It’s that time of year again—the days are shorter, the air is cooler, and Halloween draws nearer and nearer. For La Jolla High, that means the annual haunted house. This year, Nightmare on Nautilus was held on October 30th, apropos of the Theater Department. The haunted house takes participants through a twisted version of the school—past (fake) blood, screaming nurses, and a knife-wielding Michael Myers. The admission fee, at only seven dollars (cheap in this economy!), gave way to a line that lasted longer than the attraction.
The experience is short; it takes about ten minutes to get from the entrance to the exit. The attraction is spread over two sections: inside the auditorium and outside, near the quad. While it starts strong in the inside section, Nightmare on Nautilus loses steam in the outside section. However, it isn’t entirely the attraction’s fault; it’s much harder to make an open and familiar space scary. Fortunately, the outside section is a small part of the entire haunted house, so it doesn’t dampen the experience entirely. The acting from the performers was very well done and greatly added to the overall creep factor. Likewise, the sets the actors are in are very elaborate and as creepy as possible.
So, while it isn’t wholly nightmare-inducing, the solid acting and intricate sets ensure that Nightmare on Nautilus was a scary good time overall.