Two shipping containers are sitting in Auckland’s Aotea Square for the next month. For just $22.79, you can go inside and be spooked.
I began last night thinking my friend liked scary things. When we were walking down Queen Street, towards the containers, they corrected me – they were simply curious and wanted to hang out. Usually they choose lovely romcoms over scary movies and what were we going to exactly?
I felt a little guilt knot tie in my stomach. All day I’d been steeling myself for what I thought might be the second and third scariest experiences of my life so far. I’d breathed deeply and thought about how ghosts and demons are not real and that the chance of being in a plane crash is near zero. Now I was leading a friend, unprepared like a fresh little lamb, into possible traumatisation.
In Aotea Square, two white containers gleamed in the drizzle. On their sides in big block letters were the words “FLIGHT” and “SÉANCE”. These are Darkfield containers, part of a fleet that has travelled across the UK, Asia, Australia, Mexico and the US. They describe themselves as “creators of innovative immersive 360 degree audio experiences at the forefront of technology and theatre.” Until June 7, anyone can buy a ticket and expose themselves to what’s inside.
Because of the many big and impressive words used in the descriptions, my expectations were extremely high. I have had the great privilege of seeing a performance by Punchdrunk – a collective known as the pioneer of modern immersive theatre – in London about a decade ago. Set over three levels of a huge building, the sets were incredible installations, rooms of vast sand, alleyways of historic shops, hundreds of dried sunflowers standing in a grid, and to carry the audience through it all, probably the world’s best theatre actors. Needless to say, the contents of the container did not meet my unrealistic expectations. A less misguided opinion is that they are a fun experience you can have for under $30.
A staff member in a chunky knitted jumper emphasised that once you’re in, they’d prefer you didn’t chicken out, stumble around in the dark, and ruin it for everyone else. If you’re afraid of the dark, claustrophobic, have a neck or back injury or are pregnant, it’s probably not the show for you. Then she led a group of 20 of us to the Flight container. “Will we ever be able to fly again?” my friend asked, cottoning on to the nature of the experience. I looked around us and determined that no-one else looked particularly brave, so surely we would be OK. Inside the container was a vintage, but seemingly real, right hand side section of an economy class cabin. The seats were in rows of three, complete with fold-down food trays and functioning recline buttons and seatbelts. On the side, a plastic plane wall with windows swooped overhead.
We put on the snug headsets, and the experience began. Little screens folded down from the ceiling, glitch and show a video of a flight attendant. She began a somewhat apocalyptic safety lecture – first class should advise if they have allergies to white truffle and apologies to economy class, but the toilets have had to be removed. Then, we were cast into a complete darkness, which would remain till the end of the 20 minutes.
What followed was a fragmented and unclear narrative. Babies cried, the flight attendant served canned drinks, people walked up and down the aisles. There were a few jokes but they didn’t land and took me out of the moment. More than telling a story, it seemed designed to show off the capacities of the headsets (Vic Firth SIH2 Stereo Isolation Headphones) which do a remarkable job of directional sound: it really does sound like the people seated behind you are receiving a cold drink and it’s hard to tell if the sound to the left is people leaving the experience or characters stretching their legs.
At one horrible point, a flight attendant whispered in my ear and later on, the pilot seemed to hover in the aisle, impersonating a really annoying teenage boy who has recently been told about Schrödinger’s cat, trying to say that maybe we’d crashed and maybe we hadn’t, maybe we were dead and maybe we were alive. I was feeling impatient, exactly how I’d feel on a real flight, but instead of waiting to arrive somewhere, I was wanting to actually be scared – maybe even let out a scream! But then it was over. The lights came on. My friend looked confused. We will still be able to fly.
The Séance was scarier. Velvet chairs lined up on either side of a very long table. Though we were told to hold our hands on the table for the duration, I got scared and pulled mine away. It sounded like the medium was walking up and down the table, talking to the other participants. I didn’t want him to step on my fingers. There was also something about having my hands up there, in a totally dark room, my senses trapped by the headset, that made me feel disembodied. Instead I held my headset, so I could self-administer the horror coming into my ears by simple removal.
In terms of writing and plot, Séance had similar issues to Flight – the narrator repeated himself a lot and what happened to the people lying on the table? My friend missed an important plot moment and I had to explain it to them afterwards. Most importantly, there was only one ghost/demon, and it barely said anything. I thought they’d make more use of the ability to whisper into our ears.
Afterwards my friend, no longer seeming like a vulnerable lamb, asked me if I would have rather watched a film. Films tend to have carefully constructed plots, characters and dialogue. They’ve got costumes and sets and music, all earning them points. But there was something exciting about waiting outside the containers, lights from the city shining on Aotea Square’s wet tiles, nestling our nylon covered arms together in anticipation of fear. You can go to a film whenever, but you can only go into the scary dark containers until June 7.
