Free Paranormal Activity Screening Haunts Broadway Halloween

Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, and one stretch of Midtown is planning to spend the evening in the dark. On October 31, the Broadway production of Paranormal Activity will hold a free outdoor screening of the 2007 horror film that inspired it, right outside the August Wilson Theatre on West 52nd Street.

The movie starts at 5 p.m. on the block between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, according to Time Out New York, which first reported the event. That turns a piece of the Theater District into an open-air movie house on one of the city’s most costume-heavy nights. Attendees are encouraged to bring a blanket, a chair or anything else comfortable to sit on. The listing doesn’t mention registration or tickets, so the screening appears to be a show-up-and-find-a-spot affair.

There is a bonus for anyone who braves the sidewalk. Each attendee will have a chance to win a pair of free tickets to a future Broadway performance of Paranormal Activity, Time Out reports. The details of how winners will be chosen weren’t spelled out in the source material.

The film at the center of the night is the Oren Peli-directed original, which turned ordinary bedrooms and static camera shots into a fright machine and went on to launch a franchise that eventually grew to seven feature films. Anyone who sits through it on West 52nd Street should expect a very different story if they later buy a ticket to the stage version. Written by Levi Holloway and directed by Felix Barrett, the play follows Lou and James, a couple who move from Chicago to London hoping to leave their past behind. The fresh start, as the genre demands, comes with complications that a new postal code can’t solve.

Cher Álvarez and Travis A. Knight play the couple, joined onstage by Shannon Cochran and Eva Kaminsky. The creative team includes illusion designer Chris Fisher and sound designer Gareth Fry. The Broadway run has been extended by eight weeks, through February 28, 2027, which gives prospective giveaway winners plenty of time to cash in their tickets.

The pairing of a horror movie and a Broadway marquee suits a city that treats Halloween as a full-contact public event. Midtown on a Saturday evening is rarely quiet, and a block of 52nd Street filled with people on blankets watching a demonic haunting unfold on a big screen is its own kind of New York spectacle. The plan for the night is simple: bring a seat, find the screen and, afterward, look at your apartment with fresh suspicion.