[CON REVIEW] Midsummer Scream 2025

Have you ever stepped inside a Spirit Halloween and thought “This is great but I wish it was 10x bigger, louder, and full to the brim with haunt professionals from across the country”? Well, boy howdy do I have the convention for you! Midsummer Scream is the premiere, one stop shop for all things halloween. Whether you’re a casual fan or if you drink fog juice for breakfast, this convention is for all.

The festivities kicked off at 6pm on Friday, August 15th. Usually, Friday is the pretty tame day in the convention weekend but this was not the case at MSS! Upon entering the Long Beach Convention Center, the Local Haunts team was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people already milling about, getting their halloween fill. “Surely, the line for coffee and treats can’t be that crazy yet.” Spoiler alert: It was. And would be for the rest of the weekend. Absolutely worth the wait though!

Once properly caffeinated, we hit the show floor and visited some key booths. Most notably, Universal Studios had two booths this year. One for Universal Products and Experiences and another solely for Horror Nights. The UPE booth showcased some of the merch we can expect to see littering our gift shops this year. Lots of great mugs, shirts, and cups but we were most excited by the pin of the bloodied hollywood sign! The original Hollywood Icon!

Speaking of icons, Knott’s Scary Farm pulled out all the stops on their booth and set up a meet and greet for Stabby the Popcorn Bucket. You read that right. The popcorn bucket that took the world by storm for its charming appearance and hilariously small knife was roaming around Midsummer Scream and we simply could not contain our excitement. It was like meeting Mickey Mouse for the first time.

Riding that Stabby high, we entered Midsummer Scream’s main attraction -- The Hall of Shadows. For those unfamiliar, the Hall of Shadows is a massive section of the convention hall dedicated to showcasing home haunts. These haunts are fully realized and built featuring all your haunt-ssentials like fog, scareactors, loud music, and smells that make you go “what the hell is that??”

Our first stop was Eulogies, a haunt themed around the 7 deadly sins. While short, we felt it was expertly executed with an easy to understand story and strong actors. We hope to see more from this team in the future! After saying our prayers at Eulogies, we caught the Decayed Brigaded slider show. This is another MSS staple that draws a huge crowd every performance. It's always impressive to see those artists at work!

By the time we were done with all of that, MSS Day 1 came to close. Time to go home and rest up for a very long day 2!

Day 2 at Midsummer Scream started at 11am but we got an extra hour thanks to our media badges (thank you midsummer scream team!!!). Upon entering the show floor, we noticed a long line at the Universal Products and Experiences booth. I, very stupidly, asked what that line could possibly be for. The answer was free stuff. It’s always free stuff. Saturday is a big day at MSS. We get announcements from Six Flags, 13th Floor, and Knott’s Scary Farm all on the same day! Six Flags announced a new rockabilly scarezone called Thunderbolt Alley, a new maze expanding upon their beloved clowns called Carnage, yet another interactive lantern, and a show for our queen Marga Rita! 13th Floor announced several details for their upcoming haunt season. And finally Knott’s Scary Farm announced the retirement of two beloved mazes, Grimoire and Mesmer. The rest of Knott's announcements would be withheld until Nightmares Revealed.

While all of these announcement panels are great and are very much the core of Midsummer Scream, the best thing I saw all weekend was, without a doubt, the Horror Parody Musical Revue featuring acts from Saw: The Musical and Scream’d. I knew it was going to be good when I realized the line snaked up and around the entire 2nd floor of the convention center. When the door opened we flooded into the very small convention hall and within minutes it became “standing room only”. Staff was asking people to raise their hand if they had an extra seat because they needed to squeeze as many people in as possible. The show kicked off with a powerful and tearful performance of “Heroine” performed by Alyssa Corella who plays Amanda in Saw: The Musical. I am not exaggerating when I say I was almost moved to tears. Maybe that's my undying love for musical theater or maybe I realized Amanda belting showtunes was the missing piece in my jigsaw puzzle.

After a brief but very informative Q and A with the director Cooper Jordan, Corella took the stage again to sing a much more light hearted tune titled “Live the life you Love”. This time with a Jigsaw Puppet affixed to her hand Avenue Q style. The audience got to play the roles of Adam and Lawrence. Corella did a fantastic job switching from cheery Sesame Street tunes to homicidal maniac. Give her a Tony…or whatever the equivalent is for horror parody LA theater puppetry.

The cast of Scream’d: The Unauthorized Musical Parody also performed a melody of songs from their megaviral musical. Everyone did fantastic and looked eerily similar to the cast of the Wes Craven classic. Special marks go to the actor playing Stu for absolutely nailing Matthew Lillard's frantic mannerisms and Tatum’s fake, rock hard nipples. Both carry equal weights in this performance. The Majestic Repertory Theatre announced they will also be premiering a musical parody of The Craft titled “The Craft’d” and a musical parody of cult classic Showgirls! Personally, I will be front and center for Showgirls. Can’t wait to see what's to come from both of these teams and for the love of god Midsummer Scream…put them in a bigger theater next time!!

After a quick food truck lunch visit, we reentered the Hall of Shadows. First on the list was Lionsgate: Gears of Fear 2. While last year's Lionsgate maze highlighted characters from Saw, My Bloody Valentine, The Strangers, and The Crow, this one took a different approach and really leaned into The Strangers. While there were terrifying moments like crawling through the front seat of a parked car or walking into a room completely surrounded by The Strangers, the experience as a whole fell flat in comparison to last year's Lionsgate experience. However, the free photo op before the maze was much appreciated and very fun.

We also made a quick visit to Fear Farm. This haunt was fantastic. Great actors and a great use of space. Even though they only had a little bit of convention floor, the experience felt like it went on forever (in a good way). Our last stop in the Hall of Shadows was Mr. Floats and the CarnEvil of Souls. Just your typical creepy clown carnival but with a very dark, very claustrophobic walkthrough in the middle of it.

We wrapped up our day attending the closing ceremony for Haunt Comp, a haunt creation competition created and directed by Xochilt Khoury. It was great to see the hard work some of the teams put in. It’s easy to forget exactly how much work goes into haunt creation before you even get to building the thing so Haunt Comp is a nice refresher for that work. It’s also a great showcase of all the excellent talent coming down the haunt pipeline. Who knows! Maybe one of these kids will be running Halloween Horror Nights in a few years!

Speaking of HHN, we have finally arrived at Day 3. The great, big Halloween Horror Nights day. The Hall H panel equivalent, if you will. However there is a lot to do before that panel! Art the Clown had his first public appearance at the HHN booth and drew in quite the crowd. The Bride of Frankenstein had a panel celebrating her 90th birthday.

The rest of the day was spent roaming around the showfloor and getting all of our last minute shopping done. Before we knew it, it was Halloween Horror Nights panel time! This year was interesting because the panel was led by both John Murdy and Mike Aiello. Murdy is the creative director for HHN Hollywood while Aiello is the creative director for HHN Orlando. The main attraction of the panel was, of course, Terrifier. I won’t go into detail in case you want to avoid spoilers but I will say…it’s going to be wet and stinky.

As that brings us to the end of Midsummer Scream 2025! This year was exciting, exhausting, action-packed, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Midsummer Scream is the best way to get haunt fans hyped up and prepped for halloween season, Local Haunts team included! Thanks for another great year, Midsummer Scream and we can’t wait to be back August 7-9, 2026!

Review by: Alex Otto

[CON REVIEW] Midsummer Scream 2025

Return of the Living Drag 3: Tales of Terror 3D, only at Midsummer Scream!