By Kristen Oliphant, Events & Partnerships Manager
On a quiet residential street in West Seattle, a 1926 home spends most of the year looking like any other. Then October arrives, and it becomes a portal. A man in a top hat greets visitors at the gate, introduces himself as Mr. Black, and invites them into a world of shadow and wonder.
Behind the character is Aleister Emmet Black, who goes by Emmet: the artist, performer, and storyteller who created Nightfall. Part dark-fantasy attraction and part community fundraiser, Nightfall has grown from a driveway pumpkin patch into one of West Seattle’s most beloved home haunts. And every scare it delivers helps support two causes close to Emmet’s heart: the West Seattle Food Bank and Washington’s National Park Fund.
Ask Emmet what Nightfall is, and he gently pushes back on the term haunted house. “I don’t think of it as a haunted house,” he says.
It’s a haunt for good — an immersive dark fantasy, story-driven walkthrough attraction experience.”
That distinction is the whole point. Rather than leaning on gore and jump scares, Nightfall trades in what Emmet calls a dark wonder aesthetic: colored lights, handcrafted sets, high-end animatronics, and an original mythology (“nightlore”) so vast that only about 10% of it appears on the website. Guests wind their way through a nearly 4,000-square-foot attraction built across multiple levels.
Most take around fifteen minutes to travel through it, and the experience is designed for every kind of visitor — even those who aren’t familiar with the lore. During the first hour each night, “Little Frights” runs with brighter lighting, sound effects, and no jump scares, giving younger children, timid adults, and first-time haunters a chance to test their courage before the full Nightfall begins.
Putting on Nightfall is no small feat, and nearly all of it is built and run by just a handful of people. “Building is the thing that takes the least amount of time,” Emmet says. “It’s the decorating, the set design, the details, running the animatronics and the lights that takes so much time.” This year alone, they built over 60 new effect walls, each roughly three and a half hours of work from raw lumber to finished set.
Emmet’s love of the season runs deep. He traces it to childhood summers in Tallmadge, Ohio, chasing lightning bugs through his grandmother’s cornfield. He was a Halloween kid from the start thanks to his mother, who loved horror movies. He remembers wanting to be Dracula instead of donning the lion costume his mother hand-sewed for him with a chuckle.
That fascination became a career. For 21 years, Emmet performed as a character named Chester Jester at Six Flags Fright Fest, part of a wave of performers who help shape modern Halloween haunts. He draws inspiration from Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes and from Disney’s Imagineers. Theme parks have played a formative role throughout Emmet’s life.
Nightfall itself was born from a harder chapter. In 2015, an illness left Emmet with a chronic pain condition that prevented him from performing. He and his family had just finished the first draft of the strategy and business model for their Halloween company, but the physical demands of being ChesterJester were suddenly out of reach. Determined to keep Halloween alive in Emmet’s life in some form, he and his family set up a small display at their Alki home. It started with 48 carved pumpkins — “by ‘we,’ I think I carved two,” he jokes, a testament to how much his partner Trish contributes — plus a few colored lights and an inexpensive animatronic clown that became the seed of an ever-expanding story. Over the years, Emmet’s condition has improved. Through learning to manage his pain and committing to training, he has made progress has allowed the family to grow Nightfall into what it is today.
“So it all started with a clown,” he reflects.
For Emmet, Nightfall was never only about scares. In its early years, the event began collecting non-perishable food for the West Seattle Food Bank, and about five years ago it added Washington’s National Park Fund as a second beneficiary after a neighbor connected Emmet with the organization.
The pairing made sense. Emmet grew up camping and hiking, starting with a childhood trip to Yosemite, and part of what drew him to Washington was its access to wild places. He sees a throughline between the immersive worlds he builds and the landscapes the national parks protect. “Our national parks aren’t just plots of land,” he says. “They’re some of the most important gateways to wonder in our country.”
He’s quick to note that the awe he chases in his own work is something nature delivers effortlessly. “There are no substitutes for coming out of a forest into an open glade, or the smell of pine when you’re walking through the woods,” he says. Preserving those places, and helping people learn to care for them, is exactly why a Washington’s National Park Fund donation tables sits just outside the Nightfall entrance each night.
The parks even shape the storytelling. The forest outside Nightfall’s Old #66 mine was first designed with the Fund in mind, complete with a “Nightfall Trail” sign and reminders to stay on the path and pack out your trash. That original sign now lives at the Washington’s National Park Fund table each night. Inside Nightfall, the woods host a Droom, a treelike woodland spirit who fiercely guards its home. As the lore goes, the way to stay on a Droom’s good side is simple: stay on the trail, leave no trace, and thank the park rangers and staff who care for these places.
Nightfall also contributes directly to the parks, sharing ticket proceeds with Washington’s National Park Fund and capping what it recoups towards its own costs so that more reaches the parks. The results speak for themselves. In the early days, a single night’s giving amount to a little more than a hiking boot full of loose bills; today, Nightfall raises five figures for the Fund in a single season and has directed more than $30,000 to the parks since it began.
Now in its tenth year, Nightfall is, by Emmet’s own account, just getting started. He dreams of telling stories one day across Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic National Parks that celebrate wild places while teaching conservation, with support flowing back to the parks. “There is still magic in the world,” he says. “It is in the details, and it is wielded by those of us who are storytellers.” As for what comes next, he keeps it to three words: “Here. We. Go.”
Nightfall returns for the 2026 season on Friday and Saturday nights in October (October 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24, 30, and 31). “Little Frights” runs from 5:30 to 6:30 each evening, with the full Nightfall following until 9:30 (and until 10:00 on Halloween). Admission is $25 per person, or $20 with a non-perishable food donation for your group.
As Emmet puts it, “It’s not just about coming here and igniting your imagination, but also giving back to the community.” While Mr. Black may not look like our typical Trailblazer, that perspective embodies what being a Trailblazer is all about.
Whether you are a first-time haunter or a seasoned lover of all things Halloween, a visit is a chance to be met with a little wonder and help protect the wild places that inspire it. “Nightfall is meant to be haunting and scary,” he says, “but it is part of a bigger idea, one that should spark curiosity, creativity, and imagination in young and old alike.” What he most hopes to send visitors home with is a moment of believing that some kind of magic still exists in the world.
Find dates, tickets, directions, and the full “nightlore” at nightfallhalloween.com.
Washington’s National Park Fund is the official philanthropic partner of Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic National Parks. Through donor support, we fund critical park projects that protect wildlife, preserve ecosystems, and enhance visitor experiences. Your donations help ensure these iconic landscapes remain for generations to come. Inspired by Trailblazers like Mr. Black? Join them in giving back at wnpf.org/donate.
Photos courtesy of Mr. Black and Nightfall; cover photo by Kathryn Skvarla