Nightmares Before and On Xmas with ‘Night Before’ and ‘The Residence’ (Review)

Writers Danielle Look and Blake Weil each took on one of two Christmas-themed pieces from They Played Productions. Their thoughts are below.

Night Before

Calling something “cute,” especially a horror experience, can be seen like calling something “quaint.” Lovely denotation, but incredibly shady connotation. With that in mind, and with said prejudice not-quite intended, probably the only word I have for The Night Before is… “cute.”

Taking the form of a panicked call from a friend, dreading the arrival of Santa Claus who haunts and torments them every year for their childhood indiscretions, the piece is a 15-minute piece of spooky fluff that doesn’t really go anywhere. The premise is the show and the show is not much more than the premise; this is exactly what it says on the tin.

Unlike some other one-on-one phone experiences that have a little longer run time to develop the relationship, The Night Before jumps straight to the action. And what a fun action it is! The highlight by far is the horror riff on the classic “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” poem, describing Santa’s monstrous, incomprehensible form. The idea is a clever enough riff: Santa is a peculiar enough conceptual hodgepodge that making him an eldritch abomination isn’t that far a stretch.

The real struggle is how doomed your friend is in the universe of the piece. This attack is going to happen every Christmas Eve; there are ways to avoid it, but no way to escape. This futility, mixed with the lack of character development, negates any emotional arc the piece might have been able to achieve. But as a haunted house, a Christmas Eve witching hour diversion? It’s a success. — Blake Weil

The Residence

As a bonafide horror enthusiast and fan of dark humor, I proudly wear my disdain for Christmas on my sleeve every holiday season. When haunted houses shutter and the curtains close on spooky productions each November, I quietly go into hiding (except on Krampusnacht) and let those moved by the Christmas spirit relish in it. To each their own, right?

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But when I heard about an adult horror storytelling event taking place on Christmas day, I was more than curious to see and hear how one might spin the day’s merrymaking into something more sinister. Heading into the Zoom room at 7:30pm on December 25th, I knew very little: we had exactly 30 minutes scheduled with Patrick “Pepper” Minstyx, the historian of a fictional town called Perfection, and it seemed he had some tea to spill.

I was joined on the call by four other spectators and Pepper’s tech assistant/time-keeper, Ruby the Red Nosed, onesie-wearing reindeer. With just 30 minutes to entertain, Pepper wasted no time jumping into the spicy details on some of Perfection’s most “perfect” residents. What followed were two (non-Christmas) 12-minute ghost stories that were not particularly scary, albeit just a bit on the graphic side.

Suddenly, the gig was up and it became evident that our time was so limited with Pepper because he’d been busy sliding down the chimney and breaking into Perfection homes all day long. Chaos ensued as the authorities arrived outside the house, Pepper disappeared, and Ruby realized she’d been duped by her boss. And then the host ended our Zoom call and it was over.

I didn’t hate this experience, but I didn’t love it, either. The audience interaction was minimal, and had no bearing on the performance. It was never clear to me what my role was, or how I was supposed to interact, if at all. Thirty minutes was far too short to establish much rapport or divulge any agency into affecting the outcome of the show. And most of all — it was Christmas-y content, but hardly Christmas horror. I had a few chuckles, and the reveal at the end was unexpected, but the format ultimately just didn’t do it for me. — Danielle Look

Night Before and The Residence have concluded.

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