A 19th-century church at Heritage Square Museum is getting a Halloween makeover this October, transformed into a cocktail lounge called the “Shriekeasy” for four nights of horror movies, adult trick-or-treating, and drinks poured beneath a vaulted ceiling. The fourth annual Boo-ze, Bites & Frights takes over the Montecito Heights museum on October 16, 17, 23, and 24, pairing double features of horror films with a night market, costumed characters, and docent-led tours through the site's Victorian homes.
The event is produced by Street Food Cinema, the outdoor screening company that has run the festival for four years, according to NBC Los Angeles. Street Food Cinema was founded in 2012 by husband-and-wife team Steve Allison and Heather Hope-Allison, launching as a summer outdoor screening series at Exposition Park that combined movie presentations with food trucks and live music, according to Forbes. The company now operates under parent production company TIL Events, which produces more than 50 outdoor film events annually across more than 10 venues, having expanded beyond Los Angeles into San Diego and Phoenix.
Horror Double Features Each Night
Every night of the festival features a double bill of horror movies, per NBC Los Angeles' reporting. October 16 screens Obsession and Companion, while the following night, October 17, brings A Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven's New Nightmare, presented by Bloody Disgusting. The following weekend continues the theme: October 23 pairs Sinners and Blade, and the festival closes October 24 with Jennifer's Body and Bodies, Bodies, Bodies.
Beyond the screenings, organizers are leaning into the historic setting. Heritage Square's church structure is being converted into the Shriekeasy pop-up lounge, featuring a vaulted ceiling, a grand bar, and live music, alongside three additional outdoor bar setups. Pre-movie musical entertainment includes DJ Splyce performing October 16 and October 24, with artist Maurice Smith taking the stage October 23.
Victorian Homes Set the Scene
Heritage Square Museum itself has a story that predates the horror-movie crowds by more than a century. The 10-acre open-air architectural museum was established in 1969 by the Cultural Heritage Foundation in Montecito Heights to rescue 19th-century Victorian structures from demolition, after rapid 1960s urban redevelopment destroyed historic homes on Bunker Hill. The museum preserves eight historic buildings relocated from around Southern California, including the 1876 Perry Mansion, the 1887 Hale House, the 1875 Palms Depot, and a recreated post-World War I Colonial Drugstore.
During Boo-ze, Bites & Frights, docents lead tours through some of those restored homes, giving the 21-and-older crowd a chance to wander the same rooms typically reserved for daytime history programming. The event also includes a marketplace stocked with Halloween-themed goods, characters in costume roaming the grounds, themed backdrops and haunted pathways, movie-themed adult beverages, street food for sale, and prizes for creative costumes tied to the films being screened.
Tickets, Parking, and Getting There
General admission runs $45 online in advance or $50 at the door, per NBC Los Angeles, while weekend passes covering both nights of a given weekend are available online for $65. Parking is sold separately from event tickets, with general admission parking priced at $25 and VIP parking at $35.
Attendees should note that entry and rideshare drop-offs for the event are directed to 3545 Pasadena Avenue along the Arroyo Seco Parkway, not the museum's standard administrative address of 3800 Homer Street on file with the venue. Heritage Square Museum sits near the Arroyo Parkway, and organizers have made the Pasadena Avenue entrance the designated access point for the haunted happenings.
Part of a Bigger Seasonal Push
Boo-ze, Bites & Frights isn't Heritage Square's only brush with Street Food Cinema. The museum also hosted the company's Half-O-Ween event in May and regularly hosts its Yuletide Cinema holiday series, showing the partnership extends well beyond the October Halloween season. Heritage Square's broader fall 2026 calendar surrounding the horror event includes the Little Women Ballet in early October, the Magic Market on October 10 and 11, and A Hallowe'en Faire on October 31.
The formula reflects a broader shift in outdoor moviegoing across Southern California, where screenings increasingly combine movie presentations with scare actors, live music, themed night markets, and craft cocktail bars aimed at adult audiences, according to Forbes. For a museum built to save Victorian houses from the wrecking ball, hosting a haunted cocktail lounge each October has become just another chapter in keeping those old walls standing — and packed.
