Sunday, October 27, 2024

Twin Cities Horror Festival XIII - Day Two: Doctor Clown, The Regular, Campfire Stories, and The Night Parade

Do you want to see something SCARY? Us too! Also, funny and charming and gory and creepy! Do join us at Twin Cities Horror Festival, now in its 13th fabulous year, running October 24 through November 3 at the Crane Theater.

This year, we are seeing all eleven shows in the festival. Check out our other reviews: TCHF XIII - Day One  and Day Three

Day Two, we spent nearly six hours at the Crane engrossed in delightful horror theater. Here's what we saw: 

Doctor Clown is this year's show from TCHF favorite Dangerous Productions (past shows include Frankenstein, their prescient Epidemic, and last year's scarefest Choices). If you had to sum up Dangerous Productions in one word, that word would be BLOOD. Although shows vary in vibe and tone, one consistent element is blood. Lots of blood. And gore. You can always tell a Dangerous Production by the cautionary tarp secured to the stage floor.

This year, the group has switched things up and, instead of a full length narrative, they are performing a series of loosely connected sketches centering around patients in a doctor's (or hospital?) waiting room. The cast of eight actors (edited to add program! Thx, Dangerous!) quickly move from scene to scene, switching costumes and characters in the blink of an eye. The sketches are clever and sharply critical, poking fun at the perils of modern medicine, and providing a perfect setting for the company's love of gore.  This just might be our favorite Dangerous production to date!


The Regular
by Occasionally Employed Productions is set in a neighborhood bar "where everybody knows your name," at least if you are Charlie (the always-wonderful Sam Landman), the resident self-deprecating, sad-sack barfly. 

Bartender Teddy (Claire Chenoweth) and server Wes (Lukas Ramsey) reluctantly indulge Charlie's need for conversation as they wait for closing time. His innumerable pop culture references are from way  before their time and punctuated by relevant songs from the unpredictable jukebox. When a stranger (Jay Melchior) enters the bar and threatens Charlie, both literally and figuratively, he's forced to leave his sitcomish existence behind and face a horrifying reality. Written and directed by Josh Carson, The Regular veers seamlessly from sitcom to horror, sharing some uncomfortable ideas about how we see ourselves along the way. (ps: full program here)

Campfire Stories
by Special When Lit (The Fae, Incarnatefeatures Twin Cities artists and TCHF favorites sharing their personal ghost stories. The roster of storytellers varies for each performance as does topic and tone. 

Our show featured Rev. Matt Kessen (sans professorial jacket, sharing his adventures with a local paranormal society), Heather Meyer (with a tale of a haunted college dorm), and Derek ("Duck") Washington (and the thing in the creepy basement). Our favorite stories were from Nissa Nordland and her heartfelt, moving story of the brother she never had and Shanan Custer's incredibly vivid tale of a haunted theater. Truly, you can't go wrong with a good ghost story.

The last show of the night also had the longest title: The Night Parade of A Hundred Demons (In Which the Honorable Reverend Matt Employs The Winding Sheet Outfit to Help Him Tell One Hundred Ghost Stories and Absolutely Nobody Gets What They Came For).  A collaboration between Reverend Matt (Kessen) and The Winding Sheet Outfit, this show is a hybrid of Rev. Matt's monster-themed lectures and the dreamy, vintagey storytelling style of Winding Sheet. 

Across five performances, they promise one hundred stories, with a different theme each night: Beasts!, Demons! (the one we saw), Shapeshifters!, Undead!, and Outsiders! Being fans of both Rev. Matt and Winding Sheet Outfit, we admire the ambition of the collaboration, but for us the show tried to do too much. There's a level of focus that you need with Rev Matt's witty and erudite lectures and a dreamy suspension of reality with Winding Sheet. Love the idea but we'd rather see a regular Rev. Matt show and a new Winding Sheet Outfit project, please and thank you.