Event Report: Welcome to Alone. Your Safe Word Is Together.
Dread Central Staff
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Christ. I’m a haunt junkie and have been to a lot of crazy places, but never before have I been given a safe word before entering an attraction. And as I signed a detailed waiver explaining all the possible things that might be done to me, I have no shame in admitting that this was the first place I was genuinely nervous to enter.
Alone: An Existential Haunting is fairly new to the scene and another in the line of ever-growing “extreme haunts” – attractions that offer full-contact frights. But what separates this from notorious productions like Blackout is that it’s not disgusting or punishing (call me crazy, but the thought of paying a lot of money to have a gun stuck in my face and being forced into acts of torture just doesn’t appeal to me). Alone has a much loftier goal: to fuck with your mind. Picture a haunt run by David Lynch, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what’s in store.
Little did I know that my experience would start well before the event. After signing up to attend, I receive a cryptic e-mail with an address and instructions to “Ask about the Enola Foundation.” I show up to a little shop in Hollywood, and the clerk gives me a strange pamphlet with a number to call. It’s clear right off the bat that I’m now mixed up in some strange body-obsessed cult that promises transcendence through flesh. Yikes.
I call the number on the pamphlet and am told that I have been selected to participate in their opening rite. I’m then given instructions to report to the Los Angeles Public Library and am given several call numbers. I head downtown and trace the numbers to the “Anatomy” section on the Science level. Inside one of the Grey’s Anatomy books is a note with further instructions. At the end of the evening I wind up with an odd token… and even more questions.
The location isn’t revealed until the day before the event, and when I arrive at the address, I’m standing in a dank alleyway in a seedy area of downtown Los Angeles. I meet fellow DC writer Sean Decker, and the two of us sign our lives away at a desk manned by two cult members. Wondering what the hell we’ve gotten ourselves into, our paranoid horror minds take over, and the dread begins to mount. What if this is all a trick? What if we wake up in a bathtub full of ice and missing our kidneys?
It’s the secrecy behind this event that makes it so damn scary… and irresistible. Our names are called, and we have to line up in order. Five of us are ushered inside and take a slow elevator ride up to the next floor. My heart is racing. The doors swing open, and we are greeted by a representative of the Enola Foundation. We each fill out a survey and are immediately put into an orientation ceremony led by a strange looking mystical guru. Suddenly, a bag is thrown over my head and I’m yanked away into total darkness. When the bag is lifted, my group is gone. I’m all alone.
True to its name, there’s no safety in numbers here. You go through the entire haunt on your own – which makes this a far more personal and unnerving experience than you’ll get anywhere else. I won’t dare spoil what’s inside, but for 30 minutes I was grabbed, pushed, held, caressed and made to crawl through a series of surreal set-pieces that messed with my mind and defied all expectations. Dark lighting, eerie music and droning sound design sent my senses running wild. Actors didn’t just know my name; they knew intimate details of my life.
There’s no rhyme or reason to any of it other than to screw with your head, and the production went to great lengths to eschew everything you expect from a haunt. In fact, the cast and crew did their job so well that when I walked to my car at the end of the night, I wasn’t sure if I was still in the experience or not. And now, days later, I still can’t get it out of my head.
If you’re tired of traditional haunted houses and are willing to take a ride into the bizarre, Alone is the hottest ticket around. Simply put, you won’t find a better psychological horror experience, and I for one can’t wait to see what they have in store next year.
Alone runs from now until November 1st. To learn more about the experience and get tickets, visit the official Alone website, and “like” Alone on Facebook.
Categorized:News
