There has been a mystery surrounding Into the Black. Before Saturday’s panel at Midsummer Scream I knew little about what to expect from the pet project of Larry Bones, owner of Boneyard Effects and veteran maestro of makeup and prosthetics for Halloween Horror Nights for a number of years, outside of that it was rumored to be a combination of a haunt and a VR experience. Speaking to others more in the know, however, I quickly discovered how much further the rabbit hole went with it being described as a haunt/movie/documentary/VR experience. I wasn’t sure how this could all work together to create a cohesive experience and it’s yet to be determined if it will, but I can say I left the panel convinced of Bones’s vision and ambition.
The panel featured Bones, head of VR production Ted Dougherty, and actresses Aubree Garman and Claire Dunlap. After a brief introduction to the narrative and confirmation that Into the Black would indeed be all of the things it had been claimed to be, we were treated to 9 minutes of the documentary and the full 25 minute movie. The documentary both laid out the concept and featured behind the scenes footage from what appears to be a Halloween Horror Nights level production if not even more grandiose. The idea seems to be a sort of novel approach to immersive horror, spreading the experience throughout a variety of media to enrich the experience, the first leg of this journey being the film.
The film aspect would be ambitious for a standalone project, let alone as a single component of a larger plan. The entire main cast is made up of haunt actors that Bones met while working at HHN. Given the lack of film acting experience among much of the cast, you might expect some roughness, but the gamble mostly pays off. These aren’t what I would call Oscar-caliber performances, but they’re better than a lot of the low-budget horror film work I’ve seen lately. Where it really shines is, perhaps not surprisingly, in the practical effects work including some truly grotesque gore shots. The camera work is also notable, featuring some lush wide-angle exterior and atmospheric interior shots of “The Black House” where the haunt is set to occur. My major hesitation with the film has to be the pacing, with roughly half of it being taken up by planning and exposition, followed by a fair amount of walking through the woods, before the action really starts. Once it starts, it’s great and gives me a lot of confidence it the quality of the haunt portion but I can imagine getting antsy to get to the haunt if I was shown this before going in.
It seems the VR portion comes before the haunt proper and is a separately ticketed event, but it’s stressed that the experience should be enjoyed in its entirety to get the most out of it. In terms of content this still largely remains a mystery, though Dougherty did share some technical details. It will be live action and filmed in 360 degrees and 4K. He stressed the challenges that this presented to production given that the crew couldn’t be on set and how this required careful planning by the cast to pull off successfully.
The third portion is the haunt itself and we learned some important information regarding that. The most important being is that this is a strictly solitary experience. Guests are required to go through alone and it was made quite clear this would be strictly enforced. Bones clearly has a love for the HNN experience he helped to craft for so many years but seems to be really emphasizing a more intimate experience here without the comfort of others to help ease the dread. Parental discretion was advised, but this is a no contact haunt and when asked, Bones gave no hard restrictions on who would be admitted. The story behind the haunt centers around the discovery and exploration of the manor formerly inhabited by the Black family, who through their dealings with the occult have unleashed something terrible onto the earth.
Finally there is where we started: the documentary. It wasn’t entirely clear where it would be screened in its entirety, but from what we saw it should be engaging to fans of practical effects to see them being created at such a high-level and even suggested a curious sub-plot about an actual haunting several members of Bones’s crew claimed to experience.
The panel ended with a Q&A where many of the details I’ve already spoken about were announced and the cast talked about how much they enjoyed the production process and being able to get involved with such a novel approach to crafting an immersive experience. If any of this sounds appealing, be sure to get your tickets soon for the event which will be held at the Pomona Fairplex in October, haunt tickets being sold for $29 and the VR experience being an additional $13. Given the reasonable cost and the limited amount of tickets available given the nature of the experience I imagine popular nights will sell out quickly. I’m certainly intrigued to see this mad experiment come to fruition.
