From Zombos' Closet

Road to Mandalay Photograph

Road to Mandalay (1926) photograph courtesy of Professor Kinema.

Haunt Attraction: Nightmare: Superstitions in New York City

Zombos Says: Excellent (and don't go alone)

Now celebrating its seventh year, NIGHTMARE is a unique, fully immersive haunted house experience. Set in an insane asylum, NIGHTMARE: SUPERSTITIONS forces you to break a superstition in one room and suffer the terrible consequences in the next. AOL Cityguide’s No. 1 rated haunted attraction in New York City, it delves deep into the psychology of fear. Now featuring a second attraction, FUN HOUSE.

I'll second the "fully immersive" aspect of Nightmare: Superstitions' haunted attraction in New York City, but what is it with haunt attraction's fondness for huge, leather-aproned guys drenched in blood, holding meat cleavers and cuddling their kill in a meat-locker room filled with icky meaty things? Of course he singled me out--the short guy cowering in the corner--to kiss his pet rabbit carcass, the one drenched in icky red stuff saturating its fur. I tried blowing a love kiss, but no, that wasn't good enough. I had to actually kiss the damned thing. Gross barely describes the experience, and immersive just doesn't quite do it justice. Had I a bar of soap right then and there I'd be bubbling up a foamy cleanse to rinse that disgusting kiss from my lips. I thought getting in on a press ticket would have spared me the ignominy. Fat chance.

I can't really spill the beans about the chills and potential bodily spills--yours--that you'll encounter in Nightmare: Supersitions, but the actors, those poor lost souls doing their best to creep you big time throughout the various rooms of the Funhouse and the Asylum, are more than good at their tasks of involving you, uncomfortably, through your growing uncertainty and fear as you stumble warily through the dark and across each tableau. Along your journey you will meet Bloody Mary, become disoriented from strobing lights and unexpected movements, be irritated by incessant screams and jabberings from the damned (or the group ahead of you),  and blinded by utter darkness. The makeup effects are nauseatingly realistic and enhance the bedevilment.

I've become a bit jaded being a horror and haunt maven, but there is one effect this year I almost avoided by using the emergency exit (there are immediate exits in each room, just in case you're squemish).  It involves plunging yourself into the unknown, into pitch blackness, into something that completely envelopes you. The sensations I experienced in this stifling situation ranged from claustrophobic to really frightening.

I loved it.

Read my  experience with Nightmare: Face Your Fear.

 

Halloween Trick or Treaters Vintage Photograph

Ring the bells and mouth the yells, the bag o'treats starts to open
Don the mask and start the task of fresh Jack o'Lantern pokin'