$13.5 Billion on Halloween, & Gore Isn’t Driving It
October 5, 2026
Halloween spending is at a record $13.5 billion. Family events and premium tickets are selling out, plus notes from Universal Studios Japan.
Halloween spending is at a record $13.5 billion. Family events and premium tickets are selling out, plus notes from Universal Studios Japan.
Horror House Nights: Psycho Circus, a circus-themed haunted house with live actors, is open at La Loma Ranch in Haines City, between Orlando and Tampa, on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through November 1. A Spanish crew started the haunt in Spain in 2022 and brought it to the United States last year, and general admission is $19 before fees.
HBO Max’s Halloween section for October, named Horror Comes Home, sorts the service’s horror movies and series into rows by theme, including Stephen King adaptations, The Conjuring films, and a family row with Beetlejuice and Scooby-Doo. Evil Dead Burn joined on October 2, and a three-part documentary series, The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story, starts October 11.
Kids’ Halloween movies are split across services this October: Hocus Pocus, Halloweentown, and The Nightmare Before Christmas are on Disney+, Coraline is on Hulu, Casper airs on Freeform, and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown streams free on Apple TV on October 17 and 18. New this year are a Spidey and the Avengers Halloween special on Disney+ and a second Pumpkinhead movie, free on Tubi from October 9.
Free Halloween events for kids at national chains this October include a LEGO build at Barnes & Noble from October 9 to 11, 500 free prize tickets for kids in costume at Chuck E. Cheese all month, and four free online craft classes from Michaels. The Home Depot’s free October workshop was on October 3, and its next one is a dump truck on November 7.
Madame Leota’s Swinging Wake is a 10-minute Haunted Mansion street party at Oogie Boogie Bash, with a parade’s worth of dancers and an original song, and it stops three times along the route. I filmed the whole show on opening night, August 18, and I cried.
Skeleton Sam’s Deadtime Stories, the new Halloween album from LVCRFT, is 27 tracks set up as a late-night horror broadcast, hosted by Roger L. Jackson, the voice of Ghostface, with songs from Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, and Bruce Campbell. LVCRFT also writes the music for the Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor and the LA Haunted Hayride, and three haunt-industry names are on the album: Amy Hollaman, Jon Cooke, and Monte Revolta.
Tim Burton’s Labyrinth, a walk-through maze of rooms filled with sets, sculptures of Burton’s characters, and more than 150 of his original sketches, opens November 25 at CREVIA BASE Tokyo and runs through February 21, 2027. It’s the exhibition’s first stop in Asia, and dates are selling out.
Applications for IAAPA’s Brass Ring Excellence Awards close October 16, and one of the Live Entertainment categories is for walk-through haunts: Most Creative New Haunt Production. Haunted houses, mazes, and scare zones can enter if they have at least three live actors and are new or at least half revamped.
Candy corn pizza is real, and it costs $1.31. The kit, from Tombstone, comes with a frozen pepperoni or five-cheese pizza and three packets of candy corn to put on top, and it goes on sale again at 2 p.m. Eastern on October 9 and October 23.
Toy Story, KPop Demon Hunters, and Spider-Man costumes are among the 11 costume trends Spirit Halloween named for 2026. The list, released October 1, also includes varsity jackets, Greek armor, Fortnite and Halo, and a Dungeon Crawler Carl look built around boxers and Crocs.
The 17th Door is open for its 12th season on select nights through November 1, continuing its prison story, Perpetuum Penitentiary. General admission is $38 to $47 depending on the night, and the Backstage Tour is back, a 30-minute walk through the cast area and control room after the maze.
Scream Score, a free app that turns your smartwatch’s heart-rate readings into a fear score, now works for horror movies as well as haunted houses, and friends can compare scores in groups. The new version is out for iPhone and Android.
Area15’s October calendar runs from five nights of Edgar Allan Poe theater to ScAREA15: Strange Circus Massive, an 18-and-over party across three venues on Halloween night with tickets from $34. Two of the events are free, and a family rave on Universal Horror Unleashed’s patio starts at $16.
Reese’s has named 150 streets as the best in America for trick-or-treating, at least two in every state and Washington, D.C., and scored each one twice: a Haul Score for candy and a Haunt Score for how haunted the street is. The top Haul Score, 99.0, went to S 13th St. in Philadelphia.
Any kid who walks into Chuck E. Cheese in costume this October gets 500 free prize tickets, on every visit. The chain’s Halloween Boo-tacular runs through November 1 with a new Boo-Meal Deal from $34.99: a pumpkin-shaped pepperoni pizza, two drinks, and a Boo-Bucket holding two cotton candies.
Papa Murphy’s Jack-O Pizza, a take-and-bake pepperoni pizza shaped like a jack-o’-lantern with black olive eyes, is back through October 31 at $10 for a large. A $15 bundle adds chocolate chip cookie dough.
PetSmart’s free pet trick-or-treating is back on Saturday, October 17, and Sunday, October 25, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at every store, with treat stations, a photo backdrop, and a tote bag for the first 50 people. A new event on October 18 lets families meet the store’s snakes, spiders, and death-feigning beetles.
Cold Stone Creamery’s Boo Batter, its Cake Batter ice cream turned black, is back through October 31 in three forms: mixed with Kit Kat, Halloween Oreos, and M&M’s, blended into a shake, and wrapped in an orange waffle taco. At one Los Angeles store on October 1, they ran $9 to $11.
Westland, MI — Hush Haunted Attraction in Westland, Michigan, is open on select nights through Saturday, November 7, 2026, with three haunted houses on one
Home Depot’s Halloween bucket has a Christmas version for the first time: a white 2-gallon bucket printed with a Christmas tree and fireplace on one side and Santa’s sleigh over a Home Depot store on the other. It went on sale online on October 1 for $2.98 and reaches stores in mid-October.
Buffalo Wild Wings’ Halloween menu is built on garlic: Vampire Hunter Wings tossed in a new Black Garlic Glaze, cheese curds with the same glaze,
Hong Kong — Hong Kong is holding its first Halloween Month, with cosplay street parties in five districts on Saturday, October 17, 24, and 31,
DUNE: The Experience, a 60-minute walk-through of sets, original costumes, and props from Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films, opens in downtown Los Angeles in late November, and tickets go on sale Wednesday, October 7, at 9 a.m. The waitlist is open now and gets presale access.
The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror XXXVII airs Sunday, October 25, at 8 p.m. on Fox, and it opens with a stop-motion Nightmare Before Christmas sequence
North Hollywood, CA — Mary & Margo’s Halloween Sideshow of Madness, a two-woman comedy about dead performers who need the audience to summon them back
Bloomington, MN — Families looking for Halloween activities have 11 programs to choose from at Mall of America this year, and one haunted house. New
Heidi Klum’s Halloween party turns 25 this year, and one piece of it is open to everyone: a Butterfinger dessert pizza at Crazy Pizza in
Tim Hortons’ Timbits Trick-or-Treat Bucket is back for Halloween 2026: $11.99 filled with 31 Timbits, with $6 refills while supplies last. It arrived September 30
St. Helens, Oregon, where Disney Channel filmed Halloweentown, is running its Spirit of Halloweentown festival every weekend through November 1, and three of the movie’s
New York’s 2026 haunted houses run from a 10,000-square-foot haunt in a Tribeca building on Broadway to five haunted houses inside a former Buffalo Kmart,
Yorktown Heights, NY — Harry Potter: A Forbidden Forest Experience, a nighttime woodland trail of magical creatures and spell-casting, returns to FDR State Park in
The DroneArt Show: Harry Potter sends 1,200 drones into the night sky in formations timed to music from the films, with a live electric violinist
The Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy is a 90-minute evening where performers bring four of Poe’s stories to life while you drink a cocktail paired with
Monroe, NY — Pure Terror Scream Park, a Hudson Valley haunt about 40 miles from New York City, holds the Guinness World Record for the
New York, NY — Blood Manor, a 10,000-square-foot haunted house in a Tribeca building on Broadway, opened its 2026 season on Friday, October 2, and
Rust, Germany — Europa-Park, Germany’s largest theme park, is celebrating Halloween with separate daytime and nighttime events. During the day, through November 1, the park
Anaheim, CA — Disneyland has four new Halloween popcorn buckets for 2026: the Headless Horseman on his black horse, Mickey as a vampire in a
More than 120 Southern California homes are opening as Halloween attractions this October, from skeletons on the front lawn to backyard mazes with live scare
Beetle House LA, the every-day-is-Halloween bar and restaurant that announced last year it was closing its Hollywood Boulevard home, is back for one more spooky
Heritage Square Museum in Los Angeles has four Halloween events this October, and two of them are already sold out. Still on sale: Street Food
If you don’t want to make your own pumpkin-shaped pizza this Halloween, you can buy one at Target. The Market Pantry Pumpkin Shaped Pizza is
Walt Disney World has a new set of Halloween treats as of October 1. Disney’s Animal Kingdom has a Halloween menu of eight treats through
Universal’s official Obsession Halloween costumes are on sale at the NBCUniversal Store for $74.95 each, and Bear’s set has already sold out in every size.
Spirit Halloween is selling an officially licensed Dungeon Crawler Carl costume for $59.99, built around what Spirit calls Carl’s signature heart-print shorts. The adult costume also comes with a black vest, a cape, a bandana, knee pads, a glove, and a character patch.
A vintage store in downtown Hattiesburg, Mississippi, has built a walk-through Beetlejuice movie set, from the Afterlife waiting room to a sandworm bursting out of
The Crypt Keeper is hosting AMC’s FearFest this year, in what AMC says is the first new Crypt Keeper content in 30 years. John Kassir
A family-owned taquería in Chicago’s Hermosa neighborhood is serving tortas on orange, pumpkin-shaped bread, and its video of them on the grill is going viral.
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups lead 17 states on DoorDash’s map of each state’s Halloween candy, but seven Southern states pick Sweet Smiles, a Dollar General
Spirit Christmas is selling a singing Snow Miser and Heat Miser this year, $349.99 each, and the two can interact when they’re connected. They’re 2
Spirit Christmas has 43 stores on its 2026 locator as of September 26, in 15 states, and 38 are Spirit Halloween stores reopening for the
