If your idea of a good time is a bucket of popcorn and a terrifying jump scare, clear your calendar. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is officially giving the horror genre the high-art respect it deserves with its massive new exhibition, The Horror Show, opening September 26, 2026.
Taking over the fourth-floor Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery through July 25, 2027, this immersive exhibition explores more than a century of cinematic dread.
The project has some serious genre royalty behind it, too. Four-time Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe and director Osgood Perkins (Longlegs) serve on the advisory team. As Dafoe puts it: “Cinema in general engages your sense of wonder, but horror can explode it.”
Here is your survival guide to navigating the exhibit.
Inside the Six Chambers of Dread
Visitors enter through a dark, eerie soundscape before hitting a central hallway lined with historic posters. From there, the exhibition branches into six highly detailed, thematic “chambers”:
-Gothic: Designed like a shadowed crypt. The crown jewel here is the Academy Collection’s recently restored cape worn by Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931), alongside pieces from Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) and Sinners (2025).
-Psychological: A stark, clinical white space that aims to warp your perception. Expect to see original storyboards from Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), alongside costumes and props from The Shining (1980), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and Get Out (2017).
-Science: Replicating a mad scientist’s lab, this room displays special effects, prosthetics, and creature designs. Features range from classic Frankenstein lore to Alien (1979), The Fly (1986), and body-horror masterwork The Substance (2024).
-Slasher: Styled to look like a killer’s house. You’ll stand face-to-face with fully costumed figures of Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Ghostface, and Art the Clown, next to a cabinet packed with cinematic weapons and masks from M3GAN (2022) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).
-Religion: Centered around a creepy witches’ circle, this chamber explores morality, possession, and folk horror, featuring costumes from Midsommar (2019) and Weapons (2025), plus actual historical documents from the Salem witch trials.
-Ghosts: A haunted living room dedicated to the supernatural. You can physically surf the original 1999 promotional website for The Blair Witch Project and view cursed items from Poltergeist (1982), The Ring (2002), and Talk to Me (2022).
🩸 The Exit Route: The only way out of the exhibition is through The Blood Room—a sensory, gooey finale celebrating the history, textures, and shades of cinematic gore.
Spooky Season Events & Screening Lineup
The exhibition will be paired with a loaded lineup of public programs, parties, and iconic screenings. Mark your calendars:
Bringing the Kids? Head to Zombies!
While parental discretion is strongly advised for the main exhibition, the museum is playing nice with younger fans next door.
Running concurrently in the adjacent Warner Bros. Gallery is Zombies! It’s a small-scale, family-friendly interactive space. It breaks down the history of the undead and shows how makeup artists and filmmakers bring classic movie monsters to life without scaring the little ones out of their wits.
Merch & Catalog
If you survive The Blood Room, the Academy Museum store will be stocked with exclusive The Horror Show apparel, collectibles, and toys. A heavily illustrated companion book published with DelMonico will also drop in September, perfect for your coffee table.
Tickets for the John Carpenter series and the Carrie anniversary go on sale to Academy Museum members on August 17 and to the general public on August 18.
Get your tickets now for this must-see exhibition.
