Hollywood Gothique
Cabaret & Dinner ShowsDining & DrinkingLA Night/Life/Style Gothique

Halloween Review: Haunted Hollywood at the Vault Speakeasy

Horror-themed burlesque show is a highlight of the Halloween season

Los Angeles has been invaded by a horde of horror-themed dining and drinking options this Halloween – everything from immersive cocktail experiences to cabaret-style nightclubs – but most monstrously beguiling of the bunch is Haunted Hollywood at the Vault Speakeasy in the Beverly Center. The two-hour variety show features famous horror icons haunting an eight-room walkthrough leading to the main event in the grand ballroom: a burlesque music show in which sultry psychos and frightful final girls strut their stuff on stage, while the audience enjoys tasty bites and boozy delights.

The tone is definitely risqué but also exuberantly outrageous, and the striptease performances are backed up by legitimately amazing talent, including a couple of energetic arial acts. The combination places Haunted Hollywood among the highlights of the Halloween season.


Haunted Hollywood Review: The Vault Speakeasy

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Haunted Hollywood takes place at the Voss events space in the Beverly Center. For Halloween, the venue has been christened The Vault Speakeasy, although you will see that name nowhere on the premises. As you can guess from the Beverly Hills location, Haunted Hollywood is aiming for an upscale audience seeking sophisticated entertainment, but you will still find yourself among costumed Halloween fans sauntering past swanky stores on their way to the entrance.

The fun begins even before you get inside; in fact, we cannot remember enjoying the entrance to an event quite this much. After a little comic banter, a costumed character takes your drink orders while you wait in line, then hands over your “prescription” (receipt) so that you can pick up your “medicine” (cocktail) as soon as you enter the “pharmacy” (bar). There is also an option for a “shot” of booze delivered directly into your mouth with a fake hypodermic needle. Thus fortified, you should be ready for the walkthrough…


Haunted Hollywood Vault Review: Walkthrough

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

At regular intervals, a staff member opens a vault door, allowing guests to enter in small groups. At first, the interior is nearly pitch black, the path illuminated only by small candles on the floor. After a few twists and turns you reach your first stop, the Bates Motel, where you find a sultry blond (presumably Norma Bates in your younger years) who immediately announces the burlesque nature of the evening by referring to the “Master Bates Hotel.” Driving the point home further, she asks you to stroke her pussy – er, stuffed cat, which she then wiggles as if in ecstasy.

After that, you pass through rooms themed to other horror franchises. The level of engagement ranges from bawdy to scary. In the former case, a nun threatens to spank those who misbehave, and tinfoil-hatted character (spoofing the movie Signs) shows illustrations of crop circles that are highly suggestive of human anatomy, both male and female. In the latter, Chucky the Good Guy Doll is just plain creepy in person, and a chainsaw killer (presumably from Texas) delivers a good jump scare.

Finally, passing through a spaceship corridor (inspired by Alien) leads you to the main ballroom…


Haunted Hollywood Vault Review: Booze, Bites & Bakes

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Inside the ballroom, staff quickly seat you at your table. There is preferred seating for VIP ticket holders, but general admission seating is perfectly fine – a little farther from the front stage but closer to a second stage where much of the action takes place, including the aerial acts.

The show does not start until everyone has existed the walkthrough. While waiting for the ballroom to fill up, you can order “Booze, Bites, and Bakes” from the menu; just turn off the light on you table to summon a waiter. You will soon notice that employees are doing double duty: those who attended you outside are now serving as wait staff. Later, during the show, characters who were haunting the walkthrough will hit the stage.

The menu is small but filled with great items featuring jokey names like Scooby Snacks and Chucky’s Cheesecake. We made a pretty decent meal out of Spinach & Artichoke Me…Dip and All Tied Up (a Bavarian pretzel with chili cheese dip), followed by Pumpkin King Carrot Cake for two.

As for cocktails, we sampled Laughing Gas (gin, lime juice, simply syrup, ginger beer), Black Magic (vodka, rasberry liqueur, lemonade, club soda), and Scream-tini (vodka, coffee liqueur, espresso, pumpkin spice syrup). All of them are worth a sip, but we’ll go with the first as our favorite.


Haunted Hollywood Vault Review: Burlesque Show

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The burlesque show opens with a few familiar tunes from a full-throated blond chanteuse. The songs are Halloween-adjacent – titles like “Superstition” and “Creep,” and the banter is bawdy: “Who’s ready to get their soul sucked tonight?”

The first dance number is a Scream spoof with Drew Barrymore lookalike menaced by a squad of Ghostface Killers, whom she distracts by stripping down to her underwear before turning the tables in a most satisfying fashion. Cliches will be overturned, and Girl Power rules.

Eventually, your host appears, a drag queen version of Beetlejuice, lip-synching to “Day-O” and Billie Elish’s “Bad Guy.” The Juice moderates the remainder of the show, introducing the acts by telling stories or wandering from the stage to address audience members up close. Beetlejuice’s jokes are not all that hilarious; they are geared more toward revving up the crowd for the onstage antics and setting the scene by coaxing confessions about indiscretions related to the upcoming topic. For example, a scene involving a severed foot is preceded by asking whether anyone in the audience has a foot fetish.

Marion Crane performs a striptease that lures a psycho to her shower stall with surprising results. An exorcism leads to a possessed nun stripping off her habits to perform an aerial act. Chucky and his girlfriend Tiffany are joined on stage by Annabelle. A humiliated nerd is abducted by aliens. Finally, Beetlejuice decides that his motley entourage of afterlife misfits is to evil even for him, leading to the show’s fatal conclusion…

It’s all deliberately naughty in a very tongue-in-cheek way, but the show has more to offer than garter belts and pasties. The vocals and choreography are great. The suggestive scenarios flirt with sexual exploitation of women before turning the tables. The possessed nun and the humiliated nerd perform overhead arial acts that are athletically impressive but also artfully executed – and so distinct you don’t mind seeing them billed together. Even the thin narrative line, casting Beetlejuice as the “Executive Director of Afterlife Transactions” who tires of despicable underlings, leads to a satisfying payoff at the end.


Haunted Hollywood Vault Review: Conclusion
Haunted Hollywood review
Chucky lurking inside Haunted Hollywood’s walkthrough.

Haunted Hollywood is far from being a traditional Halloween attraction, but it is more than a mere burlesque show with a Halloween overlay. Like Vampire Circus, it uses spooky scenes to introduce aerial acts, but it more fully integrates horror into performances. The Scream and Psycho spoofs tell little horror stories that deliver some slash-and-splatter while subverting expectations, and the walkthrough mixes a few scares in with the ribald dialogue.

Our quibbles are few in number. The walkthrough seemed sparsely populated, and the scene with the nun was in a room so over lit that it ruined the impact of the magnificent church facade reaching up nearly to the ceiling (since the light is from a huge window, this is probably not a problem during evening performances). The humor is sometimes more sophomoric instead of sophisticated; the deliberately provocative expletives set the transgressive tone immediately, but after that they wear thin.

The rest of Haunted Hollywood is so good that we almost feel guilty for pointing out its meagre flaws. The easily offended should stay away, but Halloween fans seeking something beyond the usual haunted house attractions should put this at the top of their list.

Haunted Hollywood Vault Review: Photo Gallery

Steve Biodrowski, Administrator

A graduate of USC film school, Steve Biodrowski has worked as a film critic, journalist, and editor at Movieline, Premiere, Le Cinephage, The Dark Side., Cinefantastique magazine, Fandom.com, and Cinescape Online. He is currently Managing Editor of Cinefantastique Online and owner-operator of Hollywood Gothique.