Haunted House color palettes lean into deep shadows, muted purples, inky blues, and unsettling highlights that instantly signal mystery and tension. These tones feel like creaking floors, foggy windows, and corridors that vanish into black. Psychologically, they suggest danger and the unknown, but also nostalgia and melancholy, which makes them ideal for horror films, paranormal vlogs, dark storytelling, and eerie aesthetic branding.
Whether you are designing a spooky YouTube thumbnail, grading a found-footage style intro, or building a consistent look for a horror gaming channel, a well-chosen Haunted House color palette keeps everything cohesive. Below you will find 15 Haunted House color combinations with HEX codes tailored for creators and Filmora users, so you can match your grading, overlays, titles, and social assets in a few clicks.
In this article
Moody Haunted House Cinematic Palettes
Midnight Corridor Dread
- HEX Codes: #04040a, #13111b, #2d2438, #5c4b6a, #a88fbf
- Mood: oppressive, tense, and deeply atmospheric
- Use for: Perfect for horror short films, tension-building title cards, and dramatic trailer intros that need a slow-burn sense of dread.
This Haunted House palette feels like walking down a hallway where the light never quite reaches the end. The inky blues and muted purples layer into a thick, suffocating darkness, while the soft lavender highlight keeps just enough detail visible to make viewers lean in. It is perfect for scenes where you want the fear to creep in slowly rather than jump out.
Use these HEX codes to grade your footage consistently, then echo them in titles, lower thirds, and YouTube thumbnails. A nearly black background with subtle violet gradients makes red text or a ghostly figure stand out, especially in intros, end screens, and channel banners.
Pro Tip: Build A Cinematic Haunted House Look In Filmora
To keep this Midnight Corridor Dread palette consistent across your edit, use adjustment layers in Filmora. Apply your color grading to the adjustment layer instead of every individual clip, so your intro, B-roll, talking head shots, and outro all share the same oppressive Haunted House mood.
You can also save your look as a custom preset. Once you are happy with the balance of shadows and muted purples, save it in Filmora and reuse it on future horror shorts, channel trailers, or social teasers without having to rebuild the grade from scratch.
AI Color Palette
If you have a reference still for this Haunted House hallway look, you can let Filmora do the matching work for you. Filmora's AI Color Palette feature reads the colors from your reference frame and applies a similar palette to the rest of your clips.
Simply drop a shot that nails your Haunted House mood onto the timeline, select the clips you want to match, and run AI Color Palette. The deep blues, purples, and subtle highlights will be transferred across your project, turning scattered footage into a unified cinematic experience in just a few clicks.
HSL, Color Wheels & Curves
Once the base palette is in place, refine it using Filmora's HSL sliders, color wheels, and curves. You can push blues further into teal for a colder corridor, deepen purples for heavier shadows, or lift just the midtones to keep faces readable while the background stays almost black. For more control ideas, check out practical color correction tips in Filmora and adapt them to your Haunted House aesthetic.
Use curves to create a gentle S-shape that increases contrast without crushing all the detail in the dark areas. The color wheels make it easy to cool the shadows while keeping skin tones slightly warmer, so characters still feel human against a deeply unnatural environment.
1000+ Video Filters & 3D LUTs
If you want a fast Haunted House look, start with Filmora's presets. Filmora's video filters and 3D LUTs make it easy to drop a moody base grade onto your clips, then fine-tune it to match the Midnight Corridor Dread HEX codes.
You can stack a cinematic filter with a vignette, add film grain, or use a horror-themed LUT as a starting point. From there, adjust the intensity so the blacks stay rich, the purples stay muted, and the overall image feels cinematic instead of over-processed.
Creaking Staircase Shadows
- HEX Codes: #060509, #19141f, #312534, #4a3a4f
- Mood: claustrophobic, suspenseful, and intimate
- Use for: Ideal for close-up shots, vlog storytelling in dim interiors, and channel branding that leans into slow, psychological horror.
This palette is all about narrow spaces and closed-in air. Near-black purples and charcoal tones give the impression that something could be hiding just outside the frame. It is subtle but intense, focusing attention on small details like a hand on a railing or a glance over the shoulder.
Use it for close-up storytime videos, dimly lit reaction shots, or thumbnails where you want the viewer pulled into a single, tense moment. Dark backgrounds with slightly lighter purples are perfect for text overlays that feel readable but still trapped inside the darkness.
Candlelit Widow Walk
- HEX Codes: #120d13, #2a1c27, #5a3942, #b3664f, #f2cda0
- Mood: melancholic, romantic, and ghostly
- Use for: Use for gothic love stories, character portraits, and cinematic thumbnails that mix fear with tragic beauty.
Here, warm candle ambers brush up against wine and plum shadows, creating a Haunted House look that is as sad as it is unsettling. The deeper tones hold the frame in gloom, while the amber and cream highlights suggest candle flames or old brass fixtures catching the light.
This is a strong choice for gothic narratives, character-driven horror, or thumbnails that show a lone figure on a balcony or by a window. Use the lighter HEX codes for faces and titles, while keeping the rest of the frame wrapped in muted reds and purples for romantic dread.
Fogbound Manor Gates
- HEX Codes: #08090b, #151a1f, #313944, #606b73, #aeb7bd
- Mood: mysterious, distant, and cinematic
- Use for: Perfect for establishing shots, channel banners, and documentary-style intros centered on mysterious locations.
Cool grays and stormy blues in this palette feel like heavy clouds sitting on top of an old estate. The darkest tones make silhouettes of iron gates or bare trees, while the paler gray-blues suggest mist and distant light.
Use these colors for wide exterior shots, location reveals, or channel art that shows a manor or forest shrouded in fog. In thumbnails, a dark blue-gray background with lighter fog gradients can frame bold title text and a small, brightly lit subject for strong visual focus.
Vintage Haunted House Storytelling Palettes
Dusty Portrait Gallery
- HEX Codes: #20161a, #3a2628, #6b4b3f, #a27b5e, #d7c6a5
- Mood: nostalgic, eerie, and quietly unsettling
- Use for: Great for narrative vlogs, slow pan shots over props, and thumbnails featuring old photos, journals, or heirlooms.
This palette replaces cold blues with browned neutrals and faded creams, mimicking the look of old frames, cracked oil paint, and yellowed paper. It suggests a Haunted House that has been lived in for generations, full of forgotten stories and lingering presence rather than jump scares.
Use it for slow pans over props, vintage documents, or family photos in both video and thumbnails. Pair a deep brown background with warm beige text and subtle vignette for storytime videos, true-crime cases, or personal lore about a haunted location.
Broken Music Box Lullaby
- HEX Codes: #1c151b, #3c2a35, #7b566b, #c48fa8, #f3d6dd
- Mood: bittersweet, fragile, and hauntingly pretty
- Use for: Ideal for flashback sequences, tragic character backstories, and title cards for storytime or true-crime style content.
Soft mauves, rose-tinted highlights, and gentle contrasts give this palette the feel of a cracked porcelain doll or a forgotten nursery. It is still Haunted House, but gentler, mixing innocence with a sense that something went horribly wrong long ago.
Use the darker purples as your base grade and bring in the pale pinks for text, transitions, and animated elements like floating petals or dust. This is excellent for backstory segments, flashbacks, or thumbnails where you want viewers to feel sadness before the horror fully reveals itself.
Victorian Seance Secrets
- HEX Codes: #151016, #2f202a, #5c3844, #8f5a4f, #d0a573
- Mood: occult, intimate, and ritualistic
- Use for: Use for lore videos, tarot or spiritual content, and branded overlays that feel like an old parlor prepared for a ritual.
Wine-stained browns, deep plums, and candlelit ambers make this palette feel like a Victorian parlor just before the candles are blown out. It is intimate rather than wide and empty, perfect for tables covered in cards, crystals, or antique objects.
Apply these colors to your overlays, frames, and lower thirds to design a ritual-ready look for tarot readings, lore breakdowns, or spiritual commentary. In thumbnails, use a dark burgundy base with gold text and a warm glow behind your subject for a seance-inspired aesthetic.
Abandoned Theater Velvet
- HEX Codes: #120b12, #2c1824, #5b243a, #8b3e46, #d07a5e
- Mood: dramatic, theatrical, and decayed-glamorous
- Use for: Perfect for film analysis, stage-inspired intros, and branding for channels focused on movies, performance, or dark cabaret aesthetics.
Velvety crimsons and dusty plums in this palette suggest torn curtains, faded seats, and an empty balcony waiting for an audience that never returns. It channels theatrical drama in a haunted setting, making every frame feel like a scene from a lost play.
Use the darkest tones for backgrounds and frames, reserving the bright reds and warm oranges for highlights on faces, stage lights, or title text. This works brilliantly for video essays on horror cinema, performance-based channels, or stylized cabaret-inspired content.
Neon Haunted House Horror Palettes
Neon Ouija Glow
- HEX Codes: #05040a, #22142f, #4c1f5d, #c90f74, #35ffd2
- Mood: electric, occult, and unnervingly vivid
- Use for: Great for horror gaming overlays, glitchy title animations, and standout YouTube thumbnails that must pop in dark mode.
This palette throws supernatural neon into the Haunted House mix. Deep violets set the base, while hot magenta and toxic mint cut through the darkness like cursed LEDs or glowing sigils. It feels modern, occult, and almost digital.
Use the neon accents in scoreboards, chat boxes, or UI elements for horror game streams. On thumbnails, a nearly black purple background with bright magenta and mint typography will punch through YouTube dark mode and immediately signal horror with a tech twist.
Arcade Haunt Glitch
- HEX Codes: #06060b, #182033, #183b5a, #ff3264, #ffd447
- Mood: retro, frantic, and glitchy
- Use for: Use for VHS-style edits, analog horror intros, and edits that mix retro gaming with paranormal elements.
Midnight blues paired with searing pink and amber mimic the glow of an old arcade cabinet gone wrong. This palette is ideal for haunted technology, cursed games, and analog horror edits that lean into VHS static and CRT flicker.
In Filmora, combine these HEX codes with glitch transitions and RGB split effects for intros, jump cuts, and stylized timestamps. For thumbnails, keep the background deep blue and use hot pink for central characters or objects, with yellow highlights for crucial text.
Toxic Basement Lights
- HEX Codes: #020506, #101a14, #143326, #28a06a, #e3ff5a
- Mood: contaminated, tense, and industrial
- Use for: Ideal for found-footage edits, survival-horror overlays, and cautionary titles set in laboratories, bunkers, or basements.
Oily blacks and murky greens in this palette feel like they belong under flickering fluorescent lights. The radioactive lime highlight brings in a sickly, warning-sign energy that screams danger, infection, or contamination.
Use darker greens and blacks as your primary grade, then reserve the brightest lime as a sparing accent for warning icons, countdown timers, or hazard-themed titles. This palette fits survival horror games, bunker explorations, or any video that takes viewers underground.
Emergency Exit Phantom
- HEX Codes: #040608, #0f1820, #142a2f, #ff2147, #2bff7a
- Mood: urgent, modern, and high-contrast
- Use for: Perfect for jump-scare cuts, countdown timers, and bold UI for horror streams or live events.
Steely teals and night blues form a cold, modern backdrop while alarm red and exit-sign green slice through with immediate urgency. This palette feels like security cameras, emergency lighting, and sirens echoing down empty corridors.
Use it for on-screen timers, live-stream alerts, and bold motion graphics that must remain legible over dark footage. A teal background with red call-to-action text and green progress bars will stay visible even during the most chaotic horror sequences.
Soft Haunted House Aesthetic Palettes
Whispered Wallpaper Fades
- HEX Codes: #17141a, #342b39, #6a5c74, #a99cb0, #e7dde9
- Mood: subtle, nostalgic, and gently eerie
- Use for: Great for aesthetic vlogs, commentary channels, and subtle horror branding that must stay soft and watchable.
Smoky violets and powdery lilacs in this palette evoke sun-faded wallpaper, dust, and quiet rooms rather than outright terror. It is Haunted House for channels that want mood and mystery without overwhelming viewers with harsh contrasts.
Use the mid and light tones as background colors for commentary overlays or title cards, and save the darkest shade for gentle drop shadows and text. This creates a soft horror vibe that still works for long-form essays, aesthetic vlogs, and cozy-but-creepy storytelling.
Moonlit Attic Dust
- HEX Codes: #101118, #262634, #4b4a5d, #807f92, #cbc8d7
- Mood: quiet, reflective, and slightly uncanny
- Use for: Use for slow, introspective scenes, long-form essays, and b-roll that lingers on objects and textures.
This palette leans into cool slate tones and pale grays that feel like moonlight catching dust in an attic. Nothing is screaming for attention, but there is a constant sense that something might be hiding in the corners of the frame.
Use it when your content is thoughtful and slow, like video essays, object close-ups, or calm storytime videos with a hint of eeriness. In thumbnails, a gradient from deep slate to pale gray can highlight a single key object or face without straining the viewer's eyes.
Faded Nursery Phantoms
- HEX Codes: #18131a, #3a2836, #775268, #c191a8, #f1dbe6
- Mood: tender, sorrowful, and softly uncanny
- Use for: Ideal for dark fairytales, gothic storytime content, and subtle horror edits aimed at a broader audience.
Muted plums and blush tones in this palette feel like abandoned toys, peeling pastel paint, and bedtime stories gone wrong. It is a soft Haunted House aesthetic that leans more toward sorrow and memory than pure terror.
Use it for dark fairytales, gothic narration, or horror content that needs to remain accessible and somewhat gentle. Pair a soft pink background with plum text and a slightly darker border for thumbnails and titles that look delicate at first glance but hide an uneasy undertone.
Tips for Creating Haunted House Color Palettes
When you build a Haunted House color palette for video and design, aim for a strong balance between atmosphere, readability, and brand consistency. Combining deep shadows with carefully chosen accent colors keeps your visuals spooky but still clear on every screen.
- Choose one dominant dark hue (deep blue, plum, or charcoal) as your base and build the rest of the palette around that mood.
- Limit bright accent colors to one or two shades so titles, UI elements, and key props pop without breaking the Haunted House atmosphere.
- Check text readability on mobile by testing light-on-dark and dark-on-light combinations from your palette in small thumbnail sizes.
- Use consistent HEX codes for your thumbnails, overlays, and lower thirds so viewers immediately recognize your horror or spooky brand.
- Match grading to the story: colder blues and teals for isolation, warmer ambers and browns for vintage or gothic romance, and neons for tech or gaming horror.
- In Filmora, keep color adjustments on adjustment layers when possible so the Haunted House look stays uniform across every clip.
- Add subtle vignettes and film grain in the same color family as your shadows to deepen atmosphere without making the image muddy.
- Test your palette in both light and dark mode previews to be sure buttons, subtitles, and key visuals stay visible on all platforms.
Haunted House color palettes are powerful tools for shaping mood, guiding attention, and building a memorable brand around horror, mystery, or dark storytelling. From moody corridors to neon curses and soft ghostly pastels, the right combination of hues decides whether your content feels flat or truly cinematic.
Use the HEX codes in this guide as ready-made recipes, then customize them inside Filmora to match your locations, characters, and narrative tone. By keeping your grading, overlays, and thumbnails aligned to a single Haunted House aesthetic, every video you publish will feel like part of the same eerie universe.
Open Filmora, drop in your footage, and start experimenting with these palettes. With AI tools, precise color controls, and rich filters, you can turn any ordinary room or game capture into a haunted space that your audience will recognize instantly.

