Terror Vault, the immersive haunt staged in the basement of San Francisco's Old Mint, returns October 1 with "Slashed: Return to Hellville" — a bloodier send-up of 1980s slasher films, according to SFist and the production's own listings.

The attraction has become a Spooky Season fixture at the Old San Francisco Mint, where timed-entry groups are marched through built-out sets in the building's basement. What SFist's announcement tucks toward the bottom is who's behind it: co-founder Joshua Grannell, better known as the drag performer Peaches Christ. This year's edition trades last year's themes for the genre grammar of Halloween and Friday the 13th, and — as always — a no-cover vampire pop-up bar in the actual former vault.

Tickets went on sale in late July, SFist reported, for the 2026 iteration, "Slashed: Return to Hellville," which reopens Thursday, October 1 and runs through Sunday, November 1, according to both SFist and the official Terror Vault site. The experience unfolds in the basement of the Old San Francisco Mint at 88 Fifth Street, where, per the promoter's site, timed-entry groups are led through built-out sets.

According to SFist, the framing device is a true-crime podcast: attendees are recruited by the assistant to a vanished podcaster, Petra Sterling, and sent to recover the missing components of a "Fear Engine" before a masked killer named Darren Grieves — a Michael Myers stand-in — runs up the body count in the fictional town of Shellville, which Sterling nicknamed "Hellville." The rooms, per the official Terror Vault site, include "abandoned schools, haunted campgrounds, blood-soaked fraternity houses, forgotten video stores."

The genre being spoofed is not subtle, and neither is the show. Its "victims," in slasher tradition, are young and scantily clad — a nod, as SFist's Jay Barmann wrote, to the fact that "the first victims in a classic slasher film are punished for having sex." Per SFist, the cast includes Miguel Velez, this year's Hunky Jesus winner, and Alex Jose as a pair of doomed frat brothers, with Edie Eve as a camp counselor marked for death.

"There's something deeply satisfying about a great slasher movie — they're outrageous, terrifying, funny, and endlessly inventive," co-founder Joshua Grannell, who performs as Peaches Christ, told SFist. "With Slashed, we've created our own twisted valentine to the gloriously over-the-top horror films of the 1980s, where audiences don't just watch the nightmare unfold — they become part of it." Grannell added, in comments to SFist, that the production is "bloodier and more immersive than anything we've done before."

Co-founder David Flower described the design ambition to SFist: "The slasher films of the 1980s had such a distinct visual language, and we wanted audiences to feel like they've stepped right into one of those movies." SFist notes earlier Terror Vault editions were built around cult initiation and witches' hexes.

Each run also opens a bar. According to the official Terror Vault site, Fang Bang — an "'80s New Wave/Goth" pop-up it bills as "the only vampire bar in San Francisco" — returns in the former vault with no cover charge during show hours; SFist likewise reports the bar is accessible to the public without a Terror Vault ticket. VIP ticket-holders, per the official site, get a pre-show detour through the "Wainwright Family Carnival," a midway hosted by a ringmaster named Pinwheel.

For those who want the seams shown, the official Terror Vault site says the crew is running "Behind the Screams" tours starting November 7 — an hour-long, lights-on walk-through of the sets, props and effects, each ticket including a beer, wine or soda.

The clock, per SFist, is already running: tickets went on sale in July, the run opens October 1 and closes November 1, and the Fang Bang vampire bar returns to the Old Mint's basement with no cover during show hours.