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Academy Museum Reveals New Details About Massive Horror Exhibition Opening This Fall

The Horror Show will feature original props, costumes, immersive galleries, a room covered in cinematic blood, and more than a century of horror history.

By FirstDrop TeamJul 10, 20263 min read

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is preparing to turn its fourth floor into a celebration of everything that has terrified movie audiences for more than a century.

The Horror Show will open at the Los Angeles museum on September 26, 2026, bringing together original movie artifacts, interactive displays, sound installations, costumes, production materials, and immersive environments inspired by some of the most influential horror films ever made.

Photo Credit: The Academy of Motion Pictures Museum
Photo Credit: The Academy of Motion Pictures Museum

The exhibition will remain open through July 25, 2027, inside the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery. Rather than presenting horror history as a traditional collection of objects behind glass, the museum is designing the experience to feel like visitors are entering a horror film themselves.

Guests will begin inside an introductory gallery filled with recognizable scores, voices, and sound effects from across the history of horror cinema. From there, they will enter a central space called The Hallway, which leads into six different chambers dedicated to Gothic, Psychological, Science, Slasher, Religion, and Ghosts.

Photo Credit: Monkey Paw Productions - "Get Out"
Photo Credit: Monkey Paw Productions - "Get Out"

Each chamber will place visitors inside environments inspired by familiar horror settings while exploring the creatures, characters, themes, and filmmaking techniques that define each category.

Films represented throughout the exhibition will include Alien, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Dracula, Frankenstein, Get Out, Halloween, Midsommar, Misery, Poltergeist, Ringu, The Blair Witch Project, The Exorcist, The Shining, The Silence of the Lambs, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

More recent releases will also be included. The Gothic chamber will feature films such as Blade and Sinners, while the Science section will include The Substance alongside classics including Alien, The Fly, and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Photo Credit: Sinners Movie
Photo Credit: Sinners Movie

The exhibition will examine more than monsters and scares. The Academy Museum says The Horror Show will explore how horror films have represented identity, sexuality, disability, religion, social fears, and changing cultural anxieties.

One of the most unusual parts of the experience will come at the very end.

Visitors will reportedly have to pass through the Blood Room to exit the exhibition. The room will explore the different colors, textures, and visual styles of cinematic blood, with its walls covered in gore as part of a final sensory experience.

Due to the graphic material and potentially disturbing imagery, the Academy Museum recommends parental guidance for the main exhibition

Actor Willem Dafoe and Longlegs filmmaker Osgood Perkins are part of the advisory team that helped shape the exhibition. They are joined by documentary filmmaker Ariel Baska, prosthetic makeup artist Howard Berger, author and filmmaker Tananarive Due, and film scholar Angela Marie Smith.

For younger visitors, the museum will also open Zombies! in the neighboring Warner Bros. Gallery. The smaller exhibition will offer a more accessible look at how filmmakers create zombies, where zombie stories originated, and how the undead became one of horror cinema’s most recognizable monsters.

On Halloween night, the museum will host Museum After Dark, an adults only event featuring cocktails, tarot readings, gothic entertainment, and a screening of The Craft.

Photo Credit: Carrie (1976)
Photo Credit: Carrie (1976)

The programming will continue on November 19 with a special fiftieth anniversary screening of Carrie. Sissy Spacek, who played Carrie White in the 1976 film, is scheduled to attend the event for a conversation about the movie.

An illustrated publication featuring concept art, movie stills, and production photography will arrive in September. The Academy Museum Store will also release exclusive merchandise connected to the exhibition, including clothing, toys, collectibles, books, and other horror items.

With its collection of historic artifacts, immersive rooms, screenings, special events, and the blood covered finale, The Horror Show appears to be much more than a temporary display. The Academy Museum is building an experience designed for horror fans to walk through, hear, explore, and possibly even feel a little uncomfortable inside.

The Horror Show opens September 26, 2026, at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

/ More from FirstDrop