The Disneyland Resort has been celebrating Halloween Time for a number of years. Most of the focus has been on Disneyland with all of the decor such as the Main Street Pumpkin Festival, and attraction overlays like Haunted Mansion Holiday and Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy. There was a small presence in Disney California Adventure for a few years, the last being 2009.

Enter John Lasseter, who wanted to bring a Halloween celebration to Cars Land. Radiator Springs became Radiator Screams, and “Haul-O-Ween” rolled off the production line. (John Lasseter designed these decorations that hang across the streets.)

It is, in one word, fabulous. Or maybe I mean faBOOlous. Incredible depth of detail. So creative and imaginative with so many fun little touches. I think it’s the best new decor Disney has done at the U.S. parks in years. (I haven’t seen Pandora yet.)

So how do cars celebrate Haul-O-Ween? I’m so glad you asked. They dress in “car-stumes”. Mater is a “van-pire”.

Lightning McQueen is a superhero.

DJ is a “trunk rocker”.

They go “Trunk-or-Treating”.

They decorate their homes. And just like we have our individual ways of decorating, so do they. At the entrance to town is Scary the Scare-car.

Mater’s Junkyard has been transformed into Mater’s Graveyard JamBOOree.

The baby tractor also wears a car-stume.

In the queue are lots of tombstones.

All of the songs are Haul-O-Ween themed. Several are new lyrics to old tunes (“Radiator Rock” is now “Lizzie’s Gone Witchy”), but there are two parodies of well-known Halloween songs: “Monster Truck Smash” (“Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett), and “Purple Fender Bender” (“Purple People Eater” by Sheb Wooley). Really clever – they made me laugh.

The Radiator Springs Drive-In is showing some interesting movies.

Sarge has a Pump-kin patch. You can also see one of the “car-achnids” that has infested Radiator Screams – there are 30 of them.

The cones of Sally’s Cozy Cone Motel have all been decorated with spooky faces.

Inside the office, Sally has a model of the Brake’s Motel made out of candy.

Lizzie has gone all-out in decorating her curio shop, where she sells “Boo-venirs”.

In front of the store is an old wrecked car. It’s been there a long time – there’s a tree growing out of it.

But apparently it has an undead battery that won’t let it “rust in peace.” The zombie car lights up and steams occasionally as it tries to get a jump on life. (And no, these are NOT the remains of Stanley!)

A giant spider web covers Flo’s V8 Cafe.

Just outside the entrance to the Cafe is the Spider-Car, which is a PhotoPass photo location. (The car used to be a Toadmobile.)

Ramone is celebrating Dia de los Muertos at his House of Body Art. Outside is “Sugar”, a sugar car decorated like a sugar skull.

Inside the shop there’s an “ofrenda” that celebrates Doc Hudson.

Luigi and Guido had never celebrated Haul-O-Ween in Italy, but now it’s their favorite holiday. They’ve constructed an orange and black tower of tires outside.

Luigi sings Haul-O-Ween versions of Italian festival songs in the new holiday version of his attraction “Luigi’s Honkin’ Haul-O-Ween”, such as “Haul-O-Ween Italiano.” “The Terror-antella” tells the story of how he and Guido built “Scary the Scare-car”, who can be seen at the entrance to Radiator Springs.

Next to Luigi’s is the “Horn-O-Plenty”. It was originally found on Haul-O-Ween night in 1936. Every year the citizens of Radiator Screams put it on display.

At night the courthouse seems to come to life. A mad scientist put jumper cables on the windows. 🙂

The Cadillac Range has new purple and green lighting at night. It looks appropriately spooky. No changes to Radiator Springs Racers.

At dusk, when the usual “Sha-Boom” Lighting Moment starts to take place, it’s interrupted by supernatural forces, and becomes “Sha-BOO!” instead. The Sheriff’s voice then welcomes everyone to Radiator Screams. The background music changes to a new soundtrack of Haul-O-Ween music for the rest of the night.

There is a surprisingly large selection of “Haul-O-Ween”-inspired food and beverage. It’s available only in Cars Land.

Fillmore’s has Van-pire Mater Bread – sourdough bread with cheese baked on top. I tried this and it’s quite good. $8.49.

Flo’s V8 Cafe offers a Car-achnid Pot Pie, Grape Ghoul-ant Shake, and Mini Candy Cone Pie.

I tried the pot pie, and it was really good. Chicken pot pie with dried cranberries inside in addition to vegetables and chunks of chicken. Nice flaky crust on top. Served with coleslaw for $11.49. I couldn’t eat it all.

There’s several items available at the Cozy Cones. The Slow-Burnin’ Mac and Cheese is served in a black cone.

The Spoke-y Cone Macaron is filled with marshmallow buttercream and candy corn.

Junkyard JamBOOree Mix is flavored popcorn with “nuts and bolts” – green M&M’s, candy corn, chocolate covered pretzels, Boston baked beans and so on.

The cones also have a souvenir spooky traffic cone beverage cup available.

There’s a lot to see in Radiator Screams, and it’s really a lot of fun!

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