Friday, October 07, 2016
New haunted houses plan to scare you before you even arrive
The Verge: Here at The Verge, we love Halloween and everything about it. Horror movies, non-horror seasonal movies, seasonal beverages, seasonal bots, this Pumpkin Guy, horrifying makeup tutorials, poop-shaped candy — bring it on. In particular, we love to be scared. It gives us a sweet little adrenaline burst to get us across the daunting dark tundra of November to April.
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11 comments:
The beginning of this article instantly gave me the chills. I am someone who scares remarkably easily. I still have nightmares from a manga horror link that I stupidly looked at about five years ago. My heart also jumped when the female started speaking, with an “ummm…” in the podcast. I had almost expected her to be a zombie jumping out on the podcast. She did seem very unexcited when introducing the podcast, though, which made me cringe a bit. I don’t understand people who love horror—I could never handle horror because my imagination is too powerful in my life; it is impossible for me to tell my brain to stop turning things such as darkness into my own walking horror movie, should my mind decide to do so. I often have to tell my boyfriend to come home early to ensure I will not be home alone at night. The alternate reality game mentioned in the podcast, the immersive horror experience, sounds awful. I cannot bring myself to watch a horror movie, and now I am imagining a horror virtual reality game. I respect the fact that that Bryan Bishop appreciates horror and is going off on his own to explore horror games and experiences and is not only captivated by horror but also wants to express horror as an art form. His comment about how the alternate reality game kind of ‘haunted’ him but in an exciting way—to the point where he went back—is something I could never understand, but I do admire his passion for horror as an art form, and I hope that he is successful in his pursuits.
Oh my gosh this article and podcast are absolutely terrifying. Hearing about the horror companies contacting you at all hours, allowing for your own horror to engross your imagination. The lot that they described the main horror experience on was 15,000sq ft. that is huge! I cannot imagine the production that it takes to create such a space. I found it fascinating that they did not describe it as a horror experience. After hearing about the creation of it all, it truly is. It is some sort of fusion between Disneyworld, a movie lot and an Escape room. Although it is considered as a haunted house by some, it is actually nothing like it. I am so interested in the production of experiences like these. Linking the horror of stalking with media to actualized horror experiences. It is astounding that this is able to be done, and that people pay for it! I would definitely not have the guts to sign up for one of these experiences but I'd be interested in participating in the creation of one to see how it all works on the inside.
I find horror a fascinating genre of art. It always interests me to listen to different ways things can scare us. Escape rooms and other immersive experiences are great opportunities to manipulate the audience member's conscious in order to scare them. Pittsburgh has a few escape rooms, and I'm sure there will be plenty of haunted houses to visit in the coming weeks. I've heard New Hazlett is supposed to be doing some sort of scary escape room around Halloween this year, which sounds interesting. In my mind, the designing of a controlled audience experience (like a haunted house or escape room) can always benefit from theatrical knowledge and expertise. Like Marisa, I was also intrigued by the horror makers who take the haunted house experience and broaden it to happen wherever you are. Regardless, horror experiences in all their forms are incredibly interesting in how they toy with our minds in order to induce fear. Maybe we should do a Halloween experience in Purnell; that could be fun. Could you imagine if Playground were around Halloween?
The way we humans obsess about fear and do insane things in order to induce fear in others is really interesting to me. I'll never understand why we as a culture love being scared so much, when there's so many terrifying things that happen in the real world already. I suppose that's part of it: because the real world is so scary in an unpredictable way, we scare ourselves on purpose with what we subconsciously know is controllable. This was so interesting because I feel like the more high-tech we get in our methods of scaring people, ironically we get further from the illusion of control while increasing our amount of control. I would argue that this is a great thing, not only because higher technology means more convincing scaring but because it reduces the risk of someone getting hurt and overall makes the fear experience more reliable and safe. I'm not sure if this same statement holds true in other themed-entertainment industries, but definitely for fear-related entertainment, higher tech means higher safety while also higher fear.
I’ve never really gotten the obsession with haunted houses. I get the adrenaline rush aspect of it but there are other ways to get that. It’s people’s willingness to put themselves through some truly bizarre and terrifying things that baffles me. After reading this article I looked around some more to find out about other high end haunted houses and my confusion remained. If you’re willing to let things ranging from fake kidnapping to borderline simulated torture happen to you why not just go for the other adrenaline junky activities? Wouldn’t those work better since with the haunted houses at some level you know its all fake, you know nothing too terrible is going to happen to you. At the same time while things like sky diving or bungie jumping are technically safe, you could still actually die or be seriously injured from them. If what you want is adrenaline wouldn’t that do a better job? This isn’t meant to say haunted houses shouldn’t exist, just that I personally don’t understand the draw.
I love haunted houses but I am also so scared of them!!! I don't like the ones where you are touched. That is too scary for me. The clowns that are following everyone around the country and Australia are having a FIELD day with these clown murderers. I feel like a lot of haunted houses will capitalize off the mass hysteria and paranoia of the American government - through the use of Clown Terrorists. It is an easy gimmick, but that shows the haunted house is lazy.
If I was ever approached by a murderous clown, I would definitely not stop my car. A lot of videos I have watched about the clown invasion have had these stupid civilians stopping their cars to look at the murder clowns? Or even getting OUT of the car!! Stupid. I would do a pretty cool, violent swerve move and take him out. If there were more clowns, perhaps then I would exit my vehicle and administer a few pretty cool high kicks. I am really good at kicking. But why would I exit arguably the largest weapon I know? What would anyone exit their own personal tank? Very silly people. I would survive the clownpacolypse. You can choose to be with me or against me.
I love the Halloween season, and every year I'll try and go to a haunted house if I can. Personally I'm really easily scared, so it wasn't until recently that I actually started to really enjoying the scarier haunted houses. At home there are multiple farms that produce haunted barns and hayrides every year, but I know this isn't the case everywhere. The idea of using a podcast as a way to scare people instead of a tradition haunted house is really smart, as it allows people who might have previously not have been able to go to one have a similar experience. Like Sam was saying, Escape the Room and other interactive haunted houses are especially interesting. Engaging your audience has the potential to make the experience even more scary than it was before. I know that I've always been the most scared when someone brought me into the actions on a haunted hay ride, so doing this where they would have to escape would bring it to the next level.
The experience before the experience is becoming more and more popular today for all types of entertainment. This year we’re doing a pre-show experience for the play I’m Very Into You at CMU. Pre-experience experiences are extremely popular in themed-entertainment. In fact, they are almost present 100% of the time in themed entertainment locations such as Disney and Universal. Even if the attraction is not part of a specific ‘land’ there is a queue line that takes you through the world of the environment that you’re about to enter and explains to you why you are there and what the purpose or conflict or subject matter that you’re about to be immersed in is all about. This pre-informs you about the experience to the extent that it becomes familiar to you and you are now a part of this world. I love that this haunted house is now doing the same- in an extremely immersive way. Haunted houses are under the umbrella of themed entertainment too.
Eep! It's that time of year again when haunted houses are coming up again! I've never been a huge fan of haunted houses, but I've always been fascinated and intrigued by them. There is so much work and research that has to be done in order to create a successful haunted house-- what people fear in that culture, what is the demographic of the crowd, and so on. I would love to be able to work on a haunted house one of these days as part of the scenic team; I think that set dressing something like a haunted house is half of the experience of the goer. It immerses the audience in the experience in so many more ways.
Pre and post show entertainment is something I value and respect greatly. At Halloween Horror Nights (Orlando, FL) they've done something very similar- that year's theme was the purge. Actors dressed in civilian clothing followed/chased park-goers all the way to their cars to continue the scaring from the moment they arrive to the moment they leave. What makes a successful pre-show experience? I believe a successful experience is when an audience member is introduced to the world of the show upon arrival and they even begin to engage before the "top of show" or when they enter the house in this case. The Halloween season is one of my favorites because I'm a huge horror junky. Horror is such a unique line of work that I would love to work in someday. I think it would be worth starting conversation about hosting something similar at CMU. A haunted house/horror themed experience would add breadth and depth to our education and prepare us for new fields of work
The concept of beginning the audience experience before the show even begins is something I have been thinking about a lot lately thanks to the Themed Entertainment design class that I am in. I think there are both pros and cons to this. The major pro is either you get to create some cool that will prepare people for the show that they are about to see. However, sometimes I feel that it is better if people came in with blank slate. Like I feel like there is high potential to over educate the audience to the point that they can predict the ending. Obviously this isn’t for everything. Like I think this is great for a haunted house, but maybe not for all shows. It also depends on what the experience is because if it is a simple game to keep you entertained in line while time passes I think that is totally cool.
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