LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — On Halloween night, visitors to Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum learn the real-life horror stories behind many classic Hollywood movies.
The Haunted Museum features a range of items tied to documented accounts of paranormal events and entities, as well as mementos belonging to notorious killers.
The star of “Ghost Adventures” has spent years curating these items with notoriety, creating exhibits for viewers to learn about their history and legacy– and hauntings and curses.
“There’s nothing but truth here at the Haunted Museum,” Bagans said. “You look at some of your highest rated movies with the most viewership [or] box office hits: they’re all horror movies now. I’m happy to say that here at the Haunted Museum, there’s many items that have inspired a lot of these horror films.”
Capturing the limelight this Halloween: an exhibit dedicated to Ed Gein, a convicted murderer and grave robber whose life story is now a top Netflix series called “Monster.” The macabre discoveries inside his home– items and clothing made of bones and skin– inspired numerous horror classics like “Psycho,” “The Silence of the Lambs,” and “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
“You look at monsters like Ed Gein…we want to learn about these monsters because if they are walking amongst us, learning about them might be able to help us spot them out before we turn into a lampshade,” Bagans said.
The museum features many other items that inspired classic horror films. You’ll find texts of “rites” from priests and accounts of demon possessions that inspired “The Exorcist.”
A room features pictures and a “sick box” from the actual patient whose story is featured in “The Exorcism of Emily Rose.”
“[On Halloween] we play with evil and we have fun with it–not in any kind of ritualistic way, but we understand it, we have an awareness of it. And visiting my haunted museum isn’t just about whether or not you’re going to get cursed or not. It’s about understanding evil,” Bagans said.
The museum sold out of tour spots for Halloween.
Despite the overall slump in tourism for Las Vegas, Bagans tells FOX5, business is good and tourists keep coming– not only because of the massive cult following from his shows on TV and streaming services, but because his unique museum and collections can only be found in Las Vegas.
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