The Oscars’ Academy Museum will unveil a grisly, gory experience probing horror movie history, with Dafoe and Osgood Perkins serving on the advisory board.

Willem Dafoe reveals disturbing horror film exhibit urging ‘parental guidance’ through ‘gallery walls layered with gore’

The Oscars’ Academy Museum will unveil a grisly, gory experience probing horror movie history, with Dafoe and Osgood Perkins serving on the advisory board.

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July 8, 2026 11:08 a.m. ET

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Sissy Spacek in ‘Carrie’ ; Willem Dafoe ; Linda Blair in ‘The Exorcist’. Credit:

Everett; Mike Marsland/WireImage; Warner Bros. Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty

- The Academy Museum will open a horror-filled exhibit urging “parental guidance” for its disturbing nature.

- In addition to props, photos, costumes, and other artifacts, the exhibit will close with the Blood Room, “an immersion in the many textures and shades of cinematic blood.”

- Willem Dafoe and Osgood Perkins served on the advisory board for the exhibit, which urges “parental guidance” for its disturbing displays.

Willem Dafoe is ready to unleash one of his most disturbing projects to date as the Oscars‘ Academy Museum announced a grisly new exhibit probing horror movie history.

The Oscar-nominated actor and *Longlegs* director Osgood Perkins both served on the advisory board for “The Horror Show,” an upcoming exhibition at the Los Angeles-based museum featuring physical props, photos, and immersive installation pieces highlighting the robust history of horror movies in Hollywood and beyond.

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the classic horror film *Carrie* (for which actress Sissy Spacek will be on hand at the museum to present a special screening), “The Horror Show” will be divided into “chambers” dedicated to “strains of horror cinema,” divided into six classifications that cover works by Alfred Hitchcock, John Carpenter, Ridley Scott, and more genre legends.

Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’. Paramount Pictures/Getty

After entering the exhibit through an introductory gallery featuring a soundscape of scores, voices, and sound effects from horror history, the chambers shoot off from a main hallway of film posters.

The Gothic chamber highlights films like *Dracula*, *Blade*, and *Sinners*; Psychological probes *Psycho*, *The Babadook*, *Get Out*, *Misery*, *The Shining*, and more; Science investigates *Alien*, *The Fly*, *The Substance**,* and *Creature From the Black Lagoon*; Slasher features *Halloween*, *A Nightmare on Elm Street*, and *The Texas Chainsaw Massacre*, among others; Religion chronicles *Suspiria*, *Weapons*, *The Exorcist*, *Rosemary’s Baby*, and more; and Ghosts scares up material from *The Ring*, *The Conjuring*, and *Poltergeist.*

According to the Academy Museum, “the only pathway out of the exhibition lies through the Blood Room, an immersion in the many textures and shades of cinematic blood” that engulfs attendees “in a final sensorial macabre” with “gallery walls layered with gore.”

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A warning cautions that the “exhibition explores content that may not be suitable for all ages and may be* *disturbing to some individuals,” and that “parental guidance is advised” for those in attendance.****“Cinema in general engages your sense of wonder, but horror can explode it,” Dafoe said in a statement about the exhibition. “It is a popular form, born of modest financial resources and with a strong, lasting independent streak. And it has all the same possibilities for originality, inventiveness, and freedom that it did in its infancy.”

Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Myers in ‘Halloween’; Jamie Lee Curtis in ‘Halloween Ends’.

Perkins added that “horror is crucial to culture and cinema, and to our evolving understanding of what it means to be alive on earth,” explaining that, “I couldn’t think of a bigger or better celebration of the films and stories that have impacted audiences so profoundly and for so long. There is something for every horror fan to appreciate and enjoy in this exhibition, a hallway of limitless doors to be opened and explored.”

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In addition to the walkthrough offerings, the Academy Museum will host public programs and screenings to compliment the displays, including retrospective series highlighting Carpenter, a screening of *The Craft,* and the aforementioned *Carrie* screening featuring Spacek.

“The Horror Show” debuts Sept. 26 at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, and runs through July 25, 2027.

- Horror Movies

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Source: “EW Horror”