Nightmare in New York City: 13 rooms of thrills
At the haunted houses known as “Nightmare,” you’ll see New Yorkers’ greatest fears
played out before your eyes.
Troy Melhus
November 1, 2006
NEW YORK – Be afraid. OK, not terribly afraid, not horribly afraid. But do be afraid—at least for a fun thrill or two.
Only in New York could you find a troupe (literally) devoted to scaring the daylights out of you. That’s the idea behind “Nightmare: Face Your Fear,” a collection of five haunted houses running through Thursday in New York’s five boroughs.
I first heard of “Nightmare” (www.hauntedhousenyc.com) from my Tribeca cousin, who’d heard good word-of-mouth about last year’s “Nightmare” from her fellow New York friends. The idea itself, now in its third year, is haunting: Creators polled New Yorkers for their 13 greatest fears—and then built a haunted tour around them.
Afraid of a prowler breaking into your room while you’re sleeping? (It’s a common one, known as scelerophobia). You’ll find a reenactment of that in front of you here.
Or how about the fear of the dark (lygophobia)? Enclosed places (claustrophobia)? Insects (entomophobia)? You’ll experience them all.
There are no ghosts and goblins here. Instead, New York actors dress the parts of murderous psychotics and victims, playing out scenes of these phobias and anxieties in a 13-room, 20-minute tour—unlike any haunted house I’ve experienced.
On my recent tour, for example, wesaw a bit of everything: a young woman murdered by drowning; a member of 12-person group tied to chair and tortured, as well as a bit of nothing (we ended up standing in a dark room for what felt to be some 10 minutes).
We stood in a room as the walls closed in and felt blood splatter as we were stalked by goons with aluminum baseball bats.
Scary? At times, you bet. The sets were well designed and images—from the costumes to the lighting—certainly left impressions. These weren’t just your neighborhood Jaycees donning sheets and masks.
Like with any haunted house efforts, the execution (pun intended) of every last detail at times left something to be desired. (It never really felt like insects were crawling up our legs as intended, for example; and standing in the dark for as long as we did almost felt as if we’d just been abandoned on our tour).
But how can you complain? Where else can you pay to have the daylights like this scared out of you—and have cocktails and buy souvenirs of your experience after you’re done?
It’s no wonder word of mouth continues to spread through the city—and why the tours continue to sell out.
Good scares are hard to come by—and “Nightmare” has found quite a few of them.