Halloween events in Los Angeles for spooky fun

Confront familiar foes at Universal Studios’ annual Halloween festivities, where big-budget scares meet iconic horror movie characters. You’ll be able to navigate multiple scare zones and mazes, including ones based on The Last of Us, Stranger Things, Evil Dead Rise, The Exorcist: Believer, Chucky, the classic Universal Monsters and a selection of creatures inspired by Latin American folklore. Also, the “Terror Tram” takeover of the studio tour will return with a Jordan Peele mash-up that features the Tethered doppelgängers from Us in the Jupiter’s Claim area from Nope.

This is one of the largest Halloween street parties in the world, and there’s really no better place to be on October 31st. Sure, the crowd is huge (like, a half-million people huge) and a bit belligerent, but the amazing display of costumes and general merry-making spirit deem it at least a worthy stop, if not your main destination for the evening. Find it along Santa Monica Boulevard, between Doheny Drive and La Cienega Boulevard.

See our guide to the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval.

Each year the Walt Disney Concert Hall adds a little bit of Frank Gehry architecture to Halloween with a silent film screening accompanied by organist Clark Wilson for an extra eerie feel. This year, take a seat for the silent 1925 masterpiece The Phantom of the Opera.

The park-hopping alfresco film series will be screening Halloween favorites every weekend in October, with Shaun of the Dead, Halloween and Hocus Pocus at the Autry, Practical Magic at Will Rogers State Historic Park, Halloweentown at Verdugo Park and The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Ford.

Far from those kid-friendly rides through a pumpkin patch, this hayride unleashes all sorts of demons and bogeys on Griffith Park. Like so many pop culture horror experiences recently, this year’s Haunted Hayride once again rewinds the action to the mid-’80s in the ficticious town of Midnight Falls. The event—which this year promises new wagons and scenes and updated effects—will be centered around the jack-o’-lantern–filled Midnight Falls Town Square, with a creaky old funeral parlor set up in the Midnight Mortuary Haunted House as well as axe throwing, water balloon-based paintball and the Hellbilly Halloween maze.

Watch a slate of horror films from one of the prettiest rooftops in Hollywood at this outdoor screenings series. The Montalbán’s Halloween block includes showings of Scream, Sweeney Todd, Night of the Living Dead, The Shining, Sleepy Hollow, Poltergeist and more.

West Hollywood’s ultra-chic restaurant and rooftop bar, E.P. & L.P., is serving much more than handcrafted cocktails and modern American bites. This October, head to the rooftop for dinner-and-a-movie screenings of Scream, Get Out, American Psycho, Practical Magic and more, including a Hocus Pocus dress-up event on October 30.

Every year, Haunted Little Tokyo turns the area into a ghoulish maze of Halloween-themed pop-ups, walking tours and performances. This year, you can embark on a ghost tour (Oct 22 5–6pm), partake in a scavenger hunt (Oct 28 1–5pm) and dance the evening away at a block party (Oct 28 1–5pm).

Encounter free-roaming monsters, terrifying mazes—spanning themes like a twisted carnival and an alien-inhabited space station—a “boo-fet” dinner and all sorts of other haunted houses and attractions at the OC theme park.

The San Bernardino rave scene injects itself with a bit of Halloween flair at this annual music fest. Insomniac Events—the group behind EDC and the Wonderland series—is setting up multiple stages at the NOS Events Center; headliners include Above & Beyond, AFROJACK, Armin van Buuren, DJ Snake, Kaskade, ZEDD and more. Explore the grounds to find mazes alongside ominous artwork and freak show performers.