My nightmare on Realm street

Confronting his fear of scary movies, Carl Dixon donned a bloody mask and ran riot in a Cork house of horrors

THE Nightmare Realm, a walk-through version of a ghost train, is back in Cork for Halloween. It is an elaborate maze of demented zombies and clowns, screaming maniacs and rabid dogs. For one evening, I joined the team, as a boiler-suited, half-human psychopath to terrify a preview audience.

The Nightmare Realm is disorientating. Once you are inside, it is hard to turn back. The frights range from creepy to stomach-churning, often in claustrophobic darkness. Not everyone you meet in the maze is who they appear to be. The effect ranges from disquieting to frightening, depending on your disposition.

First step for me was the make-up department, which was populated by a grotesque mixture of aspiring actors and flamboyant amateurs. Cue fangs and claws, cutting tools, elaborate masks and gallons of artificial blood. Perhaps I have had a sheltered life, but sharing a make-up mirror with a zombie bride — complete with dripping blood and a gore-stained, full-length wedding dress — was not something I had previously experienced. One assumes the groom didn’t have quite the nuptial experience for which he had hoped. It wasn’t a prerequisite of this job to be mildly deranged, but judging by some of the participants, it isn’t a hindrance, either.

I was provided with a latex mask, and had slicked back-hair and blood-stained hands. The ensemble was completed with a new boiler suit; obviously, I was a psychopath who doesn’t wash his hands, but likes a fresh change of clothes between slaughters. My role was assistant to a young man who had a noisy chainsaw and an orange boiler suit. We were in a steel-meshed room. I was a sort of apprentice plumber gone bad. Wreathed in artificial smoke, I attempted to bond with my murderous companion. “Have you done much stuff like this?” I asked politely. “A bit of acting,” he said. “Mainly zombie movies.” “No danger of being typecast then,” I said, but he was too busy revving up his chainsaw and practising his menacing glare to hear me.

You could have stuck me in a room with King Kong, as long as I was scaring rather than being scared. Horror films scare me shitless and even a modicum of terror will find me behind the couch, gnawing the corner of a cushion and fervently wishing the bad people would ‘please, please go away’. I recall festooning the two front rows of a cinema with popcorn and coke, after a scary moment in Scream 2. Conversely, being stuck in the middle of a maze listening to a weird assortment of groans, bangs and moans, with my team of fellow freaks, felt natural.

Fear in the modern world is a complex issue. Our fear response evolved in the distant past, when we were defenceless in a world full of big predators. Our fight-or-flight response is designed for sabre-tooth tigers, not television. The heart rate jumps up, pushing blood into the muscles, as the lungs suck in air in preparation for fight-or-flight. As adrenaline and 30 other hormones flood into the nervous system, the rational, prefrontal cortex shuts down and calm thinking becomes difficult.

Nowadays, we are bombarded by a range of threats, from global warming to cancer, and our fears are more abstract and illogical. My teenage daughter, for example, is irrationally terrified of clowns. Trying to be helpful, I offered the logical, fatherly advice that her hectic social life is more likely to be detrimental to her health than a homicidal clown roaming the leafy suburbs of Cork with a slash hook. As usual, she ignored me.

As the first victims approached, I searched a range of cultural references for inspiration, before settling on the ever-reliable Hannibal Lecter. Although, somehow, I managed to inadvertently incorporate the bouncy gait and wobbly head of Barney, the dinosaur. Strategically, I was aiming to be silent and creepy, setting them up for my partner to jump out with the chainsaw. Truthfully, my efforts were not initially successful; one guy actually had the cheek to wink cheerfully as he strode past. Obviously, I was overdoing the Barney bit. Jumping out from behind a pillar proved more effective. Blowing gently on the neck of the person in front of you, and rattling the steel mesh as you lumbered behind them into the maze, also worked well.

Sandwiched between me and chainsaw dude up ahead, some victims ended up in a dark cul-de-sac, where they scrabbled against a wall, desperate to get out. Like a good sheep dog, you had to squeeze in around them and herd them out with a succession of quick growls. It was slightly disturbing, how coldly dispassionate you become about the process, how much fun it is and how remorselessly you exploit any chink of fear.

Don’t show any weakness in there; it will only spur the lunatics on. As for me? For next year, I am thinking rusty chains, one eye dangling from the socket and a meat hook smeared with brain tissue.

I can’t wait.

* The Nightmare Realm runs from Oct 5-Nov 3 on Albert Quay, near the City Hall in Cork City.See www.thenightmarerealm.ie