Mary Shelley’s House of Frankenstein Review (2026)

Located in the heart of Bath, the House of Frankenstein is simple to find, and its website offers all the essential info before you make your call here. There isn’t parking available on-site, but you can find street parking nearby. Once we arrived, we were greeted by a rather undead gentleman taking names and tickets, who had a short conversation and exchanged funny jibes before admitting us to his rather strange dwelling. Once within performers posted along the various hallways help direct you between floors, with the addition of skeletal glow in the dark hand decals on the floor throughout pointing the way too as a helpful wayfinding touch. The alteration necessary to turn this historic museum house into a haunt each dusk is no small feat, and the staff do a good job at batching your group. Because the mode is exploratory, you may bump into other groups, but they are generally quite spread out. The many rooms and floors logically introduce breaks into the haunt, but there is little need to rush here. This is one house in which “haunting” is encouraged!

Outside, the familiar Georgian frontage offers an understated introduction to the monsters inside, with a wash of green uplighting conveying a rather sinister complexion to the place. It is eerie and effective in transforming the museum site into more of a house of horrors. Once through the doorway we found ourselves in an assortment of shadowy and strange rooms each occupied by its own variety of lurid creatures. We discovered, according to the website, that this was the domain of “The Watcher” who feeds off despair and torment, and those within were its victims desperate to escape. You’ll find here a series of loosely connected terrors, such as a floor of burlap sack attired attackers, a jester and clown duo, and the undead.

Immersion here is a different beast from that of a conformist scare maze. When you cross between floors these transitions act as natural breaks in the experience, although the score for each space musically builds the world within, tying it together, alongside classic movie posters. The haunt uses an open-flow plan that lets you reenter areas as many times as you want. This leads to an exploratory mode of discovery and rather than being dashed along a pre-determined route you can wander at your own pace: first up, then down, and, if you like, back around again (perhaps disturbing new creatures within!). We found moderate immersion here within the eerie environments, but the absence of an obvious narrative and frequent changes between floors means this is more a series of grisly encounters.

Special effects were quite varied at this haunt, with prominence given to sound design. In the first set of rooms, mechanical chains clanked and jangled, and further within sounds of desolation like the call of a raven and the gusting of gales lent a melancholic air. Crackling electricity suffused the basement and once you were face to face with Frankenstein’s monster in statue form a distinct soundtrack was present too.

The sets were (necessarily so as not to disrupt museum operations) simple, with fabric partitions dividing up most areas. Some of the scenic design is already present as part of the museum experience and is well utilised for its spooky overlay. This led to situations like crawling over bones encased in perspex, seeing a bizarre hybrid creation shockingly revealed in a tank in the basement, and a statue of Frankenstein’s monster himself. The rest of the rooms are divided with fabric and sacking and you could go through the rooms through any flap, thus making each a bit of an adventure. Actors used these to hide, as well as a cage structure which was not secure enough to hold its dreaded contents.

Although we didn’t spot any animatronics, we did see carcasses hanging from one of the basement rooms, alongside various implements and blood on the worktops which we think may have been added for the event. Proceeding deeper into the basement, we also spied a torture pit with hanging mannequins of half people. Elsewhere, an electric chair stood ready and waiting for its next victim.

Very dim light is present throughout, sometimes so much so as to make the details of the rooms murky, and it might have been good to turn up the light level now and again so we could better see what terrors were around us. Flashes of light do hit you when actors illuminate their faces suddenly with torches. Other interesting effects include smoke emanating from a glass tank (with a surprise too!), a crawling chamber with padded floor and sensory wires we had to overcome, and an unplaceable smell present in this same room.

In general, the actors here don’t violently touch you, but might gently sometimes when stalking and pretending to be another member of your group! We think that throughout we could have done with one or two more actors, especially in the basement area which felt like it had such great secret areas to hide in and jump out from. We particularly enjoyed the fun interactions we had with the clown and jester, the latter of whom was very talkative and introduced us to his little puppet “Mum”.

These clowns were quite different from the norm, wearing headdresses that had an almost medieval aspect to them. Other good costumes and makeup was seen with the burlap sack men, who had full headpieces that made them look like living bags, as well as a skeletal person in deep black veil, and bloody bandages liberally applied to the face of one woman. These were complete looks, but sometimes it was so very dark that it was difficult to pick out the details; but, all characters were clearly in full costume.

You are batched only in your group, and so as you travel around the house are guaranteed individual scares. Even when you do run into people they tend to be off on their own quests and so you can easily negotiate around them. One memorable scare included a man chained to the wall who we hadn’t seen who suddenly wailed to be let out.

A lot of the scares here are stalking, following closely behind you, or replacement, where one of the group suddenly disappears and a jester pops into their place. When not following, the clown and jester peered around the doorway, cheekily laughing and seeming unhinged, which is quite an image to be left with.

House of Frankenstein After Dark takes approximately 20 minutes to walk through just once, and you’ll be welcome to keep travelling the rooms multiple times. At £20 per person, it has an exact 1 to 1 ranking of 1 minute per pound, but the value extends beyond this. At the very top is a screening room showing horror films you can absorb, whilst two bars dole out drinks and shots in delightfully decrepit rooms from talkative and lively bar actors who are never out of character. For a city centre haunt, this is good value for money and provides gothic chills in the heart of Bath.