Halloween Horror Nights is held on select nights from Oct. 2 to 31.

A major highlight at this year’s Halloween Horror Nights 5 is the localised scare attractions.

If you ever scoffed at the lame plots Hollywood horror flicks produce (and reproduce) but get the creeps when you hear National Service horror stories, this should make you sit up.

An unprecedented three haunted houses and one scare-zone have been done up in full Singaporean glory to ensure you relate and are well and truly terrified...

... at least, that was the idea.

1. It’s getting hot in here

Naturally, the Hungry Ghost Festival is the focus as it is one of the haunted houses.

Hell House kicks it up a notch as you get plunged into a world of paper, flames and smoke.

Modelled after the paper effigies and giant paper mansion burnt as offerings to the dead, the heat rises the deeper you go, reminding you the proximity of your hellish destination (which you will eventually enter).

Expect unnerving funeral dolls and Chinese demons to greet you. This is definitely one of the creepier segments this HHN, with disconcertingly realistic hanging bodies, life-sized paper offerings and of course, so much haze smoke you don’t know what lurks ahead.

Sweating is guaranteed and it won’t be just the rising temperatures. The ghouls you find here aren’t the crazed, maniac zombies in the other haunted houses: here, they almost look right through you (because you’re dead, you know?), which makes your skin crawl even more.

What looks pretty much like the English devil also makes an appearance at some point -- see, maybe they’re being inclusive after all.

2. Kiasu or not, you might rethink rushing for the last train

If you read - and were possibly unimpressed by - True Singapore Ghost Stories series when you were younger, you’ll be pleased to know that this year’s tie up with TSGS for The MRT fares much better than the books.

The MRT cabins are replicated so perfectly they bring alive your most dreaded MRT urban legends.

Please google "haunted MRT stations Singapore" before going if you have no idea what we’re talking about, and have a good time guessing exactly which station The MRT is based on.

It’s not on the East-West line -- remember, you heard it here first.

Another special effect that stands out is the optical illusion time-portal that takes you back in time and space, to the land’s underground beginnings of bomohs and trances and cloth-bound mummy-corpses. Very cool, very freaky and a good way to learn about some cultural traditions.

3. This is home, truly, where everyone’s a zombie

Honestly, SG50 never ends. For as long as 2015 shall last, so shall SG50.

But here’s a celebration of our racial diversity and harmony with Siloso Gateway Block 50, a HDB block overrun with zombies as a result of a virus in the water supply. NEWater, we’re looking at you.

Despite the corny name, the nostalgic familiarity of the set is pretty neat. In the words of the creative team behind the attractions, this is “Under One Roof gone horror”.

The route winds through the tiled playground structures recently enjoying renewed popularity on Instagram, a ransacked mama shop, and through various, multi-racial flats. The milieu will prove confoundingly familiar as everything has been reproduced to a tee, right down to the smells and sounds. Blaring Tamil television news channels, a mahjong table and the aroma of Chinese home-cooking, anyone?

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