The Ultimate LA Halloween Guide: From Family Fun to Nightmare Fuel

Spooky season has officially landed in LA. From family-friendly puppet shows and dog costume contests, to immersive haunts that are pure nightmare fuel, there’s something for every kind of Halloween fan.

Hallowe’en Spooktacular

• Label: Family Friendly
• Location: Highland Park
• Date(s): September 6-November 9
• Price: $28
• When it’s the kind of day that screams candy corn and Halloweentown, it’s the kind of day to go see a “boo-sical revue.” Bob Baker Marionette Theater’s annual Halloween marionette show features 100+ storytelling puppets including Frankenstein’s monster himself. If you wait until October, you’ll also be treated to an audience costume parade at every show.

Skate Oddity

• Label: Spooky Theme, but Harmless
• Location: Burbank
• Date(s): September 27
• Price: $20
• They would like, If they may, to take you on a strange skate journey... Strap up your skate boots and time warp back to 1975, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Rocky Horror! Skate, shop, and enjoy tunes from DJ Grim Beatz at the LA Kings Burbank Sports Center outdoor skating rink. The best part is that Skate Oddity isn’t just for spooky season - check out their monthly themed events year-round!

Oddities Flea Market

• Label: Spooky Theme, but Harmless
• Location: Downtown LA
• Date(s): October 4
• Price: $29
• Once a year the Globe Theatre is transformed into a unique market of curiosities, specimens, arts, and more. Get your goosebumps raised and your curiosity piqued to explore three floors of oddities you won’t find anywhere else. 

‍Screamfest

• Label: Spooky Theme, but Harmless
• Location: Hollywood
• Date(s): October 7-16
• Price: $50+
• With a nickname like the “Sundance of Horror,” film buffs and horror lovers won’t want to miss the annual Screamfest horror film festival. Catch one, two, or all 100+ horror shorts and feature films at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres.

Zombie Walk

• Label: Spooky Theme, but Harmless
• Location: Long Beach
• Date(s): October 11
• Price: Free
• Even zombies enjoy long walks along the beach, and you can join them at Shoreline Village’s Zombie Walk and Halloween Party. Don your most ratty clothes and don’t forget the fake blood so you can blend in with the crowd. Get hyped before the walk from the DJ, roaming frights, brain eating contest, and adult trick or treating.

Magic Market

• Label: Spooky Theme, but Harmless
• Location: Montecito Heights
• Date(s): Oct. 11-12
• Price: $15
• Welcome to a witchy wonderland featuring tarot, workshops, palmistry, live music, and vegan food. The Magic Market is an annual metaphysical market featuring 75 vendors, held at the Heritage Museums in LA and OC. Experience the immersive ambiance and come away from this market feeling that much more magical.

Monster Mash

• Label: Spooky Theme, but Harmless
• Location: Mid-Wilshire
• Date(s): October 25
• Price: $25
• One day only at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, let your monster flag fly. This year’s theme is the intersection of the monstrous and the feminine with screenings of Bride of Frankenstein, The Love Witch, and Jennifer’s Body. Catch activities including special effects demos, tarot and palm reading, and a voice acting workshop where you can scream your heart out.

The Nightmare Before Christmas In Concert

• Label: Family Friendly
• Location: Hollywood
• Date(s): October 25-26
• Price: $65+
• The Hollywood Bowl loves an “in concert” movie, and this is no exception! The show will have live orchestra and choir music along with special guests singing live on stage: Danny Elfman, Janelle Monae, Keith David, Riki Lindome, and John Stamos. This extra special show will also feature trick-or-treating stations, photo ops, a costume contest, and special projections to bring Halloween Town to life.

Melrose Trading Post Dog Costume Contest

• Label: Family Friendly
• Location: Fairfax
• Date(s): October 26
• Price: $6
• Bring your furry friends to witness - or compete in - a fierce competition for best handmade dog costume and/or float. This is the 4th annual Melrose Trading Post dog costume contest in what will surely become a time-honored tradition. Spectating is free after cost of entry to the market.

Halloween in Burbank Map 

• Label: Family Friendly
• Location: Burbank
• Date(s): Rolling
• Price: Free
• In the land of props, set-dec, and fans of the dramatic, you’re bound to find some of the world’s best Halloween yard decorations. Every year a dedicated community organization puts out a map of the self-submitted houses decorating to the nines for Halloween. The map is live now, but bear in mind that some houses won’t have their decorations up until October.

Haunted Encounters Tour at the Queen Mary

• Label: Scary & Intense
• Long Beach
• Dates: Rolling
• Price: $48
• Experience the haunted side of the Queen Mary on the Haunted Encounters Tour, where you’ll step into eerie corridors, explore legendary paranormal hotspots, and hear spine-tingling tales of the ship’s most famous apparitions. Voted one of America’s Top 10 Most Haunted Places by Time Magazine, this thrilling walking tour immerses you in ghostly lore and unforgettable encounters for a hauntingly fun adventure.

Haunted Soiree: Vampire

• Label: Spooky Theme, but Harmless
• Location: Glendale
• Dates: October 3 - November 1
• Price: $89+
• Haunted Soiree: Vampire transforms Halloween into an opulent masquerade, where guests wander through velvet-draped rooms alive with music, illusion, and dance. The experience includes a crafted welcome cocktail, access to the Inner Circle Bar with happy-hour pricing, and an exclusive character-led ceremony offering a vampire elixir and sweet palate cleanser. With either a 90-minute or two-hour ticket, visitors slip into a world where elegance and darkness are perfectly entwined.

Night of The Jack

• Label: Family Friendly
• Location: Calabasas
• Dates: September 26–November 1
• Price: $40+
• Nights of the Jack transforms King Gillette Ranch into a mile-long trail of intricately carved jack-o’-lanterns, open September 26–November 1. More than a seasonal spectacle, it’s an immersive autumn promenade: visitors wander through glowing tableaux, pause for live carving demonstrations, and linger over food trucks, a gift shop, and the aptly named Spookeasy Bar. Equal parts folk art and Instagram theater, it offers Angelenos a luminous, family-friendly ode to Halloween.

Los Angeles Haunted Hayride

• Label: Scary & Intense
• Location: Griffith Park
• Dates: September 19 - November 2
• Price: $39+
• Each fall, Griffith Park’s Haunted Hayride transforms the Los Angeles hillside into Midnight Falls, a spectral town where folklore and theater intertwine. Returning September 19 through November 2, the event (now in its seventeenth year) offers more than a hayride through the witch-haunted foothills. Guests wander amid jack-o’-lanterns and spectral tableaux, encounter Elvira-inspired attractions, and pause for cider and doughnuts before venturing into mazes, axe throwing, or the chaotic revelry of Midnight Falls itself.

Reign of Terror Haunted House

• Label: Scary & Intense
• Location: Thousand Oaks
• Dates:: September 26 - November 2
• Price: $43+
• Reign of Terror returns this fall with an expanded 2025 season, open September 26 through November 2. The award-winning haunted house now spans 11 interconnected attractions and 142 rooms, including the debut of “Forest of Fear,” a vampire’s lair, and an extended Bayou. With new effects, characters, and a redesigned flow, the production offers a seamless progression of atmospheres—an immersive, meticulously crafted labyrinth of horror, completed with a photo finish.

Delusion: An interactive Horror Experience

• Label: Scary & Intense
• Location: Downtown LA
• Dates: September 18-November 19th
• Price: $112+
• Delusion’s “Harrowing of Hell” invites you inside a living nightmare at the historic Variety Arts Theater. More than a haunted house, it’s an interactive play where you step into the role of a cult initiate and navigate story-driven scenes inspired by Dante’s Inferno. From September 18 to November 9, guests move through dark, theatrical worlds while the narrative unfolds around them—an unsettling blend of theater, myth, and haunting immersion.

The Willows - an interactive psycho-drama

• Label: Scary & Intense
• Location: Los Angeles
• Dates: September 25 - December 7 (most dates are already sold out)
• Price: $220+
• The Willows returns in 2025, drawing 25 guests at a time into an undisclosed Los Angeles mansion for an evening of unsettling intimacy. Part dinner party, part psychological thriller, the two-hour immersive drama unfolds across seven interwoven storylines, where conversation becomes performance and every choice reshapes the experience. Dark, sophisticated, and deeply interactive, The Willows blurs the line between theater and life—recommended for the bold and curious, 21+.

Urban Death Tour of Terror

• Label: Scary & Intense
• Location: North Hollywood
• Dates: October 3 - November 1
• Price: $24+
• Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre returns in 2025 with an all-new edition of Urban Death: Tour of Terror, recently named Yelp’s #2 Scariest Haunted Attraction in America. The experience begins with a claustrophobic maze of creatures and shadows, before opening into a wordless series of grotesque, riveting vignettes performed live onstage. Guests exit through a second maze of horrors, ensuring the night lingers long after. For ages 18+; graphic content and mature themes.