Things to do in L.A. this weekend

Walk, run, skate, bike and explore car-free stretches of South Pasadena and the Arroyo Seco Parkway—yes, the 110—during the latest edition of this open streets event. On Sunday, you’ll be able to set foot on six miles of the 110 freeway between the 5 and its endpoint in Pasadena from 7 to 11am, and then along Mission Street in South Pasadena (from Orange Grove Boulevard to Garfield Park) from 7am to 2pm. Make sure to take advantage of the five Metro stops along the route.

Hollywood Forever Cemetery claims to host the largest Day of the Dead celebration in California, and we wouldn’t doubt it: The cemetery grounds are covered with altars, dance rituals, musical performances, arts and crafts projects and food vendors (and crowds) aplenty. This year’s even has again been split into two ticketed events: a day session and a night one.

See Danny Elfman step back into the role of Jack Skellington for a live performance and screening of The Nightmare Before Christmas at the Hollywood Bowl. The concert-meets-movie event is set to bring a costume contest and trick-or-treating in tow, as well a slate of special guests, including Halsey (Fri, Sat), Catherine O’ Hara (Sun), Ken Page (Fri–Sun), Riki Lindhome (Fri, Sat) and Fred Armisen (Fri–Sun).

The LA Opera and the Theatre at Ace Hotel once again join forces for a chilling mash-up of live music and film. Hole up in the Ace’s gothic auditorium for a screening of the 1935 Elsa Lanchester and Boris Karloff classic, The Bride of Frankenstein, complete with a live accompaniment from the LA Opera Orchestra of Franz Waxman’s original score.

See future box office hits as well as niche, indie gems at the annual AFI FEST. This year’s five-day program opens with Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail’s Leave the World Behind and closes with Bradley Cooper’s Maestro and includes additional screenings of Freud’s Last Session and Albert Brooks: Defending My Life, among others.

Lucha VaVOOM brings its unique mix of sexo y violencia to the Mayan with this exuberant spectacle (this time around, it’s a sci-fi-themed Halloween show dubbed Area 51). See good vs. evil played out in a sinful circus of masked Mexican wrestling, burlesque stripteasing and comedic commentating. Fill up on tequila and tamales while you watch Aztec dancers and luchadores.

Do the monster mash, get your face painted and collect some treats during this Halloween pop-up at Union Station. The free come-in-costume event for kids takes place on the train station’s South Patio, but you’ll also find a pretty unique trick-or-treating experience set up by the tracks. 

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 partake in a scavenger hunt (Oct 28 1–5pm) and dance the evening away at a block party (Oct 28 1–5pm).

Downtown L.A.’s new eight-in-one nightlife destination is celebrating its first Halloween with a deadly sins-themed evening (the eighth one is FOMO, apparently). Level 8 is already an over-the-top, highly-themed space, so the big selling point here is the four-hour open bar at Sinners y Santos.

Peruse altars in the plaza of El Pueblo at this Day of the Dead celebration. Expect plenty of festive wares from the merchants on Olvera Street, along with altars that go on display each morning and a candlelight procession every night. Stop by during weekends for face painting and theatrical performances.

With its reputation for ghostly sightings, the Roosevelt would make for a perfectly creepy fit for a Halloween hang, party or not. Thankully, the Hollywood hotel’s annual bash doesn’t disappoint: This year, it takes over the Tropicana Pool with an American Horror Story-themed soiree. Elegant attire and mysterious masks are encouraged for the DJ-filled affair.

L.A. food magazine Life & Thyme and the Los Angeles Athletic Club are coming together for this jazzy, ’20s-themed Halloween masquerade. The DTLA hotel and athletic club will host an evening of dancing, desserts and cocktails at its upstairs ball, while downstairs you can embark on a haunted tour of the building’s basement—if you don’t mind being spooked in the dark.

Come dressed as your favorite Jennifer Coolidge character for this Jennifer Coolidge-themed Comedy & Drag Variety Show. Expect a night of comedy, music, drag and Mad Libs all in honor of Queen Coolidge.

Sarah Rachel Lazarus will host the show at the Elysian with performers including Daniel Franzese, Jared Goldstein, Annie Biotix and Karen Beaches.

Get ready to bend and snap in your best Coolidge outfit because the best-dressed person will win “an incredibly non-special TJ Maxx prize.”

Partake in a bookish yet festive Halloween-themed evening at the Huntington. Strange Science boasts a night of theatrical performances, scholarly lectures and displays of rare objects, including discussions on queer withcraft and Vincent Price horror films, a candlelight tour of the art galleries and ballet and acrobatic performances.

As the scrambled name implies, this London-based collective spins nothing other than the sweet tones of new edits and remixes of Fleetwood Mac tracks. The parties themselves are blindingly good fun and pretty much all the edits are superb, often full of ambient disco and dreamy electronic vibes which give a lovely lush dancefloor touch to FM’s classics. For this “Silver Storms Ball” edition held over Halloween weekend, extravagant costumes, Mac-related or otherwise, are very much welcome, so get your best Stevie Nicks bouffant on and prepare for unabashed Fleetwood fun.

Long Beach’s Museum of Latin American Art is observing Day of the Dead with an afternoon of food, music and all sorts of festive touches. Themed after the museum’s upcoming exhibition on the complexity of Mexican cuisine, this year’s “Heco con Amor” edition includes over three dozen merchants, nine food stations, sweets, beer and wine, plus face painting, a sugat skull workshop, printmaking and tattoos.

Pick out and decorate a “pup-kin,” feast on human and pupper-friendly treats and navigate a terrifying maze with a scary, scary mailman during this costumed, dog-friendly Halloween event at the Wallis Annenberh PetSpace in Playa Vista.

Judy Baca’s half-mile–long The Great Wall of Los Angeles, a collaborative mural painted in the ’70s along the Tujunga Wash, has received all sorts of museum love in the past few years. But LACMA has a particularly unique show to boast about: The local Chicana muralist and SPARC artists will paint two new sections of The Great Wall during museum hours. The exhibit also debuts a new section of the wall, in honor of activists known as the Freedom Riders, dubbed Generation on Fire.

Over 40-plus years of performing, Nick Cave hasn’t lost his flair for the down-and-dirty fury that defined his early work with the Birthday Party. Catch him on a rare solo tour at the Orpheum, with Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood on bass.

Explore the historical and cultural significance of Day of the Dead traditions during this free celebration at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes.

The L.A. Zoo’s annual Halloween celebration includes two weekends of spooky decor and up-close-and-personal interactions with some of the zoo’s creepiest crawlers. Look out for trick-or-treating, storytelling, photo ops and—how macabre—an extinct animal graveyard. The animals typically get in on the Halloween action, too, with pumpkin or carcass feedings scheduled a couple times a day.

See notable, late Long Beach residents’ stories come alive at their final resting places during this annual Halloween-time cemetery tour. The Historical Society of Long Beach stages around eight graveside monologues at the Long Beach Municipal Cemetery and Sunnyside Cemetery, presented by actors in period-appropriate attire who conjure up stories from people who shaped the city’s history.

Now considered a legacy act of the early 2000s, Interpol quickly rose to fame with their debut album Turn on the Bright Lights, which was hailed by both NME and Pitchfork as one of the best of 2002. Since then, the band has struggled through member splits, complacency and solo projects. But don’t count them out: Paul Banks and his crew are back to promote their latest album, The Other Side of Make-Believe.

This Mexico City art car bound for Burning Man became an L.A. mainstay for its dance-centric pop-ups—and spawned a bona fide EDM institution in the process. But the beloved car was destroyed in a fire this spring, thus putting an end to its decade-long run. To send it off, the celebration of Mexican talent will hold one last event in Grand Park, a Halloween-themed party and fund raiser in partnership with local event collective Stranger Than.

Join Grand Park for a nearly two-week display of 19 altars erected within the park. The altar displays officially kicks off on October 21 with an afternoon of sugar skull workshops and performances (11am–4pm), including Grupo Folklorico Huitzillin, Mariachi Arcoiris de Los Angeles and LA Opera-presented tenor Jonathan Lacayo. The altar displays close with a screening of the 1960 film Macario (Nov 2 at 7:30pm), presented by the GuadaLAjara Film Festival.

The producer, songwriter and composer has not only helped produce chart-smashing hits for Ed Sheeran, Stormzy and Halsey, but also produced his own mix of house-electronica where he merges everyday samples and recorded conversations.

This Halloween, the Pacific Design Center will host spooky photo ops and mini experiences inspired by a half-dozen horror films and series on Hulu. Dubbed Huluween: Now Screaming, the free event (Oct 29–31) will be broken up into three zones: “scary,” “very scary” and “very, very scary” (“corporate synergy levels of scary” must not have made the cut).

A couple times a year, Minimal Effort brings together some of the top talent in the underground house and techno scene. They throw a helluva party that requires, well, minimal effort on your part to have a good time. For Halloween, Ewan McVicar, Mild Minds, Manics and Pam Sessions will be spinning at 1720.

The actors speak in faux British accents, employ Elizabethan-era speech and play up any number of Shakespearean tropes, yet this hugely popular Chicago-born show is anything but gimmicky. Good improv rises above.

Feeling like you and your four-legged friend are attached at the hip right now? Spend even more quality time together during this dog-friendly series at Palos Verdes’ South Coast Botanic Garden. Every third Sunday, you can roam the gardens’ 87 acres with your fur baby. You—the human—will need a reservation, while your best friend—the pup—will need to remain on their leash at all times, including in the parking lot.

Santa Monica will host crafts, performances and larger-than-life art installations during this Day of the Dead event. Look out for La Catrina sculptures from local artist Ricardo Soltero, who’s created ones for three blocks of the Third Street Promenade. You’ll also find a Latinx pop-up market and, in the evening, live music.

Pasadena’s charming shopping plaza hosts a string of family-friendly Halloween events, including pumpkin decorating (Oct 22 11am–2pm; $10), a pop-up performance by the Bob Baker Marionettes (Oct 28, 11am, 12:30pm; free) and trick-or-treating plus a screening of Casper(Oct 31, 5pm, movie 7pm; free).

Why settle for just one Halloween party when you can host three? That seems to be the thinking at the Mondrian’s Skybar, which will host a Halloween-themed edition of its regular disco series, the Hustle, on the Friday before Halloween, with its Fright Night party on Saturday. Then, on Halloween itself—with the popular Carnaval going down only blocks away—you can swing by again for an evening of deep house.

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.

SoCal’s most recognizable cemetery chain—we’re not the only ones who think it’s weird that’s a thing, right?—is honoring the dead with Día de los Muertos celebrations at four of it locations. The Glendale, Cypress and Covina Hills locations (Oct 29) along with Cathedral City (Nov 2) will host altars, six-foot-tall Catrinas and hand-painted alebrijes. You’ll find folkloric dance and mariachi performances at all locations, plus an appearance by the Bob Baker Marionettes at the three L.A.-area ones.

Local West Coast hip-hop legends Cypress Hill bring their annual Halloween show, “Haunted Hill,” to the Novo, with support from Trash Talk and Onyx.

Downey’s annual Day of the Dead celebration returns to the city’s civic center. The free event features fine art from Latinx artists, crafts, ofrendas, ballet folklorico performances, food trucks and a beer and wine garden.

The Hammer Museum’s excellent, ongoing series of biennial exhibitions ups the ante each year with its spotlight on emerging and under-recognized L.A. artists, and the sixth edition is no exception. Titled “Acts of Living,” this year’s show focuses on how art is inseperable from everyday life and includes a mix of new commissions and historical works from 39 up-and-coming and prolific artists, including Marcel Alcalá, Sula Bermúdez-Silverman and Jibz Cameron, among others.

Stroll through a mile-long trail filled with all things pumpkins, including an illuminated forest of jack-o’-lanterns, during Descanso Gardens’ annual Carved. For three weeks this fall, the event will line a loop of the botanical garden with pumpkins in all sorts of forms: as a sea monster rising from a pond, in thick clusters on the ground and cobbled together into a house.

Friends of Residential Treasures: Los Angeles is back with another map of storybook-style homes—and this time they’re focusing on some towers and turrets. Amber Benson, the Witches of Echo Park novelist and a mid-series regular on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has once again curated a guide to five castle-like houses, spread between the Hollywood Hills and University Park.

Its past installments have found attendees stealthing their way through a Victorian home and embarking on a Blade Runner-esque bounty hunt. And now this celebrated immersive horror theater event will once again return for an event at a nearly 150-year-old mansion. Delusion, an interactive seasonal event that combines elements of immersive theater with a more story-based approach to a walk-through haunted house, will again take over the Phillips Mansion, an 1875 estate in Pomona.

Walk across the grounds of the scenic King Gillette Ranch as the Santa Monica Mountains hideaway is illuminated with thousands of hand-carved jack-o’-lanterns. Nights of the Jack returns with an on-foot, mile-long trail this year (with food trucks and a “Spookeasy,” too). For 2023, Nights of the Jack has added an augmented reality scavenger hunt to the trail, as well as a Día de Los Muertos scene, lantern art and an area that it’s dubbed “the Enchanted Forest.”

Spooky season will get a bit boozier this year thanks to this touring horror-themed cocktail pop-up, which settles in at Lost Property for its L.A. stint. Halloween lovers can sip expertly mixed cocktails amid metal music and goth decor. On Tuesdays and Sundays, a $25 ticket gets you timed access to a rotating line-up of spooky drag and burlesque performers, plus your choice of one cocktail. On Wednesdays, the Black Lagoon will host a special Emo Night, which has a $15 cover. On all other days (Mon, Thu–Sat), the Halloween pop-up will be free to enter nightly, from 6pm to 2am.

L.A.’s Natural History Museum is already loaded up with all sorts of fossilized remains, so it feels like a perfect fit that this skeleton-filled seasonal event would find its way to the museum.

Boney Island, a beloved kid-friendly Halloween event that called Griffith Park home until the pandemic, will return from its hiatus with a new setup at NHM’s Nature Gardens. From September 28 to October 31, the illuminated installation will bring familiar fixtures (skeleton performers, shadow puppets) and mix them with some sciency additions (fossils, animal presentations).

The homegrown, carnival-themed haunt started more than 20 years ago on The Simpsons producer Rick Polizzi’s front lawn in Sherman Oaks. But for the past decade or so it had set up annually in Griffith Park—at least until its temporary closure in 2020. Now though, it’s back thanks to NHM and RIX Productions.

You’ll find Boney Island running Thursday through Sunday nights. Tickets cost $25 and go on sale to the general public on August 24 (members can get access two days sooner and at a $5 discount). Limited tickets will be available on-site during museum hours and at the start of the event each night.

This haunted Griffith Park hayride once again returns to the mid-’80s fictitious town of Midnight Falls, which borrows a little bit of the road culture of Sons of Anarchy and the isolation of Twin Peaks. The Old Zoo tradition, which has been running for 15 years now, centers on a relatively lengthy hayride. The premise: A witch has summoned creatures that’ve hidden themselves among Halloween decorations in the town’s foothills. This year’s event promises new wagons (with new seating options), updated effects and new horror scenes.

From the same folks behind the nightmarish Creep, JFI Productions’ The Willows is an immersive play in which you are a dinner guest of a very strange family and must determine—via party games and subterfuge—what really happened to a recently deceased relative.

See how the Hairspray and Pink Flamingos writer and director’s delightfully filthy style has redefined the possibilities of independent cinema—as well as what exactly goes into making an indie movie—during this career-spanning exhibition at the Academy Museum.

Face your fears and head to the Natural History Museum’s Spider Pavilion, where you can observe several hundred orbweaver spiders in a living exhibit just outside of the museum. Scared the spiders might be hard to spot in the wild? Fret not. In previous iterations we’ve spotted ones about the size of an adult’s palm. Gulp. (But don’t worry: The scariest ones are in enclosed habitats.) 

With a mix of live performance and walk-through storytelling, Downtown’s ornate Los Angeles Theatre will flip into a haunted experience for this new immersive show. “Angel of Light” tells the story of a cursed 1930s star that’ll take you through catacombs, dressing rooms, a ballroom and up to the stage—with effects, projections and demonic characters along the way.

Shaquille O’Neal will once again be hosting a Halloween event in Long Beach this fall. Shaqtoberfest will take over the grounds outside of the Queen Mary from late September through Halloween with a mix of family-friendly attractions and after-dark haunts. Now that the oceanliner is open again, there’ll be programming on the Queen Mary this year, too, including a search for spirits in the belly of the ship.

This Denver experience makes its L.A. debut with hand-carved jack-o’-lanterns lining a pathway at the Whittier Narrows. Though you can pay a little extra to park closer, there is free parking available at the park if you’re up for a little bit longer of a walk.

Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group hosts a chilling series of vignettes. Armed with a shoddy flashlight to illuminate their path, guests navigate a labyrinth of terror before enduring a series of shocking scenes (over the course of roughly 35 minutes) that will unsettle even the most stoic of horror fans.

See the Bob Baker Marionette Theater’s Halloween performances during this monthlong lineup of spooky festivities. The puppet theater will be performing “Bob Baker’s Halloween Spooktacular!”—a refurbished production of its long-running  “boo-sical revue.”

The Sunset Strip’s famed Roxy is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and to mark the occassion the GRAMMY Museum will display a half-century-worth of photos and memorabilia. Highlights include behind-the-scenes photos of and the piano from the music venue’s celeb-filled upstairs lounge, a documentary short on the club and more than 60 photos of performers like Cheech & Chong, the Clash, Bob Marley, Patti Smith, Guns N’ Roses, Neil Young and Frank Zappa. You’ll even find items from The Rocky Horror Show, a nine-month-long run at the Roxy of the stage show that soon after spawn the legendary movie musical.

Ready or not, spooky season is slowly stalking its way ever closer. The clearest sign? Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights is here, with haunted houses inspired by The Last of Us, Stranger Things, Evil Dead Rise, The Purge, The Exorcist: Believer and more.

Well, well, well, what have we here? The Nightmare Before Christmas’s bug-stuffed sack is once again taking over the Halloween duties at Disneyland for Oogie Boogie Bash, an after-hours, specially ticketed seasonal event at Disney California Adventure Park.

This Hollywood exhibit puts the focus on a pair of Japanese cultural exports and the collision between a decades-old gaming franchise and centuries-old crafting techniques.

The GRAMMY Museum celebrates hip-hop’s 50th anniversary with interactive DJing, rapping and sampling stations and instantly recognizable artifacts like LL Cool J’s red Kangol bucket hat and the Notorious B.I.G.’s red leather pea coat.

West Hollywood’s ultra-chic restaurant and rooftop bar, E.P. & L.P., is serving much more than handcrafted cocktails and modern American bites. The spot also hosts Melrose Rooftop Theatre, an outdoor screening series that runs much of the year on the rooftop space attached to its open-air bar, L.P.

The masters of alfresco rooftop movie viewing have returned for another season of screenings in the Arts District, DTLA and El Segundo. You don’t even need to bring your own camping chair—Rooftop Cinema Club provides you with your very own comfy lawn chair. And instead of listening to the movie over loudspeakers, you’ll get a set of wireless headphones so you never have to miss a word.