Nightmares: Fairytales

This weekend was a milestone for me. I was flooded with schoolwork and that bio test. However, it was all worth it because on Sunday, I went with a group of my friends to a haunted house attraction called Nightmares: Fairytales. We went with our student ID's, received a significant discount and the lines weren't long. The inside was dark, and Rapunzel was there to place blindfolds over our eyes. We grabbed her hair and marched in line to complete darkness. All I felt was my friend in front of me. People were whispering all around, and at one point, someone grabbed my legs. Eventually the blindfold came off and I was facing the candy house from Hansel and Gretal. The journey began there and we walked through different fairytale scenes. Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, Little Red Riding Hood, and Pinocchio were just a couple. The Pinocchio scene was quite scary; the room had been decorated with wooden figures that all repeated the phrase "I want to be a real boy". Well.....turns out one of them was real and he jumped out, definitely getting a scream out of me. This event was not only terrifying, it was also quite a performance. The props were elaborate and they explored the fairytales in a completely new way.

The second part to this attraction was something called "The Experiment". Allegedly, this was an experiment conducted by the Hayden Institution on the psychology of fear. I was extremely intrigued when they asked for a consent. We had to do what they told us, but we could leave whenever we wanted. The experiment measured the reactions of people to certain events. For example, one of the experimenters took out a "street" rat, and immediately three people walked out of the stage. Among these experiments, someone was asked to dance in public, as an example of stage fright. Finally, we were told to cover our faces because they were going to throw a bucket of "chilled feces" which turned out to be just water. This study was intense, but I found it quite interesting how the researchers invoked fear in the audience.

Overall, one of the best things about living in NYC is the variety of events that take place, and this was one event is definitely worth a look.