All the Best Halloween Parties, Events, and Attractions in LA This Year
You, literally every Halloween: "Crap, it says tickets are sold out now." Your buddy, literally every Halloween: "Brooooooooo." Get ahead of the scary-ass clown curve this year with this LA Halloween calendar to end all LA Halloween calendars, jam packed with the best bloody parties, events, and attractions going down this month.
Boo at the Zoo
The LA Zoo seasons-up, with daily activities including spooky cave tours and weekend-only "graveyard safaris" focusing on nocturnal animals, with costume contests all month long.
Dark Harbor
The Queen Mary's scare zone-laden event is always one of the best of the season; this year's features a new 3D interactive paintball event (!) and an absinthe bar (!!), as well as "more monsters than ever before" (!!!). Runs Thurs-Sun only, with a costumes-allowed night on Nov 1.
Rise of the Jack O'Lanterns
More than 5,000 cool-looking, carved jack o'lantern are on display all month at this impressive-and-also-family-friendly event, which runs Thurs-Sun all month.
Halloween Horror Nights
Probably the most well-known Halloween event in SoCal is back, with a surprisingly amazing 3D This Is the End comedy-horror maze and a Walking Dead attraction that recreates the last season of the series, complete with (aaaaahhhh!!!!) revolving-door deaths. Thurs-Sun only, with an end-of-season expansion into the first weekend of November.
Knott's Scary Farm
Every year, Knott's expands this parkwide attraction (which actually opened in Sept... spooky!) even further, which this year means two new mazes on top of the interactive zombie-killing maze they introduced last year. Runs Thurs-Sun until Oct 21st, when it expands to Wed-Sun.
LA Haunted Hayride: Boogeyman
The production value at this now-legendary attraction keeps going up and up: last year, they had bird-dudes attack from above, and clearly the ante will be upped this season, with a fully thematically immersive ride focused on the world's scariest boogeymen, and a new maze called House of Shadows. Fri-Sun through Oct 11th, then Thurs-Sun for the rest of the season.
Urban Death: Tour of Terror
The Halloween-theater company (it's a thing!!!) Zombie Joe's Underground has a few shows this season, but this one is its showstopper: a partially immersive play that'll satisfy the jones of anyone missing the haunted play show Delusion. Runs weekends only.
Panic Mountain
OK, this sounds incredible: an overnight, zombie-hunting, fully immersive camping experience on weekends in the San Bernadino Mountains. Call our mommies if we don't make it back alive.
Mr Bones Pumpkin Patch
You know how every year in, like, US Weekly, there are pictures of celebs taking their kids to pumpkin patches, and your friends on the East Coast are like "Why don't you go to that pumpkin patch and, like, stalk Dave Grohl?" Now you can, at its expanded location in Culver City. Also there's a big slide.
Wicked Lit
OK, this sounds heady: an immersive, walking theater experience in a graveyard based on classic, scary literature. So, like, perfect for creepy librarians?? Thurs-Sun through Oct 18th, then Oct 21st-22nd, then Nov 6th-8th and 12th-14th.
Reign of Terror
You should hit this incredibly big, labor-of-love Halloween maze for a bunch of reasons: 1) it's really scary, 2) it's a non-profit for parks in the area, so you can feel like you're doing something good with your time, and 3) IT'S REALLY, REALLY, TRULY SCARY, REALLY. Fri-Sat, as well as Oct 25th and 29th.
Creep LA
Since it's new this year, not much is known about whether this brand-new Downtown scare zone is actually, you know, scary, but they told us this: "It's inspired by Session 9 and Se7en, as well as Halloween and It." So, yeah. Clowns. Dates are sorta TBA but mostly weekends; check the website before heading out.
Dawn of the Dead
The people who put on the screening series at Hollywood Forever are screening George Romero's classic at the beautiful and rarely used Million Dollar Theater Downtown; they've got full bars, DJs, and "surprises."
Rotten Apple
This free home-haunt in Burbank is always described as a Halloween must-see, with the people who put it on 100% devoted to the holiday... in, like, kinda a creepy, obsessive way. Oct 24th, 25th, 30th, and 31st only.
Lucha VaVoom: Mexican Horror Story
Look, if you don't want to watch mini monsters Mexican wrestle, there is something horribly, horribly wrong with you.
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Is there a better way to watch the best cross-dressing-ist audience-participating-ist movie in history than in a cemetery on Halloween proper? No. There is not.
WeHo Halloween Carnaval
It's literally been called the most insane Halloween party in the country, with 500,000 people hitting the streets (yes, that figure is correct). Basically, anything goes. Good luck on parking/Uber surge prices!
Three Day Rule's Halloween at Viceroy Santa Monica
The ultra-fun event crew/dating site Three Day Rule's taking over the Viceroy for a costume-required, DJ-blasted party they promise will have "the most singles at a Halloween party in LA." OK!
The Nightmare Before Christmas Live
Uh, Danny Elfman is going to be playing Jack Skellington at this live-orchestrated screening of the movie at the Hollywood Bowl? Amazing.