Showing posts with label Fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fear. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
The Language of Fear
I know not what show this is, I know not what ethical waivers the producers may have entered or what these, for lack of a better word, contestants may have known going in. I know not what anyone here in this clip from Brazil is saying, but I know one thing.
They are scared.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Frightworld Night
In Western New York, it may be taking our weather longer than it should to chill from summer, but we are getting there. The leaves have turned, started to fall. But so far this October, I have not felt October-- at least as strongly as I should have when I start to see pumpkins for sale and ghosts in windows. Tonight fixed all of that for me-- with a visit to Frightworld, our annual trip to one of the best experiences of fear you can have.
I was lucky enough to have the chance to talk with the man behind Frightworld earlier this season, to see what new things we could expect with the haunt-- which made us here at the Ghost that much more excited to see what would lie in the haunted houses this year. One of my personally best loved features of Frightworld is the ever-evolving journey of the haunts from year to year. Every fall, Frightworld offers something new, innovative-- whether that be in the actors, mazes or an entirely never-before-seen haunt. And every year there are pieces of Frightworld's history still very much a perfectly connected within the haunts. Think coming out of a new maze of cornstalks you've never traversed before, winding among the scarecrows, to meet the eeriely wonderful Headless Horseman you came to love in years past.
This year was no exception. At a new location not far from the former, Frightworld this year has multiple new houses like the backwoods, masked wearing terrors of "Condemned" and what was my stand-out favorite of the night, "Eerie State Asylum." In Frightworld, fear is found in many a place at first thought unlikely but is in reality ideal-- like a secluded, watery cave in one of the new haunts. Across the houses, old and new, I was thrown right into what I love about Frightworld, and what Frightworld gets so right about fear. Many of the houses have superbly talented and dressed actors and incredible props and effects-- but still work in time to use some of the simpler tricks of the trade which work hand in hand together to create fear: walking in the dark, sometimes alone, through a maze, not knowing what is around the next corner, or who, or where that corner may be. Or when the claustropbia of the balloon walls will end, and when-- or if-- you will make it out alive. (And, yes, Stephen was right: they are longer this year. And something else, too.)
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| The H H Richardson Complex, formerly the Buffalo State Asylum. |
Without a doubt, what impressed me the most this year about Frightworld was "Eerie State Asylum." What so often is a part of what puts Frightworld a step above the rest is the local roots the attraction has, roots which can clearly be seen in the "Erie State Asylum" house. Any haunted attraction can give you a haunted house, or creepy woods. Only Frightworld has given me a house based on Buffalo's H. H. Richardson Complex, a building built in 1870 as the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane. The Asylum, which operated until the 1970s is without a doubt haunted in likely many forms. If you ever pass the building by, which sat empty and neglected for decades until recent projects have hopefully begun to revive it, you know. Just looking at the towers, the imposing structure of the building, you feel what happened there. The sadness, the terror, the fear of the unknown. Volumes of local lore and ghost stories have been told, time and again, throughout the years. In fact, the Buffalo State Asylum is likely one of Buffalo's biggest ghosts. I have long had a deep, personal connection to the building, one that has lead me to do a great deal of research on the place and its history-- research that will appear later this month here on the blog. To walk in and see one of the haunts made out with a complete recreation of the fomer Buffalo Asylum Building-- complete with lights flashing in windows, and the famous bronze green of the asylum's towers (made, I would come to find out, of actual bronze)-- was, and is, something special. And that was just the outside. The inside of the haunt excelled.... but I promise not to spoil the outside or what lies within here.
Whatever the weather outside may be, if it is not yet quite as cool, calm, windy as October will become so very shortly-- this is October. Within the walls of Frightworld lies October, in all of its pumpkin flickering, heart racing, chainsaw weilding, bump in the night, ghost story glory. For all the fear, for all the October-- thank you, Frightworld, for bringing us Halloween.
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| Two ghosts, Bryan and Laura, on either end of Frightworld's GM, Stephen Szortyka |
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Frightworld 2012
No, it doesn't feel like it is Halloween until I've stepped foot into one of our local haunted house attractions, of which I am fortunate enough to have a few in my area (as I have written about in the past.) This year, I was able to go to Frightworld on opening night. My friend and I wondered, before going, if opening night just before the start of October would mean wall to wall people, or if the place would be completely dead in every sense of the word. In the end, we concluded it would likely be dead.
Were we ever wrong. Frightworld on opening night was mobbed with people-- mostly young kids in their early teens. I do prefer not having to wait in line for twenty minutes before going into each house; but, there was just something exciting about being there with so many people excited for Halloween, looking forward to being scared.As a review of a house, Frightworld was again in the same location this year, and was mostly the same. There were some minor tweaks, such as the elimination of the Headless Horseman (who I was always partial to) in "Wicked Woods" and the introduction of quite a few feet of fencing in that house (which clearly felt like filler, and truly served no point.) In the haunt, you are walking through an outdoor woods/cemetery setting, and walking through cabins, and you walk out of one of the cabins into this stretch of yard fencing. One or two of the actors from last year were back, and they were among the better ones- which I appreciated. There is a woman playing a character dressed as a young girl, sitting on a bed and playing with dolls, who has mastered a voice and air so creepy- I cannot do justice to it with words. "Do you want to play with me?"
And, yes, the balloon rooms, which I have blogged about in the past, remain the single thing about the attractions that get my heart beating the fastest. Stepping into the dark, feeling the walls, floor and ceiling close around you, until you are encased on all sides and your personal space taken over by the balloon-like walls and ceilings you have to make it through. That is fear. I believe that this is year three of my experiencing them, and every time I do, the long stretch at the end makes me question whether or not I'll make it through, that the fear will never end. And a haunted house could not ask for a better result.One minor qualm about Frightworld this year. Even though your ticket is hole punched over each house as you go into them, and cut in half at the end, you are not allowed to even keep the mutilated ticket to take a picture of, to post on your write up of the night on your Halloween-themed blog. And that is why I don't have any pictures but their logos.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
More fear...
As I wrote about in my previous post, when we went to the Haunted Catacombs a few weeks back, a brainstorming session afterward led to the idea that the perfect haunted house incorporated a simple house, being outside, with preferably a cemetery. Frightworld's "Wicked Woods" seemed to walk right out of our talks, and had us walking through complete darkness, to a forest, to a cemetery in a forest, to a house.
And several more things managed to scare me. I appreciated how well the houses relied on complete darkness. Simple, easy, but so very effective, walking through complete darkness is the perfect build up to some good scares. One of their houses also perfectly executed a claustrophobic feeling, walking through rows of hanging laundry in what appeared to be an attic. Claustrophobia was also very well used with the use of those now famous balloon walls which have, until now, pressed against you from the left and right. Tonight, I went through my first room where the wall was the ceiling, and gradually went down farther and farther- until you were on your hands and knees. Very disturbing. Very unsettling, indeed.
One last bit of note, what made these houses were the actors. They weren't all focused on simply jumping out and you and making you jump that way, but a woman dressed as a girl sitting on a bed in a room full of dolls with creepy voice and another woman singing to herself in the corner provided for more creepiness and frights than if they had simply jumped out at us. And chainsaws. How could I forget the chainsaw men.
Oh, how I love to be scared. As with so many October things, I wish these came more than once a year.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Some more fear
And now for something a bit light-hearted. These photos of people at Nightmare Fear Factory in Niagara Falls, Canada have been making the viral rounds on the Internet. Shot of a number of visitors at a certain point in the haunted house attraction, these show some of the-- shall we say, interesting-- reactions humans have to express their fear. I don't know if I find other people frightened amusing, but what does interest me most about this is wondering what, exactly, is in the bottom corner of the room that would elicit such good reactions.
Seems like a possibly decent horror writer's workshop prompt to me.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
What are you afraid of?
I do believe I'm starting October off in many of the right ways, even if the house decorating is woefully behind schedule. Tonight, I visited one of our local haunted houses, the House of Horrors and Haunted Catacombs in Buffalo, NY. A yearly feature of my life since childhood/adolescence, the Catacombs and other area haunted houses have been a highlight of my seasonal celebrations. There are few things like the air beginning to chill and sky darker sooner, and the houses opening-- bringing the fun of the scare.
Last year, the Catacombs took a year off, and naturally I was looking forward to going with my friend Laura and seeing what they had come up with during the year off. I wrote a post similar to this last year, and talked about how I'd rather not spoil certain scares or new techniques for anyone out there who may have yet to experience them-- suffice it to say, I was eerily surprised and pleased by a scare consisting of a video, a zombie and a shotgun. And I remain petrified of the balloon walls you have to walk through as they press against you; for they bring out a claustrophobia I'm not usually familiar with the moment I'm between them.
While some of the houses left a few things to be desired (or relied too heavily on strobe-lighting), all in all, my experience at the Catacombs was a good one. We shall see how it compares to the other area houses, which I plan on consuming sometime soon this month. As we left, my friend and I brainstormed the best elements to a haunted house-- what worked, what didn't. For us, the classic theme of a house haunted is best-- with some outdoor woodsy, cemetery scenes preferred. Strobe lights would be kept to a minimum-- and never relied on-- with more spaced out scares, to never become too predictable. And the actors and props should leave the haunted house visitor some time-- not too much-- to take in all the scenery around she or he. Some rooms were spectacularly decorated, and I'd wished we'd had time to look at some more of the detail before screaming and/or running out with a scare.So. My question this evening. What are you afraid of? What makes a good haunted house for you?
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Want to see something really scary?
Halloween. The season when we celebrate the end of the harvest, the end of summer, the end of life as the cold sets in-- and the fear which accompanies.Last night, a friend and I went haunted housing, at Frightworld Screampark in Buffalo, New York. I always forget how much I love to be scared. On the perfect, breezy leaf falling October night, there is nothing like going to your local obstacle course of fear. I love to be jolted by a costumed performer jumping out from a corner, unexpected, screaming and making my heart jump.
I'm always surprised when there is something in one of these houses that genuinely scares me. As we came to the end of one of the first houses at Frightworld, we walked from darkness right into what can only be described as blown up plastic, on both sides, that we had to walk through. Think of two big, black bounce house walls pressing at you from both sides, taller than you are, making you push through in the dark.
And it kept going. There was nothing but darkness, and just when you thought it would let up, and you would walk out into light-- it kept going. To the point where the claustrophobia makes irrational thoughts leap around your head, and you begin a light panic, thinking that if this keeps going on any longer, you won't be able to breathe. You won't be able to breathe, and you will be stuck in this painfully cramped space...
When I came out, I knew I'd gotten my money's worth. And that's what Halloween is all about, Charlie Brown. Fear.
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