What scares you this Halloween, Pittsburgh?

Neighborhoods without sidewalks. Oooh…spooky! A Homeowners’ Association with free reign to raise your fees whenever. Nightmarish!  Your neighbors are revealing their idiotic opinions on Nextdoor. Chilling! That one neighbor wants to chat about how Pittsburgh was better back in the day (I’m listening…), until “all the transgenders and illegals showed up” (…and there it is). Yikes! Your favorite café is now a vape shop (and so is everything else.) Help!

Wow, I’m thoroughly spooked. To make it up to you, here are my favorite haunted house horror movies. Finally, a subject on which I have actual expertise! (I was once a movie critic in a bygone age at the Trib. I miss it; can you tell?)

Dark Water (Japan, 2002): Ever felt like an apartment was a physical manifestation of your own internal emotional turmoil? Well, this is like that, if a leak in the ceiling started to seem like your own sanity dripping down the wall. (Avoid the American remake.)

Tumbbad (India, 2018): This movie it all: a chilling fable of greed and obsession, deeply weird folklore, a sweltering atmosphere, a subterranean tomb of uncanny devilment, and zero songs/dances.

House (Japan, 1977): One house, encompassing a kaleidoscopic array of Japan’s haunted unconscious, from the primordial demons of pre-industrial folklore to the irradiated scars of atomic war.

The Old Dark House (U.S., 1932): Like Rocky Horror in reverse, with the sexy interlopers stranded by an automotive breakdown invading the staid, musty realm of an ancient Welsh mansion.

House on Haunted Hill (U.S., 1959): The assignment: hang out with Vincent Price, some swells in elaborate evening wear, some ghosts, a random gorilla hand, an assortment of murder weapons, and then collect $10,000 if you last the night. What could go wrong?

The House of the Devil (U.S., 2009): Oh, I lived there once. It was in Shadyside, and he never did the dishes.

For sale: 1312 Boyle St., Mexican War Streets, $499,000.

If you’re in the market for a house with a GIANT SEA TURTLE painted all over it, then boy are you in the right place! If you’ve ever dreamed of living the life aquatic in cerulean depths of the ocean — without leaving the North Side — then you can simply do that right here. No idea how this got around the nebby neighbor issue, but I’m all for it. Jeremy Raymer’s murals are kind of an acquired taste, but he also did Roberto Clemente and “The Man Who Laughs” (the 1928 silent horror classic), so I have definitely acquired it. This place just dropped $36,000 a few days ago.

Apartments at River View, 300 Liberty Ave. Credit: Courtesy of Zillow

For rent: Apartments at River View, 300 Liberty Ave., Downtown, $1,439/month.

Over the last few years, a lot of effort has been expended painting Downtown Pittsburgh as some sort of post-apocalyptic hellscape that sane humans should flee in terror, for reasons (which they are currently doing to Chicago and Portland). You love to see bad-faith efforts from the bullshit factory fail miserably, and they have; Downtown is pretty popular right now, with a booming residential population and a 94.8% occupancy rate. There’s even been noticeable progress in mitigating homelessness, one of the most complex and difficult problems facing any city.

112 E. Amanda Ave. Credit: Courtesy of Zillow

For rent: 112 E. Amanda Ave., Mt. Oliver, $1,000-1,500/month.

Half-yellow-brick, half new-ish siding — all excitement!  OK, OK, settle down. Otherwise, this place got blasted by the Greige-Bomb, and I don’t even know what to say about that anymore. Flavors of Puerto Rico is nearby in Mt. Oliver, and I have definitely chosen places to live for worse reasons than that.

Terminal 21, 615 1st Ave. Credit: Courtesy of Zillow

For rent: Terminal 21, 615 1st Ave., Downtown, $1,149-1,814/month.

It may be funny only to me in a Peak Spooky Season sense, but of all the millions of words you can choose to name your adaptive reuse housing development, you pick one that’s a synonym of death. Other than that, this place is nice.

3178 McClure Ave. Credit: Courtesy of Zillow

For sale: 3178 McClure Ave., Marshall-Shadeland, $255,000.

I was a reporter on the North Side for well north of a decade, and I never heard anything good happening in Marshall-Shadeland. To be fair, you rarely heard anything good about anywhere, because people getting murdered is a story and people not getting murdered isn’t. Here’s a good rule of thumb; if you go looking for trouble, it’s never very far, and not hard to find. But if you simply don’t do that, you’ll likely be just fine. Pittsburgh isn’t the kind of place where trouble comes looking for you. At any rate, I wish we had more turn-of-the-century storefronts with three bedrooms above, and this is definitely that.

3565 Gerber Ave. Credit: Courtesy of Zillow

For sale: 3565 Gerber Ave., Brighton Heights, $234,000.

Writing copy for real estate websites is a thankless gig, and I’m sure someone is training AI to comb through millions of Redfin and Zillow listings at this very moment to find the phrases most likely to elicit a sale. However, we’re not there yet! I can tell, because this listing contains the phrase, “A bonus enclosed Pittsburgh potty adds convenience,” which seems calculated to cause algorithms agonizing pain. You have to be slow-cooked in the deepest, darkest Pittsburgh lore for years to come up with that assemblage of syntax, and I don’t think there’s AI for that just yet.   

This article appears in Oct. 29-Nov. 4, 2025.

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