‘House of Spirits’: The Classic Haunted House Gets Remixed for Grownups (A NoPro Night Out)

This this little mixology experiment:

Two parts creep-show, one part Halloween classic, two dashes music, and a dash of puppetry. Add bourbon or tequila to taste.

That’s the formula for House of Spirits, a new seasonal pop-up that got its monster mash on this weekend at a mansion that should be pretty familiar to the veteran immersive heads in LA.

The House is the work of Meyer2Meyer, the former operators of the Haunted Hayride and Great Horror Campout, who have pivoted into more nightlife centered experiences of late, including Rated R, the horror speakeasy and Kaleidoscope.

For Spooky Season they’ve shaken up an offering that feels like a grown up version of the classic Haunted House. There’s rooms on the second floor where you need to stick your hands in various holes to win a scavenger hunt, all while being menaced by creepy demons who have seemingly stepped out of some seriously freaky paintings.

Down in the basement two attractions await. One a performance that would be right at home on Zombie Joe’s stage, the other a fantastic trawl through a maze in a nightmare of a nursery rhyme.

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In between are the bars. Six of them with sample pours of specialty cocktails, most of which are available as mocktails. Each themed to the room they are served in. For our money the best two were the Taste of Fall — a seasonal spiced mix that pairs very well with bourbon — and the Magpie — a passion fruit based drink named after the lead character in the nightmare maze in the basement.

Around the grounds you’ll find an oversized Ouija board that answers questions and flirts with the more attractive guests, the deprived demonic family lives in the house, ghosts who don’t know they’re dead, a puppet show, and a food truck that serves really, really good pasta. (It’s an experiment from the catering company that is running the cocktails and it is way better than it has any business being. People were chowing down on the remains of their bowls in their cars after the show. Handmade noodles. Richly aromatic sauces. Oh. Wait. This isn’t a food review. Sorry. #sonotsorry.)

For $60 bucks you get about two or three drinks worth of booze in the form of six refreshingly distinct mini cocktails, a sampler platter of encounters that have something for just about everyone who like horror (save for extreme contact horror, which isn’t represented), and enough atmosphere to fill a spooky mansion in one of the oldest parts of town. All of which everyone was capturing on their phones, at least in the non-performance spaces.

As a Spooky Season date night, I’m not sure this can be beat.

The only note I have is that the metaplot — the mystery of just what is haunting the house — is delivered as a storytelling moment as part of an unlockable for winning the scavenger hunt. That storytelling moment apparently happens all night long, but we didn’t experience it until the end, and the performer who tackled that part didn’t seem to be prepared for the large crowd she needed to convey it to. What could have been a cool moment kinda plunked down on the keys after an otherwise very entertaining night. And honestly: House of Spirits doesn’t even need that exposition. The sandbox stands on its own.

It’s the grown up Haunted House your 13-year-old self imagined. What more could you want?

House of Spirits takes place at an undisclosed mansion between DTLA and Culver City and runs through Nov. 2nd. Tickets are $55–65 dollars.

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