Horror films rarely get their due at the Academy Awards, but at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures? They’re about to kill it. This weekend, the Los Angeles museum opens its next major exhibition, “The Horror Show,” and it features almost 400 objects from almost 200 horror movies released over the past 100 or so years. It’s absolutely incredible.
Think of your favorite horror movie, and it’s probably in there. The classics? Of course. Alien, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Silence of the Lambs, Frankenstein, etc. Newer stuff? Sure, they’ve got ’em. Saw, Midsommar, The Nun, Terrifier, It. What about slightly cultier stuff? That’s there too. They Live, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, In a Violent Nature, Bride of Chucky.
And then there are pieces that you can’t even believe you’re in the presence of. Jamie Lee Curtis’ script from Halloween. A prosthetic worn by Gunnar Hansen in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The chair and teacup from Get Out. The list goes on and on. And as amazing as it all is, for me, I was most blown away by a computer. More on that in a second.
The exhibit is broken down into six different galleries, each separated by a long hallway of iconic movie posters. There’s “Gothic,” “Psychological,” “Science,” “Slasher,” “Religion,” and “Ghosts.” Below, we’ll give you just a few images from each, which barely even scratch the surface of this magnificent collection.
Ghosts
To avoid crowds a bit, I skipped the first five rooms and ran to the last one. I was glad I did. Inside was an actual Annabelle from Annabelle Comes Home, a corpse from The Ring, props from The Conjuring franchise, and then these beauties.
Yes, that’s the actual clown from Poltergeist, the actual hand from Talk to Me, the black phone from The Black Phone, and a computer desk. On that desk, people can surf the original 1999 website for The Blair Witch Project, which was a landmark moment in movie history. It was one of the first and biggest movie websites ever and the birth of the found footage genre. Having been there at the beginning, I was beyond moved by the display. It was truly special.
Religion
There have been so many classic horror films throughout the years centering on religion, but you often don’t even think about it that way. You think of demons. You think of possession. But those things come from hell, right? Here are just a few of the pieces we loved in the religion section.
Yes, that’s an actual screen-used Necronomicon from Evil Dead II, Aunt Gladys’ outfit from Weapons, a nun painting from The Conjuring: Last Rites, and a mold of Linda Blair from The Exorcist. As you’d expect, there’s a good amount of Exorcist in this section.
Science
Here’s where you get your sci-fi horror. Your creatures. Your experiments gone wrong. Here are a few images.
That’s an entire section of things from Frankenstein movies, including Young Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro’s version, and more, a bust from The Substance, one of the transformation mechanisms from An American Werewolf in London, and an actual facehugger from Alien. Brilliant stuff.
Slasher
This is the big one, as you can expect, because the history is so rich. It feels like the busiest section because they put so much into it that it’s hard to even take it all in. But, again, here are some images.
That’s the aforementioned Leatherface mask from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the actual costume from the original Nightmare on Elm Street, the clapper from John Carpenter’s Halloween, and a head from Jason Goes to Hell.
Here, though, we’re also going to show you these larger collections too because they’re just too cool. There’s just so, so much.
Psychological
What happens when we can’t see the horror? When it’s happening inside someone’s head? Well, that’s what this section encompasses, and it features some classics. Here are some images.
That’s a special effects bust from Misery, the jacket and axe used by Jack Nicholson in The Shining (the rest is non-original), the actual book from The Babadook, and the actual cup from Get Out. But you also get Silence of the Lambs in this section, American Psycho, and you can take a selfie with Norman Bates’ mom, if you’d like.
Gothic
The first room, which we visited last, is “Gothic.” Think vampires. Think history. Think scary. Here are some images.
That first one is maybe the most incredible piece in the whole exhibit, the cape worn by Bela Lugosi in the 1931 Dracula. Then there are the costumes worn by Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire, one of the most memorable Dracula looks from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and the costume from A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, which shows just how deep these cuts go. It’s next to Hailee Steinfeld’s costume from Sinners too.
After you take all of this in, and it’s a lot (again, these photos barely scratch the surface), you exit through a room of blood. Wall-to-wall gore, along with a video board showing exactly the scene you are thinking of. It’s a smaller space that makes you feel like you’re the Final Girl, covered in blood, and about to make it to safety. It’s a nice touch, but honestly, the ending could have been a blank room, and it would’ve been okay because the exhibit is so amazing.
“The Horror Show” at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles is open from September 26 through July 25, 2027. There are also a ton of other events and screenings so head to the official site for more.
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