Spooky season is almost upon us. Horror stories, haunted houses, hay rides, ghosts, ghouls, and goblins abound. But for something a little different? Get read for a viscerally terrifying and unexpected experience at the Twin Cities Horror Festival at Minneapolis’ Southern Theater. Now in its 7th season, the festival features eleven days of onstage horror around the week of Halloween, from October 25 – November 4.
You’ll feel (somewhat) safe in your seat as you watch live performers act out your worst nightmares onstage. Since the launch of the Twin Cities Horror Festival (TCHF) in 2012, these artists have perfected the craft to horrify and give a performance that will unquestionably haunt you for the rest of the night.
As the TCHF website expounds, “For some, horror is murder, blood, and gore: visual sensory overload. For some, it is pure fright and the unknown: a jump-scare from an expected place, something startling that raises your heart rate. For others, it is helplessness and dread: the inevitable that is moving toward you, either physically or psychologically, relentless and uncaring. For almost everyone, it is something in the darkness, something unseen, something nebulous.”
Yup, that definitely seems to cover it across the board for the fear factor.
Horror done as a live theater performance certainly comes with the artistic challenge of evoking those strong, raw emotions and reactions that can come more easily when watching a scary movie or walking through a haunted house. However, the TCHF producers and actors are more than up to the challenge and are bringing us thirteen performances for us to experience the thrill of being scared.
Horror shows to look forward to:
- A Morbid History of Sons & Daughters which will take you on a psychological journey when five people gather around a fire to sing an interweaving tale about their sinister “tendencies”.
- Also be sure to see Greenway as you watch Eva’s horrifying bike ride home when something unfriendly starts to follow her.
- Second Skin will certainly test your nerve as you experience this performance alone. In this interactive psychological experience, you wander the West Bank following an interactive app in an attempt to put spirits to rest.
- Another show with rave reviews is The Bathtub Girls that is inspired by the first known case of sibling matricide in Canada.
- Watch Home, based on true stories from the playwright’s childhood that explores the brutality and violence that comes from crushing boredom and begs the question – how well do you really know your neighbor?
- Or come for the Horror Show Hot Dog Short Film Festival where they have compiled short horror films from 12 different countries so you can be terrified in several other languages as well.
Each performance does give a suggested age range for the younger theater-goers with most shows suggesting 13+. They have also rated each show based on the level of Violence, Blood, and Language to help you choose which performance you’ll enjoy the most.
Tickets go on sale starting Monday, October 1 and if you’re planning on seeing more than one performance, which I highly recommend, you can choose one of their packages — the Skeleton Key or the Four Horseman that will give you discounted tickets if you want to see more than one show.
So if you love the scare, the Twin Cities Horror Festival will undoubtedly give you a lasting experience and well, maybe even nightmares. I’m just honestly hoping these performances aren’t the ones where the actors go into the audience because I’m quite certain I would literally jump out of my seat and make a beeline for the door.
For another scare, read this article next: Eerie statue of Jason Voorhees from “Friday the 13th” gives Minnesota divers a scare
