Photos/Video: Midsummer Scream Hails in the Halloween Horrors with Universal, Six Flags, and More!

Midsummer Scream is back! Bringing together horror fans from around the globe, the annual convention is an exciting time to prepare for the Halloween season. Let’s take a look at what Universal and the rest of the event has to offer!

Today, August 15th, marked the official kick off of Midsummer Scream 2025! The annual convention is like San Diego Comic-Con for horror fans, inviting them into the thrills and chills of their favorite franchises and events with activations, special booths, cosplay, meet and greets and more!

Taking over the Long Beach Convention Center, fans gathered outside as they prepared to celebrate the upcoming horrors of Halloween season. Laughing Place had the opportunity to be invited out to check out the amazing Universal Halloween Horror Nights booth located front and center at this year’s festivities.

Decked out with classic horror icons and newcomers, Universal previewed this year’s events with giant billboards surrounding the experience highlighting the terrifying characters that await guests this Fall.

Since the debut of 2018’s Universal Classic Monsters house, the characters of Universal’s cinematic history have become a mainstay of both the seasonal screams of Horror Nights and a permanent addition at Epic Universe and Las Vegas’ Horror Unleashed. And Speaking of Horror Unleashed, the new experience, which held its grand opening yesterday, was also highlighted at this year’s activation.

Kicking off the Screamtastic event, Universal hosted a special debut of one of their international park’s Horror Nights icons with HamiKuma. Quickly becoming a fan-favorite character at Universal Studios Japan, the cute, yet disgusting teddy bear began making appearances at the Osaka park during their 2021 event. Formerly a sideshow performer in a traveling circus, HamiKuma’s fellow performers were jealous of his success. In an attempt to prove that he wasn’t a real bear, they slashed open his belly to see what was inside. To hide the gruesome act, they burned down the big top killing HamiKuma in the process.

Death Bringer, a demon from the afterlife and brought the bear back to life. Unfortunately, HamiKuma’s soul was left behind. Since his debut, HamiKuma has been transformed into new versions of the popular character, with HamiKuma Soul (representing his lost soul), HamiKuma Punk (representing his inner rage), and the new HamiKuma Candy (representing his greed).

While you’ll have to travel to Japan to meet the alternate versions of HamiKuma, his original form is ready to terrify guests at this year’s event through merchandise and more surprises.

After being welcomed in by the USJ monster, guests were able to enjoy an elaborate display of moving figures, live actors, merchandise displays and a pin giveaway. Kicking off the tour, Michael Myers was in attendance to take pictures with guests.

Merchandise from Halloween II, Terrifier, M3GAN, Chucky, Universal Classic Monsters, HamiKuma, and Universal Horror Unleashed were the main subjects of the merchandise displays.

Guests could also pick up some merchandise while visiting the event, with a T-shirt and sweatshirt design featuring the classic monsters.

And just a few booths to the left of the Universal pop-up, guests could embrace a few of this year’s highly anticipated mazes with photo ops inspired by Terrifier, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and Fallout. The area had special cameras specifically to capture the perfect shot.

Horror Nights wasn’t the only Los Angeles area event preparing for the upcoming scream-filled season! Six Flags Magic Mountain and Knott’s Berry Farm are located just next door to Horror Night’s main booth, with Fright Fest filled with scare actors on stilts and Scary Farm hilariously referencing their CarnEVIL scare zone with a knife wielding popcorn bucket character photo op.

First and foremost, Midsummer Scream is a fan event! Throughout the convention floor, fans will find food, art, collectibles, pop-up tattoo parlors, and more all celebrating the horror genre. This includes slashers, thrillers, and family-friendly spooky season favorites! While walking the floor, we spotted Kimberly J. Brown from Disney Channel’s Halloweentown, David Howard Thornton from Terrifier, and Naomi Grossman from American Horror Story ready to meet fans. We also caught an incredible cosplay of Winifred, Sarah, and Mary Sanderson from Disney’s Hocus Pocus.

For those brave enough, horror nerds can dive into the Hall of Shadows. Located in a dark corner of the convention floor, fans can step into the horror with pop-up haunted house previews, meet and greets, photo ops, and scare actors. Lionsgate had an incredible finale to their pop-up haunted house, forcing guests to crawl through a hollowed out SUV, with scare actors in the back waiting to jump out. For Toy Story fans, a special Sid’s Twisted Toy Box photo opportunity is definitely a must do. Many of these houses are showcases for horror events around the area, giving fans a taste of what can be found at events outside of Universal, Six Flags, Knott’s, and Queen Mary. Lines definitely get long, so make sure you set aside time to experience the multitude of walkthroughs and activations.

As a first time visitor to Midsummer Scream, I am kicking myself for not going sooner. This place is a horror fan's dream, and an amazing way to kick off the Halloween season. Surrounded by other nerds with a passion for terror, you’ll make friends around every corner. While the Friday event day has come to a close, there are still two more days of panels and petrifying fun to be had at the Long Beach Convention Center. For those without tickets, a limited number of Sunday Day Passes are still available. You can grab them for $52 each here.

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