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For years, Eastern State Penitentiary's Terror Behind the Walls was arguably the most popular Halloween attraction in Philadelphia, drawing thousands to the 19th century prison that towers like a castle over Fairmount Avenue.Actors dressed as sadistic guards and disturbed prisoners, jump-scaring visitors from the prison cells. Giant gargoyles looked down on crowds waiting to get inside a controversial prison with practices British author Charles Dickens once called "cruel and wrong."Today, though, there is no more terror behind these walls, at least not in the way it used to be. The jump scares are still here during the Halloween season, but they're fictional phantoms like zombies and vampires. The atmosphere is more family-friendly and festival-like, with food and beer, live music and fire pits.Eastern State is just one of the troubling historical locations grappling with how to celebrate Halloween, educate visitors and acknowledge the real-life suffering that happened. Locations, including Pennhurst Asylum, Waverly Hills Sanatorium and the Lizzie Borden House, draw what one researcher calls "dark tourism," with tragedy and suffering at the center of their respective histories.'Not a Halloween attraction'The COVID-19 pandemic put an end to Terror Behind the Walls, and what is now called Halloween Nights was launched in 2021 "with purpose," said Kerry Sautner, Eastern State's president and CEO. "There is a big spectrum of experience that happened here, and the question was asked, what do we do about this? It was decided that Terror Behind the Walls was not appropriate."Life in Eastern State was not easy. Launched as a Quaker experiment in justice, Eastern State compelled prisoners to reform through "confinement in solitude with labor," and its methods became a widely copied model for prisons elsewhere. Prisoners were allowed minimal contact with each other and guards, fed through holes in their cell doors and allowed to see light only through skylights in their cells.The Lizzie Borden House in Fall River, Massachusetts ‒ site of two brutal murders in 1892 for which Borden was tried and acquitted ‒ has come to a similar conclusion."This is not a Halloween attraction," said Lance Zaal, owner of the Lizzie Borden House."It’s a historic house. Real things happened there. There is real history." The aim, said Zaal, who founded US Ghost Adventures, is to teach people about Borden's life, how Gilded Age families like hers lived, how women were viewed at the time, and how the criminal justice system worked. US Ghost Adventures also hosts haunted tours of Gettysburg, site of one of the Civil War's bloodiest battles, where its website offers guests a chance to "embark on the most haunted Gettysburg ghost tour and learn why the echoes of pain continue to linger in this historic city."Not far from Eastern State, the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians also reexamined its events and collections, asking the community to help as it grappled with a collection of human remains dating back to the 18th century. The museum paused most of its public events as it undertook what it called the Postmortem Project; the museum is once again hosting events, including performances by the Philadelphia Orchestra, a fundraising gala and a medieval-themed dance party.Is 'Dark Tourism' ethical?"Dark tourism," may present some moral quandaries, but it's not inherently wrong, according to Marius Pascale, professor of applied and professional ethics at Guilford College.Pascale, whose research centers around moral psychology and the ethics of fascination with morbidity and death, said a big consideration is whether that fascination is directed toward real or fictional horrors. "It can help people process their questions around death, sadness, and it's not innately bad but neither do we want to sign off on all of it and say it's all fine, too."Does the attraction foster empathy? Does it feature a real-life story? How recently did the tragedy happen? Do visitors learn something? Those are the kinds of questions Pascale has in mind when talking about a "Dark Tourism" location.Sautner, Eastern State's CEO for the past two years, has an extensive background in civic education and has worked in restorative justice and criminal justice reform. She said the emphasis at Eastern State is on educating the public about the institution and its history, but also about the criminal justice system in the United States and worldwide."We wanted to remind people that we're dealing with human beings," she said, people who lived and worked at the prison, who got sick and died there, who got married there and left to rebuild their lives.Eastern State has a review board that works along with the team that plans Halloween Nights, to ensure that costumes, performances and props are appropriate and "align with our mission," Sautner said."If it happened here for real at our site, we do not use it for play," she said.The standards continue to evolve, she added, and Eastern State continues to listen to the public including those impacted by the criminal justice system, as part of that process: "This place has a tension between pain and beauty, fascination and trauma. We don't know if we have it right, but we want to open the doors wider, not close them."Zaal said wrestling with difficult questions is part of the mission at the Lizzie Borden House as well. "Life is full of difficult facts and our goal is not to hide history," he said. Preservationists can restore a physical structure but "the most important thing is to tell the story ... in a way that is engaging and truthful."Phaedra Trethan is a national correspondent for USA TODAY. Reach her at ptrethan@usatoday.com.
