For the past few weeks, NYC straphangers have been subjected to disturbing ads in the subway: a large poster featuring the vein riddled face of a little girl, with large eyes and no pupils (thoughtful graffiti artists have added them in some stations, normally crossed, or using chewing gum). The unsettling image is promoting Nightmare, "NYC's Original Haunted House".
Nightmare is the brainchild of Tim Haskell, director of the recent Corey Feldman Off-Broadway play "Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy" and of Paris Hilton Spoof "I Love Paris", and who also created and directed the Halloween Adventure Haunted House. Numerous producers (including some involved in the recent downtown hits "Bug" and "Orson's Shadow") and designers have created thirteen rooms featuring live actors in various tableaus of horror. The show is billed as "More David Lynch than John Carpenter", aiming for psychological freak outs rather than gory thrills.
I'll be blunt: I am not a horror fan. I'm not squeamish in particular, and I'm certainly not adverse to the macabre, but I don't care for sudden shocks or violent imagery. I was therefore a little nervous if about if I'd make it all the way through the advertised 25 minutes of Nightmare. As the website subtly puts it, "This isn't a theme park ride. The whole purpose is to scare the s*** out of you". I was somewhat relived, but also disappointed, to discover myself, erm, unsoiled upon leaving the winding corridors.
I won't give away too much content here. To be fair, the tour was still under construction during the press viewing. Actors seemed at times uncertain of what was going on, lights and props were still being finished, and the two rooms that promised to have the most impressive effects were still in the testing phase. As advertised, the vignettes relied more on phobia than gore. The problem with the execution of this idea is that haunted houses rely on timing and surprise; A number of the rooms seemed like jokes with painfully long set-ups and punch-lines you could see coming a dimly-lit mile away. One scene in a nursery doesn't even have the punch-line. 
There are some inventive ideas, some of the best of which are thrown away in transitional passageways (look closely at the woman with the baby after the first room, and watch out for thin ice on the frozen lake… especially if you're wearing a skirt). Narrow, darkened passageways with rickety floors helped to mood, and low-ceilings in some areas will cause genuine unease for the claustrophobic.
The house is not aimed at kids, though there are "PG" showings at certain times. I don't think that there is much that would permanently scar any but the most skittish 12 year old. When all the rooms are completed, there will doubtless be a much better flow to Nightmare, and it is a suitably theatrical change of pace from the standard Ghosts n' Goblins, jumping-from-a-dark-corner fare that you'll find at most haunted houses this Halloween.
