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Occasional digests of what’s rising — haunts, drops, and headlines. No spam.
Occasional digests of what’s rising — haunts, drops, and headlines. No spam.
October is here! Which means peak Halloween season is now underway, and HBO Max is celebrating accordingly with a new “Horror Comes Home” collection. Available today and throughout October, viewers can explore a best-in-class lineup of acclaimed new releases, blockbuster franchises, genre-defining classics, and exclusive titles, delivering a month of unforgettable scares for the spooky […]
BACKROOMS, EVIL DEAD BURN and much more, all from the comfort of your very own couch.
VidantaWorld’s Beauty of Nature (BON), billed as the world’s first luxury theme park, will officially begin its soft opening on October 24, 2026 at VidantaWorld Vallarta–Nuevo Nayarit in Mexico. The park will be available exclusively to VidantaWorld guests ahead of its planned public opening in April 2027. Developed with an investment of approximately $1.5 billion, […]
It’s October 1, and spooky songwriting collective LVCRFT, comprised of Evan Bogart, Amanda “MNDR” Warner, and Peter Wade, is back with a new album that’s enlisted horror icons to celebrate the Halloween spirit. “Skeleton Sam’s Deadtime Stories,” the group’s eighth album, debuts today on all digital platforms and features a whopping 27 tracks and framed […]
Fans of Trick 'r Treat have a lot to get excited about this October. Michael Dougherty has launched SAM: THE SOUL OF HALLOWEEN, a new creative hub that will house all things surrounding everyone's favorite Halloween "trickster," including new short films, new merchandise, and much more. We have the official press release, along with a […]
Buffalo Wild Wings’ Halloween menu is built on garlic: Vampire Hunter Wings tossed in a new Black Garlic Glaze, cheese curds with the same glaze, and a black cherry Vampirita with a bat on the rim. The Fright Feast Menu runs through November 9, and Sarah Michelle Gellar stars in the ad. For every chain’s […]
Hong Kong — Hong Kong is holding its first Halloween Month, with cosplay street parties in five districts on Saturday, October 17, 24, and 31, and free rides on party trams and an open-top bus for anyone in costume. The Hong Kong Tourism Board program runs alongside Halloween at Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park, […]
Fall is officially here, and we're only 35 days away from Halloween. By this weekend, every major theme park Halloween event in the U.S. is open, Alton Towers, Movie Park Germany, and Disneyland Paris are open in Europe, and our tracker shows more than 30 haunts opening tonight and tomorrow alone. This is crunch time, and all of us are in the middle of shows. So I'm giving you permission: take care of yourself, and enjoy some of it. If anyone disagrees, tell them I said it was OK. Also this week: why Six Flags is building Fright Fest for passholders instead of competing on mazes, what the record Top Haunts list is actually for, and why a plain corn dog doesn't cut it anymore.In this issue: Knott's Scary Farm Opening Weekend: Every Maze on Video Six Flags Magic Mountain Fright Fest Review: Why Passholders Win Haunted Attraction Association Certifies a Record 74 Top Haunts Woods of Terror Remembers Laurie Erebus Debuts Primordium Tulleys' Shocktober Fest Turns 30 The Lemp Mansion Is for Sale, but Stays Open Through 2027 A24's Slayground Sets a Horror Movie Inside a Working Haunt Angry Orchard's Free Scream Video-Store Pop-Up With Skeet Ulrich 2026 Golden Ticket Awards Hidden Valley's Spooky Ranch and Cup Noodles' Vampire Noodles Jellycat's 2026 Halloween Collection and What's Sold Out Read the stories here
Michael Dougherty is bringing Sam back to his animated roots with new shorts, artwork, artist collaborations, and merchandise through Sam: […]
It’s been seventeen years since Michael Dougherty’s anthology film Trick ‘r Treat arrived on the scene and became an almost instant Halloween classic, but the origins of the beloved Halloween icon Sam actually date back even further. Sam was first introduced by Dougherty in his 1996 animated short Season’s Greetings, which celebrates its 30th anniversary […]
Heidi Klum’s Halloween party turns 25 this year, and one piece of it is open to everyone: a Butterfinger dessert pizza at Crazy Pizza in SoHo, the New York restaurant where Klum is a partner, from October 1 through 31. Butterfinger is back as the party’s title sponsor for a third year, and it’s handing […]
Tim Hortons’ Timbits Trick-or-Treat Bucket is back for Halloween 2026: $11.99 filled with 31 Timbits, with $6 refills while supplies last. It arrived September 30 at participating U.S. restaurants with a Halloween menu of TWIX drinks, a Mummy Donut, and a hand-decorated Frankenstein Donut. It’s part of my Fall and Halloween Fast Food 2026 guide. […]
“Treehouse of Horror XXXVII” premieres Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026, exactly 36 years after the original Halloween special aired Oct. 25, 1990. The Simpsons has now offered a first look at this year’s installment, while a growing collection of merchandise, food and other Halloween offerings is extending Springfield’s spooky season well beyond the television screen.
Even the furry kiddos can get in on the Halloween fun this season; PetSmart has unleashed a 2026 Thrills & Chills Halloween collection that lets you dress your dog or cat as Michael Myers, Chucky, and more. It’s not just dogs and cats this year, either. The collection offers an exclusive assortment of costumes, toys, […]
The new menu puts garlic at the forefront to keep the vampires away.
Everyone’s entitled to a scare on Halloween, and the Halloween Attraction Association is in the business of delivering as many as possible throughout the season. The HAA represents professional haunted attraction owners, operators, designers, vendors, enthusiasts, and artists who have turned the business of fright into a multi-million dollar industry with its own trade shows, […]
St. Helens, Oregon, where Disney Channel filmed Halloweentown, is running its Spirit of Halloweentown festival every weekend through November 1, and three of the movie’s cast members are back for a reunion October 17 and 18. The downtown plaza is free, and the ticketed attractions need an Access Pass. Who Is at the Halloweentown Cast […]
New York’s 2026 haunted houses run from a 10,000-square-foot haunt in a Tribeca building on Broadway to five haunted houses inside a former Buffalo Kmart, and most are open every weekend through Halloween. Blood Manor opens in Manhattan on October 2, Pure Terror Scream Park holds a Guinness World Record an hour from the city, […]
Yorktown Heights, NY — Harry Potter: A Forbidden Forest Experience, a nighttime woodland trail of magical creatures and spell-casting, returns to FDR State Park in Yorktown Heights, about an hour’s drive north of New York City, on Friday, October 16, for the first time since 2022. This year you can conjure a Patronus, and it […]
More than a decade ago, my twin brother Russell and I started building a strange little monster world around a friendly skeleton named Felipe Femur. Felipe lived in a town called Toonstone, surrounded by monsters who were usually terrible at being what monsters were supposed to be. There was Gummy, a werewolf with no teeth. ...