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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.
Sure, carving up bots looks to be fun in IllFonic’s Halloween: The Game, but what if you want to take the stalking online? And just how does the upcoming game’s matchmaking system work? Luckily the devs are ready to explain it with the new overview trailer. Halloween: The Game uses a role-based matchmaking system, which […]
Halloween Horror Nights 35 at Universal Orlando does not stop at the mazes. The event’s dessert cart is themed just as carefully, with each sweet built around one of this year’s houses or icons. We got a first look at several of them, and the standout is a Universal-made chocolate bat with the late Ozzy […]
Camelback Resort is giving its summer waterpark a very different second season. The Pocono Mountains destination is launching a new Halloween haunt, The Curse of Camelback, that transforms Camelbeach Mountain Waterpark and the mountain around it into the site of a fictional chemical outbreak. It runs Thursday, September 17 through Sunday, November 8, 2026. The […]
The storybook is bleeding. Ever After, an independent horror film billed as “the bloodiest fairy tale,” opens exclusively in theaters on September 4, 2026, with a stacked bench of horror-genre faces and a premise that drags Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf into a survival slasher. An On Demand release follows on […]
It's Pumpkin Spice Week, and the theme park season is nearly all open too. In this week's newsletter: every major U.S. theme park Halloween event is either running or opens within the next three weeks, and haunted houses are the roller coasters of fall, the dedicated attractions that give the theme park industry its pricing power. Meanwhile, Thirteenth Floor is running a licensed Jason walkthrough at nine haunts, a bigger footprint than Six Flags has with the same brand, and The Scare Factor launched a free tool that re-ranks every haunt around each guest's preferences. In this issue: - Haunted Houses Are the Roller Coasters of Fall: The Hard-Ticket Holiday - A Jason Haunted House Is Coming to 9 Cities This Halloween - Find the Best Haunted Houses for You With The Scare Factor's Haunt Advisor - Oogie Boogie Bash Opens With Madame Leota's Swinging Wake - Knott's Scary Farm Announces 2 New Mazes and 2 New Shows - Six Flags Makes Its Halloween Bet - A Petrified Forest Adds Five Original Attractions for Chaos Reigns - Dark Arts Returns to Hogwarts Castle After Three Years - Shanghai Disneyland Expands to Ten Spook-tacular Days - Nocturne Theatre Stages Frankenstein: Resurrection - Fall Food Roundup: Every Chain's Menu, From PSL to Caramel Apple - Midnight Syndicate Releases Plankett's Grove - IT: Welcome to Derry Renewed for Season 2 Read the news here.
Tim Curry, the actor who first brought Pennywise the Dancing Clown to the screen, died on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, at his home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles. He was 80. His manager, Marcia Hurwitz, confirmed the death to Variety, and a cause was not given. Curry’s career ranged widely, from Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The […]
The season’s most-copied piece of Halloween glassware now has a dollar-store version. Dollar Tree is selling embossed Halloween glass tumblers, each with a matching colored lid and straw, for $1.50 apiece, and shoppers have clocked them as a near-identical dupe for the raised-icon juice glasses that go for around $16 to $18 at chains like […]
Pabst Blue Ribbon has a Halloween trick up its carton. The brand is teaming with Jason Universe, the Friday the 13th label from rights-holder Horror, Inc., on a fall collaboration whose 12-pack is die-cut so the box itself folds into a wearable Jason Voorhees hockey mask. The pack wears the franchise’s look, a bloody machete […]
The horror season is upon us! Halloween Horror Nights 35 is set to begin Friday, August 28th at Universal Studios Florida. For those who have visited the event in the past, you know what to expect. For those who haven’t, get ready for some unforgettable, horrific encounters… Universal Orlando’s haunted houses are known for their [...]
This year, Food Network is taking its fan favorite Halloween competitions to a terrifying new level that will deliver eye-popping […]
Horror fans are spoiled for choice when it comes to themed beverages this Halloween season. And for Fanta lovers, Halloween is going to be a Scream. For the first time ever, Ghost Face® is teaming with Fanta for a Halloween collaboration: Ghost Face® Punch – a brand-new limited-edition Dark Berry Punch flavor. The slasher icon […]
John Murdy, creative director of Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood, walked through the event’s Sinners haunted house with the lights on and laid out how his team turned one of the most decorated films in Oscar history into a maze full of firsts. “This house has a lot of innovations. Things we’ve never tried to do […]
Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party has pulled a handful of characters straight out of the Haunted Mansion for 2026, and they came ready with material. The new meet-and-greets near the party’s welcome area put guests face to face with two of the manor’s residents, the all-new ghost Lady Fermotta and the mansion’s very-much-alive steward Blair Lockward. […]
Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party has a new pirate show for 2026, and Captain Hector Barbossa is running it. The Pirates of the Caribbean villain storms the Adventureland stage across from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, claims the festivities as his own, and renames them Captain Barbossa’s Buccaneer Bash before drilling the crowd into a […]
This year Howl-O-Scream at SeaWorld Orlando is bigger and bloodier than ever! The event consists of 5 haunted houses, all of which feature nostalgia from the 1990’s. I Know What You Did Last Summer: The Final Catch is SeaWorld’s first movie house. The IP house is based off of the 1997 slasher I Know What ... Read more
HamiKuma, the zombie bear mascot from Universal Studios Japan, returns with new merchandise at Universal Orlando Resort for Halloween Horror Nights 2026. Who is HamiKuma? HamiKuma is a popular zombie teddy bear in Universal Studios Japan. As the story goes, he was a side show act in a traveling circus. His fellow performers were jealous ... Read more
The 2026 “Deathly Afraid” necklace for guests who want a less intense Halloween Horror Nights is now available at Universal Studios Florida. Deathly Afraid Necklace – $20 Introduced last year, guests can wear one of these light-up necklaces to signal they don’t want to be scared in common areas like scare zones. The necklace does ... Read more
The viral Halloween bucket hunt has a smaller sibling. As shoppers chase the $2.98 Halloween trick-or-treat buckets at Home Depot, Petco, and Lowe’s, they keep running into a different item entirely: a tiny, palm-sized version of the same hardware-store bucket, sold as a collectible for one or two dollars. Searches for “mini bucket,” “lowes bucket,” […]
Universal Orlando is adding a members-only bar to Halloween Horror Nights 35. The Keyholder Bar is a limited-entry spot open on HHN event nights from August 28 through November 1, built for Universal Orlando Annual and Seasonal Passholders. Regular event ticket holders without a qualifying pass or benefit cannot get in. The bar sits to […]
The original Halloween trilogy is heading back to the big screen. John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), Halloween II (1981), and Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) return to AMC theaters on three consecutive nights, September 4, 5, and 6, presented by the upcoming Halloween: The Game. The screenings lead into the game’s September 8 launch. […]