Drop-In Workshop for Families: Haunted Prop-Making

Calling all ghosts and ghouls! Join the Academy Museum for a wicked good time. We're hosting a fun-filled day of special-effects makeup demonstrations, spooky scripted tours, appearances by (gasp!) monsters, and activities—all exploring the crossroads between the monstrous and the feminine in film. Embrace this year’s theme with the bride of Frankenstein, lovelorn witches, hungry demons, and more.

Free with the purchase of a general admission ticket. Museum admission is free for youths 17 and under.

Schedule  

9am | Calm Morning: Bride of Frankenstein Sound Lab

11am | Accessible Screening | Family Matinee | 90th Anniversary of Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

• Location: David Geffen Theater

• Separately ticketed event

The sequel to Frankenstein (1931) finds The Monster (Boris Karloff) demanding that Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) build him a companion. Elsa Lanchester’s “bride,” with her singular shock of white-streaked hair, has become one of movie history’s most recognizable characters.

11am–1:30pm | Special-Effects Makeup and Hair Demonstration

• Location: Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby | L1

• General admission ticket not required

Join us for a scary good time with transformations by special effects makeup artist Gabi Gonzalez, Academy Award®-winner Howard Berger, and Academy Award®-winner Yolanda Toussieng.

2:30pm | Screening | The Love Witch in 35mm (2016) with filmmaker Anna Biller

• Location: Ted Mann Theater

• Separately ticketed event

Beautiful young witch Elaine (Samantha Robinson) moves into a gothic Victorian apartment in Northern California. With a deep desire for an idealized romance, Elaine concocts love potions to attract unsuspecting townsmen, creating disruption in the area. When Elaine finally meets the man of her dreams, will he fall prey to her enchantments?

2:30–5pm | Tarot, Palm Reading, and the Stars

• Location: Ted Mann Lobby

Embrace your past, present, and future in a fun tarot card and palm reading.

12:30, 1:30, 3, 4pm | Monster Meet and Greet

• Location: Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby | L1

• General admission ticket not required.

Come meet Universal Studios' classic movie monsters—the Bride of Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster—for a can't-miss photo opportunity. It’ll be a scream.

Noon–4pm | Scripted Fright Tours

• Location: L2

• Tours will meet on Level 2 at *Noon, 1, 3 and 4pm. *Noon tour will be accompanied with ASL interpretation.

• Tours have limited space and are first-come, first-served. Please arrive at the meeting place on Level 2 up to 10 minutes before the start time to secure your spot.  

Explore our museum's mysteries, horrors, and thrills—if you dare. A museum educator will lead you on an eerie, 30-minute tour of the Story gallery and Director’s Inspiration: Bong Joon Ho exhibition. Among shadowy galleries, examine the scripts of Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) inspired by Daphne Du Maurier’s suspenseful 1938 mystery novel. Take a peek at the seemingly normal typewriter that birthed the haunting script for Psycho (1960), and explore the monstrous creature design and storyboards of Bong Joon Ho’s The Host (2011).  

3pm | Scream Queens: Voice-Acting Drop-in Workshop

• Location: Shirley Temple Education Studio

• Open to all ages

Do you have what it takes to be a scream queen? Join us for a frightful but laugh-out-loud voice acting workshop where you jump into some of your favorite, feminine-forward horror films.

7:30pm | Screening | Jennifer’s Body (2019) with filmmaker Karyn Kusama

• Location: David Geffen Theater

• Separately ticketed event

A demon takes possession of popular, beautiful high schooler Jennifer Check (Megan Fox), spurring her to seduce and feast on hapless male classmates. It is up to her timid best friend, Needy Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried), to put an end to Jennifer’s bloody spree before it’s too late.

Screenings

Purchase tickets for Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

Purchase tickets for The Love Witch (2016).

Purchase tickets for Jennifer’s Body (2009).

To celebrate the Academy Museum’s fourth anniversary, we are offering free general admission on September 28, 2025. 

Join us in the Shirley Temple Education Studio to explore the art of musicals.