The Verge - The Future of Fear: Into the terrifying world of immersive horrorhttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52801/VER_Logomark_32x32..png2017-03-22T15:57:12-04:00http://www.theverge.com/rss/stream/130584892017-03-22T15:57:12-04:002017-03-22T15:57:12-04:00How director Darren Lynn Bousman created The Tension Experience
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<figcaption>Brennan Pierson</figcaption>
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<p id="TrEGPv">Last year in Los Angeles, a mysterious cult began recruiting people through emails, phone calls, and one-on-one consultations. For nine months individuals were drawn into the group’s web of intrigue, discovering that a young woman from Ohio had been taken in and brainwashed. In September, the cult finally opened its doors, and people had the chance to walk its halls and try to find the young woman inside — or die trying.</p>
<p id="KFgNzB">The only thing was, none of it was real.</p>
<p id="UGnml9"><em>The Tension Experience </em><a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/22/13716340/the-tension-experience-lust-darren-lynn-bousman-clint-sears-interview">represented a key moment</a> in the evolution of immersive entertainment. Combining alternate reality gaming, haunted house techniques, and a two-hour immersive theater show, it created what essentially amounted to a mini-Westworld: a persistent, fictional...</p>
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<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/22/15023010/the-tension-experience-interview-podcast-horror-show-sxsw-2017">Continue reading…</a>
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https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/22/15023010/the-tension-experience-interview-podcast-horror-show-sxsw-2017Bryan Bishop2016-11-22T15:23:55-05:002016-11-22T15:23:55-05:00Cults, chaos, and community: how The Tension Experience rewrote the rules of storytelling
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<figcaption>Derrick Hinman</figcaption>
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<p>The future of immersive entertainment is here, and it is bloody</p>
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<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/22/13716340/the-tension-experience-lust-darren-lynn-bousman-clint-sears-interview">Continue reading…</a>
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https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/22/13716340/the-tension-experience-lust-darren-lynn-bousman-clint-sears-interviewBryan Bishop2016-10-29T15:49:51-04:002016-10-29T15:49:51-04:00How Los Angeles became the heart of immersive horror
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<figcaption>Hatbox Photography / Creep LA</figcaption>
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<p><em>Audiences associate the word “horror” with scary movies or terrifying novels. But over the past half-decade, live theater and haunted house exhibits have merged, bringing new life to the genre with interactive, real-world experiences that let audiences step through the screen and into their own personal tales of terror. In</em> <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/15/13294448/future-of-fear-haunted-houses-immersive-horror-halloween">The Future of Fear</a><em>, we’re talking to the creators of some of the most striking, immersive horror experiences to see how they’re taking the genre in directions it’s never gone before.</em></p>
<p>Over the past month I’ve been <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/30/13115910/tension-experience-ascension-haunted-house-escape-room-maze-bousman">indoctrinated into a cult</a>, had my wife <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/15/13292402/delusion-his-crimson-queen-interactive-play-jon-braver-interview">kidnapped by vampires</a>, and been choked to the ground by a mad king while searching for a mystical land called Conscientia. And I did it all within a four-mile radius in...</p>
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<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/29/13466072/haunted-houses-halloween-immersive-theater-los-angeles">Continue reading…</a>
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https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/29/13466072/haunted-houses-halloween-immersive-theater-los-angelesBryan Bishop2016-10-22T12:05:03-04:002016-10-22T12:05:03-04:00I was eaten alive by an escape room cannibal
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<p><em>Audiences associate the word "horror" with scary movies or terrifying novels. But over the past half-decade, live theater and haunted house exhibits have merged, bringing new life to the genre with interactive, real-world experiences that let audiences step through the screen and into their own personal tales of terror. In</em> <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/15/13294448/future-of-fear-haunted-houses-immersive-horror-halloween">The Future of Fear</a><em>, we’re talking to the creators of some of the most striking, immersive horror experiences to see how they’re taking the genre in directions it’s never gone before.</em></p>
<p>They led us into the basement like lambs to slaughter, hoods pulled over our heads so we couldn’t see the chain-link cage we were being stuffed into. We knew we didn’t have much time until our captor would return, ready to rip the flesh...</p>
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<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/22/13364882/escape-rooms-the-basement-trap-house-la-adam-milicevic-interview">Continue reading…</a>
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https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/22/13364882/escape-rooms-the-basement-trap-house-la-adam-milicevic-interviewBryan Bishop2016-10-15T11:30:03-04:002016-10-15T11:30:03-04:00The scariest movie this Halloween is a play called Delusion
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<p><em>Audiences associate the word “horror” with scary movies or terrifying novels. But over the past half-decade, live theater and haunted house exhibits have merged, bringing new life to the genre with interactive, real-world experiences that let audiences step through the screen and into their own personal tales of terror. In</em> <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/15/13294448/future-of-fear-haunted-houses-immersive-horror-halloween">The Future of Fear</a><em>, we’re talking to the creators of some of the most striking, immersive horror experiences to see how they’re taking the genre in directions it’s never gone before.</em></p>
<p>It was a standoff. </p>
<p>I was in a decaying foyer, my siblings and I bathed in sunlight from the window above. That night we’d discovered our long-lost mother was actually one of the undead, and could still be found somewhere within this...</p>
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<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/15/13292402/delusion-his-crimson-queen-interactive-play-jon-braver-interview">Continue reading…</a>
</p>
https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/15/13292402/delusion-his-crimson-queen-interactive-play-jon-braver-interviewBryan Bishop2016-10-07T12:46:56-04:002016-10-07T12:46:56-04:00How the creators of Blackout are bringing the extreme haunted house into your living room
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<p><em>Audiences associate the word “horror” with scary movies or terrifying novels. But over the past half-decade, live theater and haunted house exhibits have merged, bringing new life to the genre with interactive, real-world experiences that let audiences step through the screen and into their own personal tales of terror. In</em> <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/15/13294448/future-of-fear-haunted-houses-immersive-horror-halloween">The Future of Fear</a><em>, we’re talking to the creators of some of the most striking, immersive horror experiences to see how they’re inventing a new artistic medium to take the genre in directions it’s never gone before.</em></p>
<p>The phone calls started around 2:30 in the morning. </p>
<p>There were just noises on the other end at first: the lurching, churning sounds of distant machinery. But the next night there were screams,...</p>
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<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/7/13199698/blackout-haunted-house-twenty-one-josh-randall-kristjan-thor-interview">Continue reading…</a>
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https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/7/13199698/blackout-haunted-house-twenty-one-josh-randall-kristjan-thor-interviewBryan Bishop2016-09-30T10:00:52-04:002016-09-30T10:00:52-04:00Inside the psychological maze of LA's most insidious theater event
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<figcaption>Derrick Hinman / The Tension Experience</figcaption>
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<p><em>Audiences associate the word “horror” with scary movies or terrifying novels. But over the past half-decade, live theater and haunted house exhibits have merged, bringing new life to the genre with interactive, real-world experiences that let audiences step through the screen and into their own personal tales of terror. For October, we’re introducing</em><a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/15/13294448/future-of-fear-haunted-houses-immersive-horror-halloween"> The Future of Fear</a><em>. We’ll talk to the creators of some of the most striking, immersive horror experiences to see how they’re inventing a new artistic medium to take the genre in directions it’s never gone before.</em></p>
<p>"Hold on, my agent’s about to get naked."</p>
<p>I’m in the bowels of a dingy warehouse in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, and horror director Darren Lynn Bousman is...</p>
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<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/30/13115910/tension-experience-ascension-haunted-house-escape-room-maze-bousman">Continue reading…</a>
</p>
https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/30/13115910/tension-experience-ascension-haunted-house-escape-room-maze-bousmanBryan Bishop