Who says August is just for beaches and sunshine? You know what? For a massive legion of us, it is officially the start of spooky season. Walking through the doors of the Long Beach Convention Center for Midsummer Scream 2025 felt less like attending a massive trade show and more like stepping into a delightfully weird family reunion. Honestly, if you missed it between August 15 and 17, you missed the absolute ultimate Halloween warm-up. Over 50,000 haunt fans, goth icons, and casual weekend thrill-seekers descended on the floor to shop, sweat, and scream together. It was exhausting. It was pure magic.
Here is my full breakdown of the weekend, from the wildest theme park announcements to the most terrifying immersive experiences.
Entering the Darkness: The Hall of Shadows
Let me explain the crown jewel of the entire weekend: The Hall of Shadows. I always head straight there. They take a massive, two-acre space inside the convention center and completely black it out, dropping the temperature so it actually feels like a crisp October night. This year, the theme was “Le Carnaval du Diable”, The Devil’s Carnival, and it absolutely ruled.
You had to navigate these fog-shrouded woodlands just to get inside, where a soul-collecting clown named Mr. Floats served as our sinister host. It set the perfect psychological threshold. Once inside, the mini-haunts were firing on all cylinders. Lionsgate returned with a high-budget, cinematic footprint for Gears of Fear 2: Stranger Danger, proving that major film studios are treating this community with serious respect. But the grassroots haunters held their ground perfectly. Fear Farm showed up with an incredibly fun setup, while Straite to Hale brought a 1920s funhouse that packed genuine, perfectly executed scares.
Another massive highlight was The Conjuring: Last Rites experience. Instead of just walking through a dark hallway, guests were thrown into an interactive game of hide-and-seek with terrifying actors, dodging malevolent spirits among actual movie props. Add in the Decayed Brigade, who were back shredding their knees on the concrete with a new slider stunt show called “Fear the Skid, Honor the Slide,” and the energy was just electric.
The Theme Park Heavyweights Bring the Heat
Here is the thing about Midsummer Scream: we all know the big theme parks use it as their personal hype machine. And this year? The announcements were an absolute bloodbath.
The Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) panel was standing-room only. The room practically exploded when Damien Leone and Phil Falcone made a surprise appearance to confirm that Art the Clown and the Terrifier franchise are officially getting a haunted maze in Hollywood and Orlando. A fully unrated, hyper-gory indie slasher stepping into a major corporate theme park? I never thought I would see the day, but the industry is clearly shifting toward extreme thrills. John Murdy also dropped gorgeous details on Monstruos 3: The Ghosts of Latin America, expanding their folklore universe to include La Llorona, La Muelona, and a brand-new spectral black cat named Oscura.
Knott’s Scary Farm kept things a little closer to the vest, saving their full lineup for a sold-out “Nightmares Revealed” event hosted by the Boulet Brothers. However, we did learn that two pandemic-era mazes, The Grimoire and Mesmer, are entering their final seasons. The designers shared some fascinating blueprints, explaining how social distancing rules drastically altered their original maze layouts back in the day. They also teased a terrifying new Victorian attraction called Mary: The Haunting of Worth Home and a wild, Dr. Moreau-inspired maze simply called The Zoo.
Rivals Becoming Roommates
Now, you would normally expect Six Flags Magic Mountain and Knott’s Berry Farm to be fiercely fighting for your Halloween dollars. They are bitter rivals. Well, they were rivals. Thanks to the recent corporate merger between Six Flags and Cedar Fair, they are actually sharing experiential tech. Magic Mountain’s Fright Fest is officially bringing over the interactive lanterns that Knott’s popularized. Buy a lantern at one park, and it magically works at the other, triggering over 100 hidden environmental activations. Fright Fest is also completely overhauling their aging Wonderland scare zone into Nightmares: Reign of Blood, featuring a nightmarish Cheshire Werecat.
Outside the theme park bubble, the 13th Floor Entertainment Group brought heavy news. The LA Haunted Hayride is officially collaborating with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, which feels like a match made in Halloween heaven. Plus, they are bringing a brand-new “Festival Fright Nights” experience to the notoriously haunted Winchester Mystery House.
Gore, Drag, and Theatrical Camp
Midsummer Scream is not just about walking through mazes; it is a true cultural education. I sat in on the “Bloodlines” panel, and it was fascinating. Legendary director Nick Castle, Greg Nicotero, and Sandy King Carpenter traced the entire cinematic history of gore. Hearing them frame practical effects not just as cheap shocks, but as vital tools for empathy and societal rebellion, gave me a whole new appreciation for the genre.
Also, can we talk about the incredible crossover between horror and drag? Peaches Christ was practically the reigning queen of the weekend. She hosted a wild Re-Animator 40th Anniversary Experience alongside horror icon Barbara Crampton, wrapping the cult classic screening in a massive cosplay pre-show. She also produced The Return of the Living Drag 3: Tales of Terror to a packed grand ballroom. Seeing queens pull off a Frankenhooker-inspired number or a terrifying Pennywise routine proves that camp and horror are basically two sides of the same bloody coin. Six Flags even caught the vibe, announcing a new drag-inspired stage show called Margo Rita’s Monster Ball for their upcoming season.
The Future of Fear: Haunt Comp and Indie Theater
The industry is growing up, and you can see it clearly in the academic push behind events like Haunt Comp. This annual haunted house design competition forces college students to pitch concepts to active industry veterans from Knott’s and Universal. Watching Maki Niikura take home the Producers’ Choice award for her incredible concept art and scare actor designs was a great reminder that the future of themed entertainment is in brilliant hands.
Independent immersive theater is also thriving. Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group brought their avant-garde, wordless Urban Death show to the floor, celebrating two decades of scaring Los Angeles while announcing a major expansion into Las Vegas. Meanwhile, Jon Braver spoke about Delusion, reminding everyone why intimate, actor-driven storytelling provides a bespoke terror that massive throughput parks just cannot replicate.
Surviving the Show Floor
You need serious stamina to survive the vendor floor. With over 350 specialized merchants, it was an absolute marathon of capitalism. From high-end gothic apparel to independent comic publishers like Storm King Comics, you could easily spend your entire paycheck before grabbing lunch. I grabbed some incredible horror-themed coffee, met legendary director John Carpenter in the Celebrity Zone, and snagged a few discounted gems at the Spooky Swap Meet.
The community vibes were incredibly strong everywhere you looked. Kids were dancing with Skeleton Sam in the Paranormal Pixie’s Pumpkin Patch, and folks were petting adoptable rescue felines in the Black Cat Lounge. For the night owls, the official Halloween Ball after-party kept the energy pumping with a massive $500 costume contest and a sneak-peek screening of The Jester 2.
By Sunday evening, my feet were completely destroyed. My wallet was significantly lighter. Yet, as I dragged myself out of the convention center and back into the California heat, I just felt energized. Midsummer Scream 2025 proved that the haunted attraction industry is evolving faster than ever. But more importantly, it proved that the spooky community remains the most welcoming, passionate, and delightfully bizarre family out there.
Is it too early to start planning my costume for next year?
