Back in 2012, I didn't have the lay of the land in Los Angeles yet—so, I just tried to take every opportunity to go anywhere that seemed cool, even if I'd never heard of it before.
That's how I ended up at Variety Arts Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, thanks to a haunted house/immersive theater show for Halloween by horror movie producer Jason Blum called Blumhouse of Horrors.
I remember being led through an auditorium with seats—at one point, through one of those squeeze tubes that make it feel like you're traveling through a birth canal. And I remember someone in costume—maybe an usher? or a bellhop?—taking a group of us up the elevator to an upper level that felt more like a hotel than a theater.
But it was so long ago—and I only have one photo of the night, taken outside with a scare actor (
jump to the photo ↓)—that I barely can recall any real details.
The Variety Arts Theatre has been open to the public very rarely since then, including for the Delusion haunt in Fall 2025—but it's had construction fencing up out front for years. Thankfully, that finally came down, and the theater doors swung open once again.
