Which Midwest state is the scariest?

MILWAUKEE, Wis. – October is spooky season, and that means it’s a time to have fun and get scared across the U.S. Many towns and states pride themselves on having the best haunted houses or scary folktales, but which Midwest state is actually considered the scariest?

Spookiest standouts in the Midwest

The backstory:

A recent study done by SmartAsset set out to determine which states in the U.S. are the scariest. To find this, SmartAsset went through a bunch of scary stats such as which states had the most haunted places, which had the most Halloween attractions, and which had the scariest movies set in their state that landed on Variety’s Top 100 Horror Movies of All Time.

By the numbers:

Landing at the top of the list for the Midwest was Illinois, which finished ranked as the fifth-scariest state in the U.S. With 180 total haunted places on record in Illinois, the Prairie State also has plenty of Halloween attractions with a little over 50 attractions for every million residents.

Illinois has two top 100 horror movies that were set in the state, “Candyman” and “Re-Animator.”

Ohio was next in the Midwest at No. 8, with roughly 190 haunted locations, but fewer Halloween attractions than Illinois — roughly 37 per million people. Popular horror movies from the state include “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “The Silence of the Lambs.”

Illinois and Ohio were the only two Midwest states to have top 100 horror movies set in their states.

Indiana and Iowa weren’t far behind at No. 11 and No. 12, with Indiana having plenty of Halloween attractions with 54 per million residents and Iowa having a lot of haunted places to check out with 164.

Michigan finished ranked No. 22 in the country with about 33 Halloween attractions per million residents and 139 haunted places across the state.

South and North Dakota were next, finishing ranked 32nd and 37th. While neither had too many haunted places, the two neighboring states each had a decent number of Halloween attractions, with 18 and 16 per million residents.

Finally, at the bottom of the list, ranking as the least scary state in the Midwest was Minnesota, which ranked 48th in the entire country. With only 12 Halloween attractions per million residents and roughly 119 haunted places across the state, Minnesota was only considered scarier than Washington and Hawaii.

Here’s the full list of which Midwest states were scarier than the rest:

• No. 5 — Illinois
• No. 8 — Ohio
• No. 11 — Indiana
• No. 12 — Iowa
• No. 22 — Michigan
• No. 32 — South Dakota
• No. 37 — North Dakota
• No. 48 — Minnesota

The rest of the country

Dig deeper:

As for the rest of the U.S., Pennsylvania ranked as the scariest state in the country with over 196 haunted places across the state as well as plenty of Halloween attractions and horror movie classics set in the state, such as “Night of the Living Dead” and “The Blob.”

California finished ranked second, followed by New York and Wyoming. Check out the top ten scariest states in the country:

• No. 1 — Pennsylvania
• No. 2 — California
• No. 3 — New York
• No. 4 — Wyoming
• No. 5 — Illinois
• No. 6 — Delaware
• No. 7 — Vermont
• No. 8 — Ohio
• No. 9 — New Hampshire
• No. 10 — Colorado