Freakling Bros. Horror Shows, the Las Vegas haunt that has run for more than 31 years and operates Nevada’s only R-rated haunted attraction, will not open for the 2026 Halloween season. Co-owner and creative director JT Mollner is stepping away for the year to direct his next film, and the family is pausing the entire operation rather than running it without him.
“Scaring Las Vegas has been a passion project for my family for more than 30 years and while Halloween won’t be the same, we’ve made the difficult decision to step away for the season, so I can fully commit to my next film.”
The film pulling Mollner away
Mollner’s film career has accelerated since Strange Darling and his adaptation of Stephen King’s The Long Walk. This summer he directs Skeletons, a horror thriller produced by J.J. Abrams and starring Brie Larson, and the production schedule runs directly through what would normally be haunt season.
The film is a family affair in the same way the haunt is: Duke Mollner, JT’s father and Freakling Bros. co-founder, appears in a supporting role, and JT’s mother Ginnie contributes an original song.
What returns in 2027
Freakling Bros. plans to come back in 2027 with its full three-haunt lineup:
- Gates of Hell — Nevada’s first and only R-rated haunt, introduced in 2011.
- COVEN of 13 — the witches-and-black-magic haunt running since 2015.
- The Nest — an all-new haunt that replaces the long-running Castle Vampyre. It was originally planned for 2026 and now debuts with the 2027 return.
“While we were excited to unveil our new haunt, we know there are only so many scares to go around,” Mollner said. “Our fans and longtime production team deserve the full Freakling Bros. experience and we can’t wait to welcome everyone back in 2027 for the next chapter of fear.”
Why this haunt matters
Freakling Bros. is one of the industry’s genuine originals. The family opened Las Vegas’s first free-standing haunted attraction after getting their start in 1976, built the industry’s first six-trailer self-contained mobile attraction in 1992, and created the first-ever R-rated haunted attraction with Gates of Hell, a full-contact, uncompromising experience that earned a 6 on The Scare Zone’s 0-to-5 rating scale and a USA Today nod as the scariest haunt in the country. We profiled the operation in our earlier look at how a 40-plus-year-old attraction still delivers.
For Las Vegas horror fans, the 2026 gap means the city’s scares this fall are carried by Universal Horror Unleashed, Universal’s year-round horror venue near the Strip.
Updates on the 2027 return are at freaklingbros.com or on social at @FreaklingBros.
