Memphis, Tennessee. October 15th, 2024.

A 23-year-old urban explorer named Jamal Carter stands outside the abandoned Regal Theater on South Main Street and hits record on his camera.

“What’s up, y’all? It’s your boy Jamal back with another explore. Today, we’re checking out one of Memphis’s most haunted locations, the Regal Theater, right here in the South Main Arts District. This place closed in 1996, 28 years abandoned. And according to local legends, people hear screaming coming from Theater 7 at night.”

Jamal has been doing urban exploration for 2 years, filming abandoned buildings across Memphis and posting videos to YouTube and TikTok. He’s got 47,000 subscribers. Not enough to quit his job at FedEx. This is Memphis. Everyone works at FedEx, but enough to buy decent camera equipment and pay for gas to explore forgotten places across the Midsouth.

He’s not afraid of abandoned buildings. He’s explored the old Sears Crosstown before they renovated it. The abandoned Lynen Avenue train station, empty houses in Orange Mound. He wears proper safety gear, respirator mask, steel-toed boots, gloves. He checks floors before walking on them. He’s careful, but the Regal Theater makes him nervous. He’s been putting this explore off for 6 months. Every urban explorer in Memphis has a story about this place, about hearing voices in Theater 7, about cameras malfunctioning, about feeling like someone’s watching you from the seats even though the building is empty.

Jamal doesn’t believe in ghosts. He believes in views. And a haunted theater in downtown Memphis that’s guaranteed to hit 100,000 views minimum, maybe more if he gets good footage.

The Regal Theater sits on South Main between Hooling and G Patterson. It’s a beautiful building from the outside. Art Deco facade from 1947. Built right after World War II when downtown Memphis was thriving. Back then, this was the place black folks went to see movies during segregation. This was their theater, their space. The building has seven theaters inside. In the 70s and 80s, it showed black exploitation films. Shaft, Superfly, Foxy Brown. In the 90s, it pivoted to horror movies trying to survive as downtown Memphis declined. They converted Theater 7 into a special horror experience room. Props, decorations, actors, and costumes on premier nights.

Then in September 1996, the theater closed. Suddenly, no warning, just locked the doors one day and never reopened. The owner, a white man named Gerald Briggs, died in 1998. His son Mitchell inherited the property but never did anything with it. Just let it sit empty for 26 years while the South Main Arts District slowly gentrified around it.

Now, in 2024, Mitchell Briggs finally sold the property. A developer bought it 3 months ago. Plans to renovate it into a boutique hotel. But first, someone needs to document what’s inside before demolition starts next month. That someone is Jamal.

He walks around to the back alley. Finds a service door with a broken lock. He’s wearing gloves. He pushes the door open carefully. It creaks loud. The sound echoes. He’s in a back hallway, dark, narrow. His flashlight cuts through the darkness. The walls are covered in graffiti. Tags from other urban explorers going back years. Memphis 2008 explored 2015. “Don’t go to Theater 7” spray painted in red.

Jamal films everything. His camera is chest-mounted hands-free so he can climb and explore safely while recording. “Alright, y’all. We’re inside. You can see this place is trashed. Graffiti everywhere. Smells like mold and I don’t know, chemicals. Something sharp. Let’s check out the lobby first before we get to Theater 7.”

The lobby is massive. Or it was massive. Now it’s a ruin. The carpet is black with water damage and mold. The concession stand is gutted, copper pipes torn out by scrappers. Movie posters from the ’90s still hang on the walls, faded and peeling, waiting to exhale. Dead Presidents, Tales from the Hood.

Jamal films it all. Narrates what he sees. Keeps his voice steady even though something about this place feels wrong. The temperature is too cold for October in Memphis. The shadows seem darker than they should be. And that chemical smell is getting stronger as he walks deeper into the building. “Man, y’all can probably smell this through the screen. I don’t know what that is. Kind of like a hospital smell. Anyway, I’m going to check out the theaters. There’s seven of them. I’m saving Theater 7 for last because that’s the one everyone talks about.”

Theaters 1 through 6 are all the same. Rows of seats torn up. Foam spilling out. Screens vandalized or torn down completely. Projection booths stripped of all equipment. Nothing unusual, just normal urban decay.

Then Jamal reaches Theater 7. The doors are different. Heavy metal. Not the regular wooden doors the other theaters have. There’s a faded sign above the entrance. Horror Experience. Enter if you dare. Est. 1984.

Jamal pushes the doors open. They creak loud enough to make him jump. The sound echoes through the empty building. Inside, Theater 7 is pitch black, darker than the other theaters. Jamal’s flashlight barely cuts through the darkness. He can see shapes. The walls are painted black. Decorations everywhere. Fake cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. Plastic skeletons. A mannequin dressed as Freddy Krueger stands in one corner. Another dressed as Jason Vorhees near the emergency exit.

“Okay, y’all, this is Theater 7, the infamous horror room. You can see they really committed to the theme. This is actually pretty dope. Very ’90s horror aesthetic. I’m loving this.”

Jamal walks down the center aisle slowly, films the seats, films the torn screen, films the horror movie props scattered around. His flashlight sweeps across the back of the theater. That’s when he sees it.

A glass display case 6 ft tall, 3 ft wide, sitting against the back wall behind the last row of seats. Inside the case is a figure, a black man, mid-20s, dressed in tattered, bloody clothes like a horror movie victim. His skin is grayish brown. His eyes are closed. His mouth is open in a scream. His hands are pressed against the glass from the inside like he’s trying to push it open.

There’s a placard on the front of the case. “Original prop from Chamber of Horrors 1989. In memory of Terrell Jackson, forever part of the show.”

Jamal walks closer, films it. “Yo, check this out. This is insane. Look at the detail on this prop. The skin texture looks so real. The hair looks real. Even the fingernails look real. This must have cost a fortune to make back in the ‘90s. This is like movie quality special effects.”

He circles the case slowly. Films from every angle. The figure inside looks incredibly realistic. The skin has visible pores. The hair is still attached to the scalp in patches. Looks like real human hair, not a wig. The hands have visible fingerprints on the glass. There’s even a gold tooth visible when you look at the open mouth.

“Man, whoever made this really understood anatomy. This is probably the most realistic horror prop I’ve ever seen. The detail is crazy.”

Jamal reaches out like he’s going to touch the glass, then stops himself. “I’m not going to touch it. Don’t want to damage it. This is probably worth a lot of money to horror movie collectors.”

He films for another minute. Gets close-ups of the face, the hands, the sign. Then he backs away.

“Alright, y’all. That’s Theater 7, the haunted horror room. I didn’t hear any screaming. Didn’t see any ghosts, but that prop is genuinely creepy. Props to whoever made that back in ’96. No pun intended.”

Jamal explores the rest of the building, the projection rooms, the manager’s office, the basement. He spends three hours inside, gets tons of footage, everything he needs for a great video. He leaves through the same back door as the sun starts setting, drives home to his apartment in Midtown, uploads all the footage to his computer, starts editing.

Before we continue, let me tell you what happened after Jamal posted that video…