Shanghai Nightmare

so i was super-excited to attend my first haunted house in China, Shanghai Nightmare. Halloween is not the same in China. frankly people around here do not celebrate it. it is primarily an expat holiday. and I so missed halloween this year, esp pumpkin carving. so when i read about the first haunted house to come to Shanghai, i had to go! the designers of this haunted house attended a Haunted House convention in Wisconsin to learn the ins and outs of HH and how to make them scary, legitimate and similar to the ones back in the States. i have to say, the location was perfect. it was in an abandoned 3 story warehouse along the Suzhou creek in this dark part of town. it looked like Saw could have been filmed inside of it. while we were waiting in line, they showed the camera footage of people walking thru a part of the HH. it showed many people scared out of their wits as something either jumped out at them or scared them to death. we looked for it, but no one ever found that part of the HH. i was imagining something really scary. i was scared, as i always was, and was impressed with the detail they put in on decor and trinkets and paintings in the haunted house. the opening scene was the best: it was the Ring girl walking towards us down a hall with only bars separating her and us. the lights suddenly went out and next thing you know, she's right in front of us! the beginning parts of the HH was pretty scary. lots of camouflaged people popping out at us. creative use of mirrors and lasers. the familiar zigzag maze of the HH. most of the corridors were single file only, thus making scared females even more scared as they walked down it alone. there were a couple unique parts. there was a part where you had walk single file down a corridor where thick plastic enveloped and put pressure on your body. and the maze of mirrors was new to me too. there was a part where the walls spun as you walked, making you feel dizzy. then there was the part where monsters were sitting in the audience watching laser that was etched onto a wall of fog, but the writing was backwards and i did not get a chance to read it. then one jumps out at you. and the finale was great too. at the end you enter a room where there is a scary monster bartender. then there are 2 doors: one for female, one for male that you have to walk through. milan, one of my friends, looked like she was going to cry (bless her heart but it was so funny!) and did not want to walk thru the female door. she ended up going with her bf thru the male door. i sorta did not want to either, but Pi and i walked thru it anyway. it was pitch black and curved to the left. but there were no monsters in there. it led to the exit.

so in summary, it was a good first HH for china but with dave and my fetish for horror movies, we agreed we could make a much scarier HH, if we had the money to rent out a scary warehouse, hire the people and purchase the materials. how much fun that would be. here's to a spooky halloween that gave me quite a scary shangHIGH!