With Halloween just a few days away, there’s no lack of scary entertainment. But sometimes reruns of Friday the 13th just won’t cut it.
Haunted Poe, the latest compilation from Brat Productions, provides a scare enhanced by the short stories and poems of the macabre Edgar Allan Poe. In Brat’s literary haunted house, audiences follow a trail of abridged performances. Each performance stitches together shortened monologues from one story or poem.
Dark hallways twist into different scenes for each story. In one, audiences enter an alley where a sickly light glows from above. Anxiety quickly turns to distress as a man dressed in 19th century garb suddenly appears from behind a black curtain. Breaking into a monologue of affliction and madness, the actor begins Poe’s “Black Cat” as he swings around a flask and iron hammer.
If you’re all about the realistic blood, guts and living dead, this might not be the haunted house for you. Special effects seem less realistic than the usual haunted house, because the audience watches each story as a performance.
The apprehension, though, felt moving around a maze of hidden performers and ghostly props, makes the ticket worthwhile. There are hanged cats, ghostly graveyards and slithering plants to creep you out — all while developing your appreciation for Gothic romance and horror fiction.
Where: 38 Jackson St. (30 min SEPTA ride to Snyder and 20 min walk to Jackson St.)
When: through November 1
Shows run every half hour from 7-9:30
Cost: $15 for students
