Academy Museum Sets Massive Horror Exhibit with ‘Carrie,’ Slashers, Original ‘Blair Witch Project’ Website, and Much More

As horror proves the dominant player at the 2026 box office, it’s now also taking over the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

Starting September 26, the Museum’s fourth-floor Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery will play host to rare props, production materials, and interactive displays, ranging from full costumes of horror’s most notorious slashers to an invention to surf the groundbreaking marketing website for the original “The Blair Witch Project” (which has long since been taken down).

The exhibition, titled The Horror Show, will include public programs and film screenings like the retrospective film series “John Carpenter: Prince of Darkness”; the U.S. premiere of the “Horror of Dracula” (Terence Fisher, 1958) 4K restoration; a Halloween screening of “The Craft”; and a 50th anniversary screening of “Carrie” with Sissy Spacek in attendance on November 19.

Four-time Oscar-nominated actor Willem Dafoe, who serves on the advisory team for The Horror Show, said in a press statement, “Cinema in general engages your sense of wonder, but horror can explode it. It is a popular form, born of modest financial resources and with a strong, lasting independent streak. And it has all the same possibilities for originality, inventiveness, and freedom that it did in its infancy.”

“Horror is crucial to culture and cinema, and to our evolving understanding of what it means to be alive on earth,” said filmmaker and exhibition advisor Osgood Perkins. “I couldn’t think of a bigger or better celebration of the films and stories that have impacted audiences so profoundly and for so long. There is something for every horror fan to appreciate and enjoy in this exhibition, a hallway of limitless doors to be opened and explored.”

In addition to Dafoe and Perkins, the advisory team includes documentary filmmaker Ariel Baska, Oscar-winning prosthetic makeup artist and Academy member Howard Berger, author and filmmaker Tananarive Due, and film scholar Angela Marie Smith.

The exhibit will be on view through July 25, 2027. While noting that parental guidance is advised, the Academy Museum will also present a family-friendly exhibition, Zombies!, in the adjacent Warner Bros. Gallery, throughout the same dates.

Full exhibition details below with language per the Academy Museum. Head over to their website for more details.

The exhibit will include six galleries or “chambers” devoted to the major strains of horror cinema.

Gothic: Gothic horror explores the darker edges of the human experience, often through the character of a vampire, one of horror’s most enduring figures. This chamber, which resembles a shadowed crypt, is adorned with original concept artwork and in-character portrait photos of classic horror stars and serves as the setting for an array of original objects, including the Academy Collection’s recently restored cape worn by Bela Lugosi in “Dracula” (1931). The gallery also features objects from films, including “Blade” (1998), “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992), “Horror of Dracula” (1958), “The Hunger” (1983), and “Sinners” (2025).

Psychological: Blurring the boundaries between reality and delusion, psychological horror explores the mind in all its complexity, often leaving audiences questioning their own perceptions. A chamber resembling a stark white clinical space serves as the setting for objects and production materials that trace a history of psychological horror on film. Visitors will see historical posters and concept art for “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (1920), original storyboards for “Psycho” (1960), and key props and costumes from films, including “The Babadook” (2014), “Get Out” (2017), “Misery” (1990), “The Shining” (1980), and “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991).

Science: Born in a laboratory, science horror confronts the dangers of ambition, hubris, and humanity’s unsettling urge to engineer and manipulate life. This chamber replicates a laboratory setting, showcasing special effects prosthetics, creature designs, makeup concept artwork, and artifacts from historical to contemporary science horror films. Displayed as curious specimens and instruments of experimentation are production elements from films, including a special focus on Frankenstein and its various film adaptations, “Alien” (1979), “The Fly” (1986), “The Substance” (2024), “The Thing” (1982), and an original mask from “Creature from the Black Lagoon” (1954).

Slasher: Slasher films are notorious for their blood and gore, making audiences face fear dead on—an unsettling reminder that anyone could be next. Trespass into this chamber, the killer’s home, where fully costumed figures include Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Ghostface, and Art the Clown. As visitors explore the house, they will encounter a cabinet filled with masks and weapons, as well as rare objects from films including “The Black Phone” (2021), “Halloween” (1978), “It” (2017), “M3GAN” (2022), “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984), “Peeping Tom” (1960), “Saw” (2004), and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974).

Religion: Religious horror films offer narratives of meaning, mystery, and morality, shaping how power, belief, and the body—both pure and possessed—are understood. From this space emerges the witch, a symbol of collective female strength and a figure through whom fascination and fear continue to be explored. Visitors will walk into a witches’ circle, with key costumes from “Hellraiser” (2022), “Midsommar” (2019), “Sinners” (2025), “Suspiria” (2018), and “Weapons” (2025), as well as objects from films including “Eve’s Bayou” (1997), “The Exorcist” (1973), “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968), T”ales from the Hood” (1995), and historical documents from the Salem witch trials.

Ghosts: This chamber spotlights the prevalence and power of the spectral and supernatural in film, with ghosts serving as inspiration for special and visual effects innovation. Visitors will walk into a haunted living room and are invited to surf through the original marketing website for “The Blair Witch Project” (1999), and view an array of haunted objects from films, including “The Conjuring” (2013), “The Monkey” (2025), “Poltergeist” (1982), “The Ring” (2002), “Talk to Me” (2022), and more. This chamber also explores historic Japanese woodblock prints and 1960s and ’70s theatrical release posters, testifying to the resonance and prevalence of ghost stories in Japanese culture.

Per the Museum, “The only pathway out of the exhibition lies through The Blood Room, an immersion in the many textures and shades of cinematic blood. Spilling out from the hallway of horrors, visitors are engulfed in a final sensorial macabre: gallery walls layered with gore, pushing the knowledge gleaned from the exhibition through one last, gooey visual of horror.”