On a Thursday evening in mid-October, when the light over the Missouri River bottoms has gone the color of a bruised plum, a screen will flicker to life at the edge of a park south of Omaha. Cars will nose into their spots, hatches will pop, and FM radios will tune to a station announced at the gate. This is Falconwood Fright Nights, the annual Halloween-season run of outdoor horror screenings at Falconwood Park in Bellevue, and on October 15, 2026, the feature is Obsession.
The evening is billed as a Date Night, and the park leans into the theme. Gates open at 5:30 p.m.; the movie begins at dusk. Before the film rolls, there is a Nicki Impressions contest. Food trucks and Falconwood's own concessions will be serving hot food, popcorn, candy, and snacks, and the bar is fully stocked for anyone 21 and over. The park has a habit of spiking its Icees with the spirit of your choice, a small house specialty that has become a favorite among regulars.
There are two ways to watch. A Car Viewing ticket lets you take in the film from your own vehicle; parking staff will direct you to pull in forward or backward depending on your preference, and you can listen through your car radio or roll down the windows and sit in the back of the truck bed with the full outdoor theater audio washing over you. Car Viewing spaces are first come, first parked, and they are limited by the number of spots that give a good sightline to the screen — once they sell out, only Park & Walk passes remain. Park & Walk guests park along the guard rail and back lot and walk up to the grassy viewing area in front of the cars, so bringing lawn chairs and blankets is encouraged. Every person needs a ticket, children 4 and under are free, and no outside alcohol is permitted. Films are subject to parental discretion.
Tickets for the evening have been listed at $7.98, with taxes and fees included. The event is scheduled to run from 5:30 to 10:00 p.m., though the exact end depends on when the sun goes down and how long the movie runs.
What makes the night unusual is the venue itself. Falconwood Park is a family-owned and operated arts and entertainment property, about ten minutes south of downtown Omaha. It hosts weddings along with concerts, festivals, camping, and outdoor movies. Its drive-in is one of only a handful of such screens left in Nebraska.
The park's story begins in 2010, when Brandon Miller, then the bassist for the R&B group the Kris Lager Band, went looking for a place to stage a small music festival. His Hullabaloo Music Festival spent its first two years in Elkhorn, but it outgrew the space with nowhere to expand. Mark Grubbs of the Blues Society of Omaha suggested Miller look at Sokol Park in Bellevue, a 26-acre campground just off Highway 75. Miller started producing Hullabaloo there in 2013, and he and his father bought the property in 2016, renaming it Falconwood Park.
Then came the water. In March 2019, the Platte and Missouri rivers converged on the park. Miller has described sitting at a gas station across the street with his grandfather, drinking Busch Lights and watching the water rise because there was nothing else to do. Floodwaters peaked around nine feet, two inches inside the main lodge — a stain from that level is still visible on the reconstructed wall. The floods caused an estimated $3.4 billion in damage across Nebraska. At Falconwood, the stage was gone, the drive-in equipment was lost, and the RV park could not be rebuilt right away. Miller's priority that year was simply getting the venue reopened so that a season's worth of brides would not lose their wedding site.
Just as the park was finding its footing again, the pandemic arrived in March 2020. Miller saved what he could and got the wedding venue and concert area running. In May 2020, Falconwood hosted one of the first concerts to happen in the area after the shutdown — a drive-in show, with audiences in their cars. The drive-in itself took longer to restore, but when it came back it came back bigger: a brand-new permanent 50-foot screen. In its first year of movies, the park sold out nearly every showing.
The floods also turned out to be, in the park's own phrasing, a blessing in a very muddy disguise. After the 2019 spring floods, Falconwood was able to expand its grounds and acquire the neighboring Gene Eppley Camp and Retreat Center and acreage, previously owned and operated by the Salvation Army. Those campgrounds were renovated into a modern camping experience, with glamping cabins updated in 2020 — cabins the park now suggests as a place to crash after a drive-in movie. The grounds include shaded green spaces, sand volleyball, badminton, horseshoes, and a playground.
Falconwood has since become home to the Outlandia Music Festival and Hippie Fest, and it has added a fall counterpart to its long-running adult summer camp: Camp Hulla-BOO-loo, a 21-and-over Halloween camp weekend scheduled for October 16 through 18, 2026, right on the heels of the Obsession screening. Its activities include apple archery, pumpkin carving, hayrack rides, a Monster Mash dance party, and a talent show.
Fright Nights itself runs from late September through the end of October, a season of horror films shown under the open sky. The October 15 Date Night is one entry in that run — a Thursday screening with a contest, a bar, and a screen big enough to be seen from the back of a pickup. It is the kind of event that only works because a family spent years rebuilding a flooded park into something people would drive to Bellevue to see.