The creepiest Haunted House ever

One inspiration for the NYC Haunted House

It’s not Halloween yet, but I’ve already experienced as much terror as I’d like this season.

A weekend visitor suggested that we be festive Saturday night and visit one of New York’s many haunted houses. There are quite a few options in NYC — we chose to stick with the basic “Haunted House” in the Vortex Theater on Eleventh Avenue.

It may have a standard name, but this haunted house is not like the ones I remember from childhood with ghostly laughter, things popping out at you and fake blood. Instead, it was a hybrid of Guantanamo and The Ring, a place and a movie that f***ing terrify me. Would you pay to crawl through the dark, be handcuffed, have a bag put over your head, and then have strangers sniff your behind?  Um, I did.

Here’s my description. There are spoilers so you might not want to read on if you plan to attend.

***

First: You go through alone. No clutching a companion for comfort. Out of my group of four, I went last. I stood on an X on the floor and was given a surgical mask and a shot of whiskey. One of my friends was on an X just before the entrance. My whiskey server left me to stare at three caged white mice while he prepped my friend, which consisted of putting plastic bands around his wrists.

Second: I proceed to the second X. I am asked if I remember the safety word in case I freak out inside and need to be helped. I’m asked if I read the rules and signed the waiver. He tells me I have to follow a white line through the haunted house and that I should not stray from it. Plastic bands are put around my wrists and I’m reminded I’m not allowed to talk while inside but that I am allowed to scream. I’m given a “flashlight” which is basically a little red dot. Whiskey server leads me inside.

Third: It’s very dark inside — the “walls” are black plastic which kill all light and undulate eerily.  I can barely see the white line on the floor and remark to the whiskey server that my flashlight is not bright enough to see it. “I guess you have to crawl,” he says and leaves me alone there. I get on my hands and knees and crawl along the white line, not able to see more than a foot ahead of me. As I turn a corner, it gets light enough that I can see the line while standing, so I stand up. But as I do, someone rushes up behind me and PUTS A BAG OVER MY HEAD.

Fourth: Now I can’t see anything. The guy grabs my arms and starts making me walk forward. “Step up,” he barks, as we go up stairs. I gingerly take the steps and have to hold onto his arms to keep from tripping. Then he turns me around. “Put your hands behind your back,” he barks. Then he handcuffs me using the plastic bands on my wrists. I am now freaking handcuffed with a bag over my head.

Fifth: The guy then puts another bag over my head, playing with my hair as he does it. Then people start prodding me, poking me, touching my legs, my arms, my back, my head. I feel humiliated. There’s also a sado-masochistic sexual element to it all. Another bag goes over my head. It’s becoming harder to breathe. Then I’m left alone.

Sixth: I stand there for a full minute. Handcuffed. In the dark. Breathing shallowly. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now. I’m afraid to walk because I know there are steps. Are they coming back, I wonder. Are they standing there, watching me. I fidget and try to get out of the handcuffs. My abusive guard  comes back, snips off my handcuffs, takes hold of me roughly and marches me out of wherever I am. “Step down,” he barks. “Step down.”  I have to again hold his arms for fear of tripping. That vulnerability and dependence on him was terrible in and of itself. The bags are removed from my head and I’m left alone in the dark again.

Seventh: I have to get back down on my hand and knees and crawl. Once again, I get to a point where it’s light enough to stand. This time, I know that terror awaits. Again, I’m accosted from behind. “Get up against the wall,” a new voice barks. “Put your hands on the wall.” I assume the position of someone about to be arrested, and get frisked. This was not the airport frisking I’m accustomed to. The Haunted House dude ran his hands over my rib cage and stuck his nose into the back of my neck and started sniffing. Then he ran his hands up and down my legs, and sniffed again at my back where my shirt met my pants. He ran his hands over my arms, took my flashlight, and then disappeared.

Eighth: Now, I’m in the dark without my flashlight. Was he supposed to take that, I wonder. What am I supposed to do now? I can barely see the white line and get down on my hands and knees again. I don’t crawl far before I get to a door. I enter a room and the white line leads me past a bedroom where a figure with long, dark hair is rocking in a chair. It was creepy and very Ring/The Grudge-esque. In a usual haunted house, you would see this creepy scene and move on. But at the end of the room, I try to open the door to exit. It won’t open. It’s padlocked. When I turn around, the dark-haired figure is standing right behind me. For the first time, I scream.

Ninth: It’s a man with a painted face wearing a flimsy white robe. I don’t want to look too closely. In a high voice, he says, “I have the key, pretty thing.” I know it’s an actor. I’m torn between laughing and being seriously creeped out. The key is around his wrist. He leans in and says again in a high voice, “All you have to do is ask for it.”

“Can I please have the key?” I ask, playing along. He stands close to me, leaning in toward my ear. I realize I’m cowering against the wall and having flashbacks to Silence of the Lambs. “Say pretty please with a cherry on top,” he says, in the girlish voice. I comply, and with some tugging, get the key. I hate to turn my back on him, but I have to in order to bend over and undo the padlock. When I do, he leans over me and says in a deep voice. “Yes, put it in the hole. I want you to put it in the hole.” I open it as fast as I can, and he holds the door shut until I hand the padlock and key back to him.

Tenth: I have to crawl again through a tiny dark tunnel. As I am about to emerge, something comes running up from behind, and I scream one last time before exiting.

***

I didn’t know that’s what I would be paying ten bucks for. Here’s the write up of the haunted house that I read beforehand in the New York Times:

Things are much, much more low-tech across town at the Vortex Theater Company’s house at the Meisner, which you go through alone. As it did at the off-season haunted house it mounted five months ago, this group demonstrates that it knows the power of just making you sit in a chair in the pitch dark. This time, though, there’s an added touch, a cross between the treatments you might get from a dominatrix and an executioner. It’s an unnerving solitary confinement.

Rules posted at the door warn you not to touch the actors, but that doesn’t stop them from touching you. They’re too timid when they do, though; it’s a bit of a letdown.

via Theater Review – ‘Nightmare – Vampires’ and ‘Haunted House’ – Two Seasonal Houses of the Unholy at the NoHo Event Center and the Sanford Meisner Theater – NYTimes.com.

A letdown? NYT reviewer Neil Genzlinger must be a former POW. Or maybe the Haunted Housers went easy on him knowing he was from the Times. (They did know. I asked them when I went.)

Usually, the scariest part about Halloween for me is picking out a costume. I’m terrible at planning ahead. Last year, I tried to turn my Wall Street Journal into my costume, but it kept ripping and my Halloween cohorts thought it was lame. They were non-journalists and thus were either unimpressed by “the terror of the death of print” or doubted that a newspaper taped around my body served to suggest that particular theme.

But this haunted house supplants that as the scariest part of Halloween this year. I must admit that I enjoyed it, as creepy as the experience was. I love thrills and chills. But the detainee-esque experience and having strangers put their hands all over my body was seriously disturbing, and not something I will forget for many Halloweens to come.

INFORMATION FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO BE SIMILARLY CREEPED OUT: Haunted House through October 31, 2009; Tickets $12 (or $20 for VIP tickets that let you skip the line) at the Vortex Theater, 164 Eleventh Avenue.