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If your Halloween 2026 ambitions extend beyond buying plastic fangs, Blood Manor has an extracurricular activity for you. The Manhattan haunted house is letting visitors join its scare team—and yes, there’s a tuition bill.
This season, the attraction at 359 Broadway is offering a Scare Actor Academy experience that turns paying guests into the people responsible for everyone else’s nightmares. For $350, plus a booking fee, participants get makeup and a costume, learn the art of haunting and become part of the crew frightening visitors inside.
The experience includes instruction in developing a terrifying character and scaring patrons, with a performer known as the Countess among the instructors. The ticket listing calls it the “Scare Actor Experience Ticket” and tells participants to arrive 90 minutes before their selected event to get ready.
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Blood Manor has served up seasonal terror for more than two decades; this year's run opened October 2 and lasts through November 7. Inside, visitors navigate 10,000 square feet of themed rooms, passageways and chambers populated by performers whose job is to make that journey considerably less comfortable.
The production brings together actors, set designers, makeup artists and special effects, with creepy characters and carefully staged surprises throughout. Enrolling gives horror fans a chance to help deliver those scares themselves—and it’s also a much more elaborate costume plan than anything you can put together during a last-minute run to CVS.
“My favorite thing about this year’s house is the same thing that’s been my favorite every year and that’s the ability to scare the crap out of people,” owner and creator Jim Lorenzo told amNewYork.
For visitors who prefer to leave the frightening to professionals, general admission starts at $50 before booking fees. Students can get a $10 discount on selected nights when purchasing onsite with a valid ID. The calendar also includes a charitable date: Z100’s Danielle Monaro hosts the fourth annual Hallowscream event on October 27, benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in memory of Lorenzo’s late son, Joey.
But for aspiring monsters, the academy is the draw. You’ll arrive as a customer, get dressed for a very unusual shift and discover whether you have what it takes to send strangers scrambling toward the exit.