Interview with Ryan and Shane Glasgow, Owners of Purgatory Scream Park - Kingwood

Published: Oct 30, 2026, 11:07am

Tell us a bit about your business: What does your business offer, and how long have you been around?

Purgatory Scream Park is Houston’s top-rated haunted house, tucked into the woods at 1965 A Northpark Drive in Kingwood, just north of the Beltway. Every fall we open the gates on one continuous, 27,000-square-foot descent through four worlds of fear: the Kingwood Asylum, where the patients have taken over; Asphyxia, a maze of cramped caves where the walls close in; Dead Wood, a backwoods nightmare with things lurking between the trees; and Hysteria, a carnival gone very, very wrong. Most guests make it through in about 27 minutes, if they don’t run.

Our roots go back to 2005 as a backyard home haunt. We opened as a professional attraction, the Kingwood Asylum, in 2013, and in 2019 we grew into Purgatory Scream Park. That makes 2026 our 14th season as a professional haunt and more than 20 years of scaring people overall.

How did you decide to get involved in this line of work? How did the business get started?

It started with a grandfather and a couple of boys. Brothers Shane and Ryan Glasgow grew up helping their grandfather set up a little haunted display for the neighborhood kids every October, and they never got over it. In 2005 they built their own home haunt, and every year it got bigger, scarier and more expensive (over $60,000 of their own money went into it). By 2013 it had simply outgrown the neighborhood, so the family took the leap and went professional.

As Ryan likes to say, “We have put a lot of our time and all our money into the attraction itself.” It’s still a family business today, built by people who love what they do.

Tell us a few things you are proud of about your business. What are you known for? What separates you from the competition?

Detail. Shane puts it best: “We spend a ridiculous amount of time on detail.” Every room is built and dressed by hand, from swiveling clown-doll heads to rusted bumper cars, so you’re never just walking past a set; you’re inside a story.
Our people. Each season about 110 crew members bring Purgatory to life, and most of them come back year after year. Our scare actors are teachers, nurses, IT pros, students and lifelong haunters (one has been scaring Houston since Astroworld’s Fright Nights). Professional makeup artists transform them every night before the gates open.

Our guests say it better than we can. We hold a 4.7 to 4.8-star Google rating, critics at The Scare Factor scored us 9.6 out of 10, and we’ve been named among the best haunted houses in the country. One reviewer summed it up: “By far the best haunt in the entire Houston area.”

What is your favorite part of running this business?

The screams, honestly. There’s nothing like standing at the exit and watching groups of friends stumble out laughing, out of breath, and already planning to come back. Close behind is our crew. Watching a hundred-plus people come together every fall, many of them for years now, feels like a family reunion with fake blood.

Who is your ideal customer/client? Who do you serve best?

Anyone who loves a good scare. Our sweet spot is teens, college students, date nights and groups of friends looking for a night out they’ll talk about for weeks, plus the diehard haunt fans who visit every year to see what’s new. Purgatory is intense, so we recommend it for guests age 13 and up; younger kids with an adult at the parent’s discretion.

Can you tell us something about yourself as the business owner? What is your background?

Purgatory is owned and run by the Glasgow family. Like most of our crew, the haunt isn’t our day job. Shane works for the railroad and Ryan is a nurse, and the haunt is the labor of love we pour our evenings, weekends and savings into all year long. Our team is at the park almost every Saturday, year-round, building what comes next.

Are there any special promotions, annual sales, or special events that you’d like to mention?

There are still a few chances to visit this season: Friday, Oct. 30; Halloween night, Saturday, Oct. 31; and Sunday, Nov. 1. Then on Saturday, Nov. 7 we close out the year with Lights Out, our last-chance night for the diehards.

Tickets are sold online at purgatoryscreampark.com, and prices are lowest early in the season and on our less busy nights, so buy early and save. Want to skip the wait? VIP gets you a shorter line, and the Elite Pass sends you to the front of the line with an exclusive T-shirt and lanyard.

Is there any other information you’d like your potential customers/clients to know about your business?

Buy your tickets online before you come or bring cash to purchase them at the ticket booth. Popular nights (especially Fridays, Saturdays and Halloween week) sell out first. The ticket booth opens at 7 PM and the haunt opens at 8 PM. Thursdays and Sundays run 8 to 10 PM; Fridays and Saturdays we stop selling tickets at 11:30 PM and stay open until the last guest is through.

Come early, bring friends, and enjoy the show in line: our actors roam the queue, and there’s music, food and drinks while you wait. Merch is available too, so you can prove you survived. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @purgatoryscreampark for dates and behind-the-scenes looks at what we’re building.

How do you see your business growing and improving over the next couple of years?

Bigger, scarier and smoother. Every off-season we rebuild and add new scenes, and that won’t change. We’re also working on the guest experience, with faster entry, more nights and more ways to skip the line, because the busiest nights draw crowds of nearly 3,000 people. Most of all, we want Purgatory to be a Kingwood tradition that families and friends come back to every October for years to come.