Darkness holds us long enough for the dread to seep into our bones. By treating horror as an art form rather than a cheap set of jump scares, this thrilling new show, which wears its connection to the world of the Paranormal Activity film franchise lightly, proves how jaw-clenchingly, arm-clutchingly frightening horror on stage can be. Under the direction of Punchdrunk’s Felix Barrett, the in-the-moment fear is acute. But what is remarkable, thanks to Chris Fisher’s eye-popping illusions, is how that terror is accompanied by a giddy, awe-filled delight at the devilry we just witnessed – and how the hell they made it work.
In Oren Peli’s original movie, a young couple set up home video cameras to capture night hauntings. The brilliance of Barrett’s production is in the ditching of screens, too often relied on to scare on stage. Levi Holloway’s script follows Jimmy (Patrick Heusinger) and Lou (Melissa James), who have moved from Chicago to London to escape the “spells” Lou has been experiencing. But places are not haunted, we’re told. People are. So the “spells” follow. Rather than setting up cameras, Jimmy tries to reason his way out of the chaos by bringing in an expert (Jackie Morrison).
The only screens we see are their TV, used for video calls from Jimmy’s mum (a glorious, grinning Pippa Winslow) and a few at the back of the audience, giving a monochrome CCTV-camera view of Fly Davis’s glorious sliced-open two-storey set, the home’s every nook and cranny full of potential for fear. Onstage, Anna Watson’s quicksilver lighting smartly directs our attention around the house, with some rooms shrouded in murky grey darkness at night and others sunk into a sinister blackout.
The script may be perfunctory, and some of it is deeply hammy, but its flaws are forgivable for such a dexterous production, with every technical element ramping up tension and toying with expectations. Every jump scare is earned, every trick embedded in the twisted narrative of this poor, doomed couple. And the fear lingers. When I wake at 3am to a strange light in my bedroom, I pull the duvet tight around my head, refusing to reopen my eyes and repeating to myself that it was just a play.
