[Frightfest 2026]: The Fright Stuff

The overwhelming heat of summer is nearly over. Autumn approaches and with it comes crisp mornings, pumpkin spiced everything, the annual return of your favourite knitwear and, if you’re a horror fan, the best time of year - Halloween. For the hardened spooky season lovers amongst us, this means seeking out the gnarliest, most heart-pounding scare attractions we can. But have you ever considered what goes into creating these haunted houses, and who on earth decides to put all of their business into one month a year? Mike Meyer’s new documentary The Fright Stuff explores the answers.

This documentary is a tell-all on the history of scare attractions - dating back to 1915 when tricks of the trade included genuine electrocution - through to the creation of the first animatronics, and more recently, exploring how platforms like YouTube have impacted the industry by providing their viewers with unlimited scares. The Fright Stuff explores the people behind the attractions and the ever-growing industry of trying to be THE scariest of all. 

Following John Laflamboy, owner of Zombie Army Productions and two of the biggest haunted houses in Illinois - Hells Gate Haunted House and Statesville Haunted Prison - we get a glimpse behind the curtain at how these ideas come to fruition. Everything from finding the right location (farms, golf courses, mountain sides and even 26 stories underground) to hiring the right actors, special effects artists, prop designers etc and choreographing and running the nights like a military operation. We see the successes and failures of haunted attractions, and what it means to lose everything you have built and have to start all over again.

Again, one might ask - why? Why put everything you have into one night/one month a year? Especially in a market that is so saturated? The Fright Stuff makes it abundantly clear that there are two answers - passion and community. In fact, the best part of the whole documentary is not just the how/what/when, but the who. It is a clear and heartfelt love letter to anyone who has ever been called weird, or different, or whose love for horror and all things ‘other’ has been criticised. 

Meyer does a fantastic job interviewing everyone from production company owners, to actors, to attendees, and it showcases a real found family across the US. We see people who have inherited attractions, or used every bit of their savings to start one, and some who have met and started families with people through being a part of the community. Laflamboy notes at one point that scare attractions are for nerds and outcasts, who “feel more comfortable in the dark”. Which makes it all the more apt that its UK premiere is at Frightfest 2026, where so many people often praise the five-day genre marathon for providing them with that same safe space to be themselves and share their passion for all things creepy.

The Fright Stuff is most certainly informative, giving real-time insight into what it means to own and run successful (and some unsuccessful) scare attractions, but what viewers will most likely take away is that feeling of not being alone, and knowing that there are always other outcasts out there who will stand alongside you and hold your hand in the dark.

4 Screams out of 5