“We came to the conclusion that we wanted to have a physical space,” Brooklyn Horror Society cofounder Julia Specht told me on Friday.

After operating near the Gowanus canal at Lucky 13 Saloon, a horror cinema is coming to Bushwick: the Brooklyn Horror Society plans to open Negative Space Cinema, a movie theater and bar, later this year after inking a lease in late July.

Specht estimates a fast buildout and an opening in September or October, inside the space that used house the jazz bar and performance space Umbra (785 Hart St.). Umbra had been open from May 2024 to January 2026, during which it hosted, among other events, a marathon reading of The Bell Jar and a notable campaign appearece from Zohran.

Specht, with a background in theater, started his Brooklyn Horror Society in 2023, along with David Haber and husband Adam Langlois. The group is making the move to Bushwick to create a more permanent “community space that is very much about welcoming everyone, bringing everyone together.” To do so, they’re bringing along Madeleine Koestner, who programs the wayward microcinema Box Set.

On fitting into Bushwick, Specht said, “The number [of local businesses] that have reached out to us, totally unsolicited… that just tells me that we are on the same wavelength as the other small businesses operating in the area.”

Until this move north, they’ve mostly operated around Gowanus, where they’ve hosted Cube showings, trivia and drag, and a Saw-A-Thon fundraiser (where, Specht confirmed, multiple filmgoers sat through every single Final Destination). They intend to do the same in Bushwick. Per Specht: “A spot that you can walk into and know that anyone who’s there is into horror, just like you are, so you have something to talk about immediately.”

She added: “And if you’re someone’s boyfriend, or something, and you got dragged to this, you’ll still have a good time.”

It’ll help fill out the North Brooklyn cinema scene, among genre-specific cinema like Ridgewood’s Union Docs (3-52 Onderdonk Ave.) and the arthouse Light Industry (361 Stagg St.) and Syndicated (40 Bogart St.), among others.