Academy Museum Sets Massive Horror Exhibit with ‘Carrie,’ Slashers, Original ‘Blair Witch Project’ Website, and Much More
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- Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will open "The Horror Show" on September 26 in its fourth-floor Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery, on view through July 25, 2027, as horror dominates the 2026 box office.
- The exhibit divides horror cinema into six themed "chambers" — Gothic, Psychological, Science, Slasher, Religion, and Ghosts — each populated with film-specific props, costumes, and production materials spanning from "Dracula" (1931) and "The Exorcist" (1973) through "Sinners" (2025) and "Weapons" (2025).
- The Blair Witch Project original 1999 marketing website will be interactively browsable inside the Ghosts chamber, which also displays Japanese woodblock prints and 1960s–'70s theatrical release posters.
- The advisory team includes four-time Oscar-nominated Willem Dafoe and filmmaker Osgood Perkins, alongside documentarian Ariel Baska, Oscar-winning makeup artist Howard Berger, author Tananarive Due, and film scholar Angela Marie Smith.
- Sissy Spacek is scheduled to attend a 50th anniversary screening of "Carrie" on November 19, part of a public-programming slate that includes a John Carpenter "Prince of Darkness" retrospective, a Halloween screening of "The Craft," and the U.S. premiere of a "Horror of Dracula" 4K restoration.
- A companion family-friendly exhibition titled "Zombies!" will run on the same dates in the adjacent Warner Bros. Gallery.
- Visitors exit through "The Blood Room," an immersive final chamber the Museum describes as "gallery walls layered with gore."
Why it matters: By dedicating its largest gallery to horror for nearly a full year — and curating six chambers that stretch from 1931's "Dracula" through 2025's "Sinners" and "Weapons" — the Academy Museum is making a formal institutional case for horror as serious cinema at precisely the moment the genre leads the 2026 box office. The scale and advisory roster (Dafoe, Perkins) signal genre recognition from an institution historically associated with awards-circuit prestige rather than splatter.
