In the demented mind of Timothy Haskell, gadfly theatrical publicist and purveyor of live-horror spectacles like Nightmare: Ghost Stories, “boo” doesn’t cut it. He wants you screaming from the bottom of your throat, for your blood pressure to shoot into stroke territory, for you to be afraid—very afraid.
This is the fourth year Haskell has created a rambling haunted house within the Lower East Side’s CSV Cultural Center, which frankly already looks pretty creepy from the outside. (Naturally, it’s timed to that orgy of candy and commercialism, Halloween.) Each of the house’s 23 rooms represents something terrifying, devised from the results of an online poll in which respondents disclosed their interactions with the paranormal. Have creep-out, will travel.
For guys and ghouls, a contraption called The Maze will be the horror show’s hallmark. Created with haunternet.com, a new website that bills itself as “the world’s largest haunted house directory” (there are over 1,500, apparently), The Maze is a labyrinth of fright, a dark, harrowing hallway full of not-so-subtle subterfuges and spirited surprises meant to scare the crap out of all who enter and cannot find the exit.
You can also expect a tiny dose of camp from Haskell’s crew—he was, after all, the director-producer who bestowed Off-Broadway with Road House: The Stage Play back in 2002, and even had the prescience to present the Paris Hilton spoof I Love Paris before the jailbird became the biggest nightmare in celebrity history. With brothers Aaron and Justin Haskell designing props and gore (grisliness, that is, not the former VP), Nightmare looks adrenaline-activating for the Addams family and yours.
Through Nov. 3. CSV Cultural Center, 107 Suffolk St. (betw. Rivington & Delancey Sts.), 212-868-4444; $25-$60.
This is the fourth year Haskell has created a rambling haunted house within the Lower East Side’s CSV Cultural Center, which frankly already looks pretty creepy from the outside. (Naturally, it’s timed to that orgy of candy and commercialism, Halloween.) Each of the house’s 23 rooms represents something terrifying, devised from the results of an online poll in which respondents disclosed their interactions with the paranormal. Have creep-out, will travel.
For guys and ghouls, a contraption called The Maze will be the horror show’s hallmark. Created with haunternet.com, a new website that bills itself as “the world’s largest haunted house directory” (there are over 1,500, apparently), The Maze is a labyrinth of fright, a dark, harrowing hallway full of not-so-subtle subterfuges and spirited surprises meant to scare the crap out of all who enter and cannot find the exit.
You can also expect a tiny dose of camp from Haskell’s crew—he was, after all, the director-producer who bestowed Off-Broadway with Road House: The Stage Play back in 2002, and even had the prescience to present the Paris Hilton spoof I Love Paris before the jailbird became the biggest nightmare in celebrity history. With brothers Aaron and Justin Haskell designing props and gore (grisliness, that is, not the former VP), Nightmare looks adrenaline-activating for the Addams family and yours.
Through Nov. 3. CSV Cultural Center, 107 Suffolk St. (betw. Rivington & Delancey Sts.), 212-868-4444; $25-$60.
