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: 

Kin: Twin Cities Horror Fest XII

Show:
Kin

By:
Special When Lit

In Short:
Newlyweds Mona and Rory are celebrating New Year’s Eve at a secluded cabin within the northwoods of Minnesota. There’s a full moon, and the wolves are howling. It’s a night devoted to change, to releasing the past and embracing the future. But are we truly able to shed our skin and begin again?

Selected Cast/Creative:
Nissa Nordland Morgan (Mona) and Tara Lucchino (Rory) play the newlyweds; Shanan Custer plays a mysterious guest to the cabin. Written by Nissa Nordland Morgan and directed by Kayla Dvorak Feld.

Our Thoughts:
Morgan has created an intriguing story of family and change. This is the second show in the Horror Festival that takes place in a secluded cabin in the woods, but unlike Dangerous Productions' Choices where the characters are genuinely threatened by what's in the woods, Kin's story takes place almost completely within the cabin. The placid domestic bliss is interrupted by a visitor (Shanan Custer in a compelling performance) who has a complicated family story to share and Mona finds herself with decisions to make. Also, there may or may not be a severed hand. (See also The Hand That Washed Ashore.)

You Should See This If You Like:
Howling at the moon

It's the Spookiest Time of the Theater Year! Twin Cities Horror Festival Season XI

Updated 10/23/22

You've heard us sing the spooky praises of Twin Cities Horror Fest for years. Won't you join us this year for the most delightful, spooky, chilling, hilarious, gory theater you'll see all year? We've been expecting you...

Twin Cities Horror Festival VIII - Day Four

Incarnate by Special When Lit
Photo by Dan Norman

Today, our takes on Twin Cities Horror Fest are bookended by a lot of love, and a little bit of vexation.

Just to recap: Why We Love TCHF, Day One, Day Two, Day Three, and our TCHF archives.

First, the LOVE. Can we just talk about what a gift Dan Norman is to the Twin Cities Theater Community? Go to the Twin Cities Horror Festival page and check out the photo slide show.  We can jabber on about TCHF, but Dan Norman's photos capture theater magic so beautifully that seeing the slideshow gives you a better sense of the wonders of TCHF than we ever could. We were fortunate enough to be in the audience when he was taking photographs--so subtly that you'd never notice if you weren't looking. But I was fascinated by trying to see the show as he sees it. His work is stunning and we're lucky to have him in the Twin Cities.

Sunday. DAY FOUR.

Charcoal Moon
Rogues Gallery Arts

Charcoal Moon by Rogues Gallery Arts
Photo by Dan Norman

Another space story! Compared to Geminae, this is a large-scale production. Filmed segments show communications from Earth and serve as exposition for this story of three spacecraft sent to a distant moon to recover a valuable energy-producing element. I liked that the goal of the mission is clear, and the competition between vessels heightens the tension. When the first ship reaches its destination, they drop out of contact with Earth, and the next ship needs to find out what happened. The interaction of the astronauts was good, but the video sometimes felt like filler. The danger and tension worked, though, and the ending was satisfying.

Incarnate
Special When Lit

Incarnate by Special When Lit
Photo by Dan Norman

Incarnate is an immersive experience, placing the audience in the congregation of a nature-based religious organization. If you're thinking it sounds like a cult, you're right. Of course, things are not as peaceful and loving as they seem, though there's still some shock value to the denouement. Our group was uncomfortable with the interactive element, which encourages the audience to sing and pray with the group. Even as an infrequent churchgoer, that was more than I wanted to commit to the experience. I'd just rather watch them from afar instead of feeling complicit in their actions. That said, this was one of the most visceral experiences at the Festival. Lauren Anderson is great as a church leader, and the cast members really commit to their religious fervor. Nissa Nordland Morgan, who is also the writer, is very convincing acolyte, and her fervent exclamations of "Joyful Harvest!" will stay with me.

Horror Show Hot Dog - Night Two
(Read more about HSHD here.)

Night Two featured: Rewind (dir. Ruben Perez), a film about a college girl which was reminiscent of The House of the Devil; Peephole (dir. Enrique Escamilla), which is about unsavory events glimpsed through an apartment door's peephole and is the reason I mistrust my car's backup camera; Together (dir. Ryan Oksenberg), a fantastically acted and compelling film about a clean-up crew and family secrets; Water Horse (dir. Sara Wisner and Sean Temple), which was very much style over substance; and Midnight (dir. Katie Bonham), a haunting and isolating film with parallel narratives taking place in the same space.

Bug Girl
LIZ Howls

A brilliant shadow puppet show, meticulously created and executed, with an intrepid young heroine at its heart. It's short, only about 40 minutes, but that felt just right. The program mentions future installments. We say, bring them on, Bug Girl!

Bug Girl by LIZ Howls
Photo by Dan Norman

Now for the vexation part. After three days and nine shows of unbelievably responsive and attentive audiences, the theatergoers at Incarnate appeared to have lost their damn minds. We were surrounded by people who were discussing the show at full conversation volume, and two of the talkers actually took out their phones and took pictures and recorded some of the show. I mean, WHAT? We sat behind Dan Norman, who was taking pictures for the festival with his fancy cameras and it was less distracting than these two. Sometimes people are the worst.

TCHF VI: The Fae by Special When Lit

Show: The Fae

Theater: Special When Lit

Genre: Theater, Fantasy

What It's All About:
"On Hollantide Eve, otherwise known as Old Samhain, a group of tourists are seduced into entering a mysterious faerie ring on the Isle of Man. They discover there’s a reason why the Fae were once feared, rather than admired. Based on the old tales of faerie, including nudity and blood, Special When Lit presents: The Fae. Join the dance, if you dare."


What We Thought:
This show begins with Gerd (Linda Sue Anderson) sitting outside a wedding party in the Isle of Man contemplatively enjoying a drink. American brother and sister Darby and Ethna happen along and Gerd tells them to be cautious cause it's the night the fairies come out. Long story short: They don't.

They wander around in the woods with another couple they picked up, Roscoe and Quinn. They hear mysterious music, see mysterious lights, drink from an enchanted waterfall, and then happen upon a fairy ring. Dancing and cavorting with fairies ensues and the siblings ignore every warning they were given by Gerd. Much rapey groping of the Americans ensues, and the fairy queen comes along and sexes Roscoe to death.

Soooo ... the fairies were kind of neat. They have an interesting movement vocabulary and their physicality was the high point of the show for us. There are a couple other high points that other people may enjoy (if you know what I mean--snicker). The Americans were pretty awful, and things picked up much more when the fairies show up. It's an interesting idea, and some of the execution is particularly memorable, but the story falls short.