“Oh hell no.” — Anonymous Queen Mary visitor
The thing no one tells you about is the heat.
An oppressive wave of funk consisting of the commingled breath of hundreds of suburbanites of every stripe concentrated in the bowels of a historic ocean liner. Yes, on her own the Queen Mary is a majestic, if eerie Presence moored at the edge of Long Beach, but every Fall she becomes something else. The tourist icon takes her throne as one of the royal figures in Southern California’s seasonal obsession with the netherworld. It is then that the berth where the grand ship turned hotel rests transforms into the Dark Harbor. That heat? It’s a reminder that you’re among the damned.
While the SoCal haunt scene can be traced back to Knott’s Berry Farm in the 70’s there’s something timeless about the large scale productions that blossom as summer turns to fall. For starters: it’s hard to tell seasons apart here in Southern California, as our weather runs a robust gauntlet from “aggressively pleasant” to “pleasantly aggressive,” so we rely instead on culture to guide us. Film Festival season, summer blockbuster season, Awards Season, Christmas, and everyone’s favorite: Halloween.
It’s in the later that the twin poles of the traditionally conservative Orange County — with its televangelical networks and military contractors — and the arch-liberal bastion of Los Angeles (never mind how the money votes) create the perfect backdrop for a rebellious streak obsessed with ghosts, ghouls, and the damned. It’s why you’ll find hundreds — young and old, of every race and creed — huddled at the gates of Dark Harbor on a Sunday night, waiting for the carnival of sin to begin. Many were at church earlier in the day. Some audibly rebel as a barker repeats the number “6” three times as part of a countdown. An easy taboo to take offense at, offered up on a silver platter. The thirst to be shocked, to see something that’s not supposed to be seen, is palpable.
Which is why I find myself marveling at the more visceral ways that Dark Harbor’s six mazes messed with my senses.
Splatterpunk has never been my thing, but while blood and gore are part of the Dark Harbor mix (particularly in the Feast maze) the star attraction for me is the deliciously disorienting nature of the maze design. For three of the mazes (the aforementioned Feast, Lullaby, and B340) that includes traversal of the ship itself, which can lead to moments of eerie beauty. Of the shipboard mazes, Lullaby, with its creepy dolly aesthetic and a seemingly endless supply of disturbed ghost girls was easily my favorite from an aesthetics standpoint.
Over the years I’ve learned that I’m more a “fight instinct” than a “flight instinct,” which has led me to identifying more with the monsters that inhabit the mazes than the screaming youngsters who move through these labyrinths. As I slipped through the shadows alone I found a Cheshire grin curling up the corners of my mouth more than once, and I had to stop myself from lingering too long in the creepy grottos of Intrepid or playing hide and seek with the undead crew of Deadrise.
If I hadn’t been doped up on pain meds I probably would have taken advantage of Dark Harbor’s bar crawl meta-game. They’ve hidden bars in the mazes, which require tokens to gain access to. Which means that there’s a layer of depth for those who are willing to brave lines (or pay for upgrades) and are cocktail motivated. Somebody somewhere understands the link between inebriation and horror very, very well.
As it stands the switchbacks, false paths, and lighting effects were more than enough to keep me pleasantly buzzed this time out. (Okay, maybe the megadose of Ibuprofen had something to do with my mellow.) Being a solo traveler meant that I got to have the occasional odd encounter with my fellow maze walkers — like the moment when I allowed myself to be melodramatically swallowed up by a cushiony darkness in the delightful Circus maze as the girls behind me screamed in protest.
Good times.
In all my years of thinking that I was too neurotic for haunts I never suspected that the major reaction I’d have was sheer glee.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. I fell deeper in love with Halloween and then El Día de los Muertos in my twenties in San Francisco. It was there I learned the tightrope walk of solemnity and mocking courage that makes up the dance macabre: we’re all going to die, so let’s find every way possible to celebrate that, shall we? Mortality isn’t something to hide from, but embrace with a earthbound sensuality.
What is SoCal’s haunt scene but that writ large and extended over weeks and weeks? It’s a cultural tenant that the makers of Dark Harbor are surely aware of, as the carnival barking of the Ringmaster — one of the signature characters who rule each of the Harbor’s mazes in the baroque mythology that undergirds the mini-theme park — admonished the masses at the gates to leave behind the hellworld of 2018 American politics and party down. Right before the next barker got everyone to scream that they were ready to die.
Aren’t we all, only if for the night?
Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor runs through November 2nd at the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Tickets start at $29.
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