Inside a sprawling complex in Westland that once housed thousands of residents, most of them infirmary patients, more than 100 actors now work nightly across two floors of a haunted attraction set inside the real former Eloise Psychiatric Hospital. The sixth season of Eloise Asylum is running Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through Nov. 1, pairing a 45-minute scare experience with tours and programming tied to the building's actual medical past.
A Haunted House Built Inside a Real Hospital
According to WXYZ 7 News Detroit, Eloise Asylum offers a haunted attraction in Westland with two floors of scares, surprises and special effects, set inside a property with history dating back to the 1800s that was once part of what became a psychiatric hospital complex. Eloise Asylum general manager Shirley Ann described the show as one of a kind, combining built sets with an actual asylum, and said she is passionate about the art and creativity behind it, per the same report. Operations manager Mike Smith put it more bluntly, describing the attraction as a haunted house in a haunted house.
Guests go on what wxyz.com calls a 45-minute nightmare across two floors, and the scale of the production is considerable. Smith told ClickOnDetroit, “We have about 100+ actors that we utilize every single night that we're open.” That same report notes visitors actually get two haunted houses in one, including an asylum-themed house and a basement experience styled as an experimental laboratory.
The Real Medical History Behind the Scares
Eloise Asylum staff often take visitors out of the attraction before they finish, according to WXYZ's reporting, a detail that underscores just how intense the experience is built to be. Smith also connects the scares to real history, saying the property has a reputation for paranormal activity and that the building has connections to early medical procedures and technology. He told WXYZ that one of the first X-rays took place at the property and said lobotomy was founded there and shock therapy was invented there.
That history traces back further than the haunted attraction itself. Per Hour Detroit, Eloise opened in 1839 as the Wayne County Poor House and admitted its first mental patient in 1841. By the late 1920s, the facility had grown from 35 patients to about 10,000 residents, supported by 2,000 staff, the magazine reports. Hour Detroit also notes the hospital was among the first to use X-ray technology for diagnosis and housed Michigan's first kidney dialysis unit. The psychiatric division closed in 1979 and the general hospital closed in 1984, according to Michigan Public, decades before the site reopened as a haunted house in 2021, per Hour Detroit's account.
Tours, Investigations and an End-of-Season Concert
Beyond the main attraction, Eloise Asylum includes escape rooms and building tours, and the 2026 season adds private paranormal investigations, history tours and mini building tours running throughout the season, according to wxyz.com. Those paranormal sessions range from three hours up to 12-hour lockdowns inside the facility, ClickOnDetroit reports. The site has offered escape rooms, historic tours and paranormal tours year-round in the past, and Hour Detroit reports that future plans call for keeping the escape room running year-round alongside paranormal and historical tours, though those plans remain forward-looking rather than confirmed for the current season.
The 2026 calendar also includes new event programming. Eloise Asylum plans to host a Rockin' Haunt Night concert on Oct. 30 featuring Marz Radio and Mob Opera, with Smith telling WXYZ he expects a really big turnout. Tickets for the main attraction are sold online and at the door, with general admission priced at $34.99 and front-of-the-line VIP admission at $64.99, according to wxyz.com. Earlier coverage from FOX 2 Detroit had listed tickets at $44 for two attractions during a prior season, reflecting how pricing has shifted since then. Staffing figures have also varied across seasons: a 2025 ClickOnDetroit report cited more than 120 staff members and trained scare actors, while the 2024 season was described by the Detroit Free Press as a 60,000-square-foot haunted house with 120 actors on staff, figures distinct from this season's 100-plus nightly count.
