I CAN’T SEE/THE DARK HOUSE

I CAN’T SEE is experienced in complete darkness.  As you arrive, you are greeted by the Optecs team who wire you up and “download” the experience into your mind. You are there to challenge your courage by becoming a character in your own horror story.  You will find your way through this intense and terrifying experience while wearing audio headsets and reaching for the “umbilicals” to help guide you. As you listen, the physical world is manifested in real time as things happen in the story. I Can’t See is a sensory assault, using all senses except sight – an audiophile’s dream or worst nightmare.

“We’ve experimented with horror and audience immersion for 20 years now,” says I Can’t See creator Timothy Haskell.  “In all this time, the one constant is that the most terrifying thing is your own imagination.  The anticipation of fear is the scariest part of all. However, this is decidedly NOT a ‘haunted house.’  Horror makers keep trying to ratchet up the fear factor by telling you how extreme they are, but they don’t often engage our minds in the way immersive theatre can.” Collaborator and production designer Paul Smithyman adds, “storytelling allows you to empathize with characters and care about what happens to them. When the lead character is you, being in peril takes it to a whole new level. This is unlike any horror offering this season.”

The Dark House was taking I Can’t See, expanding on it, changing the ending, and basically making it longer and more horrifing than I Can’t See. We also moved upstate in the Hudson Valley to mount this production at an old train depot called The Depot Theater in Garrison, NY. This was on 2021 when people were still concerned about going inside, but we had a vaccine, so audiences began to creep back!

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