Horror movies have had no shortage of iconic locations. Cabins in the woods, spooky houses, abandoned structures; there’s many real life filming locations out there for fans to visit. Many of the locations are now unrecognisable, while some retain much of what made them scary in the first place. Take a look at some iconic horror movie locations then and now.

The Exorcist

Everyone remembers the final death of The Exorcist as Father Karras hurls himself down the steep staircase

Behind the scenes of filming on the stairs. The stone steps at the corner of Prospect St NW and 36th St NW leading down to M Street NW in Georgetown were built in 1895 during construction of the adjacent Capital Traction Company car barn.

In a ceremony Halloween weekend 2015 that featured the film’s director William Friedkin, the Exorcist Steps were recognized as a D.C. landmark and official tourist attraction by Mayor of the District of Columbia Muriel Bowser. They remain a popular tourist spot for horror fans today.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The house in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was vital in creating the isolated atmosphere of the original film

Nowadays, its a cosy family restaurant called Grand Central Cafe

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Scenes in Freddy’s infamous boiler room were actually filmed at the Lincoln Heights Jail in California

The boiler room is now abandoned and mostly inaccessible, but Freddy fan ccarba managed to get these pictures inside. It’s still pretty spooky looking

Halloween

The Myers house spoke to every kid watching Halloween, there was alway ‘that’ house in every neighbourhood

The house was empty & abandoned at the time the producers used it in the film. Since then, it has been moved to the other side of the street, and now serves as a chiropractor’s office (the Alegria Chiropractic Center).

The Ring

The cabin where Rachel discovers the cursed video tape in The Ring managed to look eerie and threatening

The cabin is still located at 50th Ave. NW Stanwood, Wa. And it still looks pretty spooky

Friday the 13th

Camp Crystal Lake was the infamous location of Mrs Voorhees murders, so we’d imagine that it’s the last place you’d want to send their kids camping

It doesn’t seem to put the kids off though. The location was a Boy Scout camp before the film was made, and is still used by the Scouts today

The folks at FridayThe13thFranchice took these images of Camp NoBeBoSco as it looks today

Night of the Living Dead

The iconic opening scenes in Night of the Living Dead were filmed in the Evans City Cemetery, located on Franklin Road just 30 miles north of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

The trees are taller, but aside from that very little has changed in the cemetery since filming

Rosemary’s Baby

The ‘Bramford’, the brooding Gothic building where newlyweds Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse set up home is the Dakota Apartments, 1 West 72nd Street at Central Park West.

This is the building today, though it is now more famous for being the last home of John Lennon, and the site where he was murdered

The Blair Witch Project

The seemingly endless woods managed to terrify viewers in found-footage pioneer The Blair Witch Project

From a distance, those trees look at lot less threatening. Most of the filming took place here, at the Seneca Creek State Park

The Birds

The Tides Restaurant, seen in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds still exists in Bodega Bay, though it’s been remodeled since filming.

It’s still a functioning restaurant, though it’s almost unrecognisable from the film

Session 9

Here’s a location with a long horror history. The now abandoned Danvers State Hospital was the setting for the 2001 horror film Session 9.

Here’s the building in it’s early days, 1893. The hospital served as inspiration for the infamous Arkham Sanatorium from H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Thing on the Doorstep”

Lovecraft’s story of course inspired the creation of the infamous Arkham Asylum in Batman’s universe

Much of the historic building has now been demolished, though horror fans still explore the ruins