raising special effects. Open today, Saturday and Halloween from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Donations of canned food to benefit the homeless are welcomed.

FrightFair

DeSoto Avenue and

Nordhoff Street

Chatsworth

Confront, if you can, the Tesla coil, a $23,000 device that shoots bolts of lightning-like electricity as you meet ghouls and goblins in cinema-quality costumes. Open today through Halloween, 7 to 10 p.m. weeknights and 7 p.m. to midnight weekends. In a less intense experience suitable for children, costumed actors will conduct a tour on the making of horror films and how the props work Saturday from 2 to 6 p.m. Proceeds from the afternoon event will benefit St. John’s Medical Center.

Grimmstone Cemetery

6706 Blewett Ave.

Van Nuys

Every Halloween for the past 13 years, graphic designer Noah Korda, a former special effects artist, has transformed a friend’s or his parents’ yard into a spooky nether world. Sophisticated sound and lighting systems and animatronics help create the atmosphere.

House of Horrors

1106 N. Mentor

Pasadena

Derek Reymer, owner of DeKarr Music Store in Pasadena, welcomes brave souls to test his Vertigo Chamber, Tunnel of Doom, Weird Room, House of Disbelief and Terrifying Graveyard. Visitors will be given 3-D glasses to view the snakes, goblins, space aliens, bats and insects that festoon the house. Reymer and his crew have spent the last five years creating the spooky atmosphere with a sophisticated sound system. Open Monday and Halloween from 6 to 10 p.m.

Living Graveyard

1615 Wagner St.

Pasadena

On Halloween nights for eight years, Bert Remanick, a maven of the macabre, has been trying to outdo himself. Remanick pays homage to his fascination with gore and animation by turning his friendly neighborhood frontyard into a vision of ghastly gore with heavy-duty sound equipment, fog machines and black lights.

Haunted Zone

231 E. Main St.

Alhambra

David Barulich, owner of the Ultra Zone laser tag center in Alhambra, has created holograms for a three-dimensional world of terror in a 5,000-square-foot haunted house. Open today, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday from 7 to 10 p.m. Admission is $8; for children 5 and under, $2. Some of the proceeds will benefit the Hathaway House for abused and neglected children.

Schilling’s Chilling Graveyard

8050 block of Nagle Avenue

North Hollywood

Up and down Nagle Avenue and around the corner on Willard Street, graveyards abound. Resident David Schilling uses sound effects and strobe lights in one of the most elaborate displays. Open on Halloween from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Wheelchair accessible.

Hallowed Haunting Grounds

4343 Babcock Ave.

Studio City

Musician and former film editor Gary Corb and a crew of friends are up to their old tricks for the 28th consecutive year, offering not gore but sets designed around what they call “mythology,” contrasting profane, spiritless, lost souls with those in touch with nature. Features include a long wall depicting the seven stages of man, with faces that become progressively older and eyes that seem to follow you as you walk. Shows are from 7 p.m. to midnight, Sunday through Halloween. Visit https://www.HauntingGrounds.org.

Frankenstein’s Monster and

House of Horror

Citrus and Alosta avenues

Azusa

Halloween revelers with a taste for terror can get their fill as Azusa Community Services Department volunteers stage their 15th annual House of Horrors, benefiting youth sports programs, from 7 to 10 p.m. today through Monday and 7 p.m. to midnight on Halloween. Admission is $7 for adults and $5 for children under 48 inches tall. Group rates are available for 20 or more.

Body Estate

6706 S. Friends Ave.

Whittier

Ghost stories aren’t just for kids. Prepare to have your spine tingle as ghoulish volunteers with the Rio Hondo Chapter of the American Red Cross turn this 1930s theater into a house of mayhem, madness and mystery. Twenty-minute tours of Mr. and Mrs. Body’s mansion run from 6 to 10 p.m. today and Saturday and 6 to 9 p.m. on Halloween. Admission is $5.