When I was in college I went to a haunted house. I also went to one in high school and one when I was in third grade. The whole experience was generally terrifying, and despite my love of horror movies and all things Halloween, I vowed to never go again.
This year my husband tricked me into going in the name of family fun, and promised that if I survived we could go see the original Nightmare on Elm Street (Johnny Depp in a half shirt), which was showing at a recently restored theater in the city.
To my absolute horror I found out we weren’t going to some small little haunted house either. It was Dream Reapers, A big, scary haunted house with Yelp reviews and more actors than animatronics. The kind where people chase you through the parking lot because they think it’s funny to hear you scream and watch you run. The kind I had successfully spent years avoiding.
When we got to the haunted house we stood in line, and I looked down at my shoes. I had very appropriately decided to wear my Nightmare heels from Iron Fist (hoping to find a rogue Freddy for the perfect photo op), and was suddenly standing in line in the cold, then standing in line inside. Then jumping out of the way when a not actually fake werewolf moved, pushing me towards a panic attack and the sudden realization I had to pee.
Then at the theater no one was dressed like Freddy Krueger, so I didn’t even get my perfect photo op.
This year my husband tricked me into going in the name of family fun, and promised that if I survived we could go see the original Nightmare on Elm Street (Johnny Depp in a half shirt), which was showing at a recently restored theater in the city.
To my absolute horror I found out we weren’t going to some small little haunted house either. It was Dream Reapers, A big, scary haunted house with Yelp reviews and more actors than animatronics. The kind where people chase you through the parking lot because they think it’s funny to hear you scream and watch you run. The kind I had successfully spent years avoiding.
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| Where's Freddy when you need him? |
Now there was a big line with monsters jumping around in it, strobe lights, almost no actual light, people pushing, small, frightened children, and I came to the realization that if a heart attack didn’t kill me, then I’d probably trip on my heels in the dark and be eaten by whatever horrors were behind the carefully guarded door (or trampled by small, frightened children).
Did I mention there were over 20 rooms of my nightmare to get through without panicking, passing out, being killed or tripping? And in the event someone started chasing me, I planned on just throwing up my arms and letting them axe me. Why ruin a pair of good shoes and die in terror?
As I steered my husband through each room, with a firm grip on his coat I almost fell and died about 400 time. Between ramps, stuff on the floor, people jumping at you from all sides, strobe lights, a room that moved, an elevator that moved, more jumping, and one guy who asked if he could cut off my legs and keep them (probably for my shoes), it’s a miracle I made it out alive.
Maybe I’ll have to go back to the haunted house next year and take pictures of my shoes with all the monsters and demons. I’ve survived once, so I can probably get through again.
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