One, two, Freddy’s coming for you—but instead of the horror icon terrorizing you in your sleep, you’ll have the leisure of making your way to Freddy Krueger’s boiler room on your own time. After all, you’ve still got to stroll through The Shining’s Overlook Hotel, pose in Beetlejuice’s graveyard, come face-to-fanged-face with IT’s Pennywise and make your way out of a life-size takeout box of The Lost Boys’ maggot noodles.
Forget the whimsical worlds of the Museum of Ice Cream and 29 Rooms: The latest selfie-bait experience to hit L.A. trades cutesy for creepy, hurling you into some of the most beloved and recognizable horror films of all time. I Like Scary Movies, a 25,000-square-foot Miracle Mile wonderland of terror-fueled photo ops, is a walkthrough experience that flips the script on the social-media “museum” craze, and it’s all thanks to the mind of Maximillian.
The artist behind theatrical large-scale art installations—did you see those La La Land aerial dancers at City Hall?—turned his eye to the macabre for I Like Scary Movies and, with the blessing of Warner Brothers and New Line Cinemas, built the Overlook’s hedges (in lieu of a maze, they spell out “REDRUM”); a gnarled, sticky, knife-bladed Freddy hand that reaches for you in a boiler room; and even the railroad tracks from The Lost Boys’ fictional town of Santa Carla.
From April 4 to June 16, every Thursday to Sunday (and in June, Wednesday to Sunday) you can stick your head through an axed door and yell, “HEEEEERE’S JOHNNY!” or peek into room 237 to catch the infamous Bear Man. You can sit on Danny’s trike and meet the Overlook’s forever-guests, the Grady twins, all before you make your way to Pennywise’s lair, where children float and hundreds of Georgie-style paper boats form an eerie, picture-perfect walkway. Don’t forget to grab a red slip of paper and jot down what you’re afraid of—not like Pennywise can’t sense it anyway—and stick it to the wall for a special treat.
Take a seat in the netherworld waiting room as you enter Beetlejuice territory, where you can become the sawn-in-half beauty, the shrunken-head man or fight off a shark, and hope they call your number soon. There’s even a very Tim Burton ball pit, where you can dive into black and white styrofoam cubes behind statues of the ghoulish Maitlands, plus Beetlejuice’s own grave and the lit-up Dante’s Inferno Room.
It’s the spookiest, tongue-in-cheekiest and—we’d venture—the best version of the photo-driven walkthrough experience we’ve seen yet. It’s also a bit pricey at $39 per timed ticket (assigned in 15-minute intervals), but we think it’s well worth the splurge for horror fans.
And as you snap a photo of yourself on the throne in The Lost Boys’ sea cave, don’t forget that I Like Scary Movies wasn’t just the selfies we took along the way—there’s also a gift shop full of miscellaneous knickknacks for horror fans. Maybe grab one as a souvenir for the friend who was too scared to come with you.
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
Photograph: Ryan Hill
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
Photograph: Stephanie Breijo
I Like Scary Movies runs from April 4 to June 16 (Thursday to Sunday in April and May, and Wednesday to Sunday in June), on the second floor of Miracle Mile’s Desmond building, at 5514 Wilshire Boulevard. Tickets are $39 per person and are on sale now.