That’s Where ‘It’ lives…
The line uttered by Bill Denbrough appropriately titles the ‘IT’ experience on Hollywood Blvd. In less than 10 days Warner Bros. turned an empty parking lot into a 5000-sq. ft. structure. The haunted house on 29 Neibolt street now towers over the Hollywood Blvd & Vine St intersection.
My excitement for the movie trounced my aversion to haunted house experiences. I signed up six of my friends and scheduled the drive to LA. I threw on some white sneakers, and a baseball tee, one of Bill’s outfits from the upcoming movie. I was ready to face ‘IT’.
The time for our appointment came and we were immediately led to the front of the house. A yellow raincoat clad boy with a red balloon waited; it was Georgie, our tour guide. We had about 5 minutes for pictures outside the house before Georgie let us in.
photo credit: Ana Becerra
If you’re planning on visiting and don’t want to be spoiled, you should stop reading now.
Our Georgie opened the front door and led us into the dark creaky house. Nerves kicked in as the door slammed shut behind me. We went up a spiral staircase where Georgie gave us specific instructions about our journey through the house; “Don’t touch anything unless I tell you so.” The actor maintained character and addressed us in an eerie childlike voice throughout the experience.
photo credit: Ana Becerra
The first room featured clowns that led to a small coffin. Pennywise’s laughter got louder and the room seemed to get smaller. The clown statues around the room appeared to be staring back at us. A creepy lullaby directed our attention to the small coffin and a feeling of dread took hold while we idly waited for something to happen. As we looked around frantically we noticed one of the clowns was missing. Screams (possibly my own) set the tone for our visit as former clown statues shrieked and ran around the room.
photo credit: Ana Becerra
“Let’s get out of here,” a scared Georgie said as he led us to the next room. A map of the Derry sewer system lined the table where horror magazines and Justice League comics sat. Georgie’s boat, S.S. Georgie sat next to the slide projector on the work table. This is where I was truly able to appreciate the detail that went into the experience. Our actions appeared to trigger the props around the room. One of our members approached a TV set before it came to life with a sinister clip on a loop. The slide projector came to life with images from Denbrough family trips before Pennywise’s face is revealed under Bill’s mother’s hair, as seen in the trailers. The next door took us down a narrow staircase with hands sticking out from the walls.
The bottom room greeted us with three doors that members of our group opened one at a time. Fear, the thing ‘IT’ feeds on, was the driving force in this room, a room very similar to one used in the movie. The last door lead us to a roach-infested bathroom recreating Beverly’s iconic encounter with a blood spewing sink. The pace picked up shortly after and a series of scares led us into the sewers before the big finale.
photo credit: Ana Becerra
“You’ll float too”, echoed through the sewers. An encounter with Pennywise tied the experience in a neat bow before our group of Losers made it out of the sewers. Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise costume in the film was the same one worn by Pennywise in the experience.
While it is marketed as a 20-minute experience, our group was roughly in and out in about 11 minutes or so, but for IT to be a free experience, it’s well worth it. The event is SOLD OUT, however there is a stand by / walk up line. The experience will run through September 10, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
You can sign up for the waitlist online.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
You must be logged in to post a comment.