We live in the Bible belt. Some call Tulsa the buckle. Either way, I am consistently reminded of how religion shapes lives in Green Country. It's the reality of the situation, and something of which I've been cognizant from an early age -- how religion is a fundamental element of life and culture.
I've also never really enjoyed being scared. I prefer merriment, laughter, confusion, and the state of resting over fear. But, fear is a natural emotion meant to convey true, legitimate danger, thereby protecting us, so I can't hate on it too much.
This is the basic mindset I had when entering Guts Church's, 9120 E. Broken Arrow Expressway, "Nightmare" on October 3rd. The event is a type of spookhouse...but with an added twist.
Many people suggested I check it out, and when they did they always smirked, but never mentioned much more. Prior to the event, which I had been planning to attend for months, I was under the impression that this wouldn't be that scary.
Cristi half-jokingly repeated her concern, "They aren't going to have chainsaws, are they? Because if there are chainsaws, I am out of there."
We came to an unspoken agreement that because this was to be held by a church on the church campus that it wouldn't be scary as hell.
Yeah, they'd voice their opinion on abortion and homosexuality, (turns out they didn't or, if they did, I missed it), and Jesus would be involved. We knew that. But chainsaws? No way.
Cristi was in.
I arrived and paid my $8 entry fee over an hour early, which was less about my own eagerness and more about the fact that the "Nightmare" website (www.nightmaretulsa.com) states that doors open at 6pm. They don't. They open at 7pm, so prepare for some standing if you arrive at 6pm.
The positives of the evening go to the production itself, the organization of the event, and all those involved in the experience. I was impressed with the nearly flawless timing of it all. Group in.
Blood spurt now. Growl, howl, scare. Group out. Yes!
We, the attendees, were meticulously guided through the "Nightmare" by two ushers or, more accurately, two drill sergeants. Each of the ten scenes seemed to last for five minutes (in actuality more like two minutes) and not a second more. When our time was up we were herded to the next scene. "Go, go, go," our guides ordered.
Because of our go-going, a young girl in the group was almost trampled. It's dark, noisy and confusing. Attendees, "Nightmare" players, and I were all making some unpleasant sounds, so I was concerned that legitimate screaming may be confused for your standard terrifying cacophony of the event. It just so happened that the fall, the potential trampling, occurred in the scariest part of the "Nightmare." Maybe we should hold off on the go, go, going for a second and pick up this teenager, I thought. Luckily, the young lady was fine, but that doesn't alleviate my concern for future "Nightmare" goers.
Among the waiting, the express pass ($15 buys you no lines, once the doors open), and the actual production, I felt like I was at an amusement park. Had it only been about having fun I would have appreciated the experience much more, because it is well done, but when it was all said and done, we weren't expected to discuss the hellish qualities of the experience. Instead, we were greeted with inquires about the future of our souls. I almost expected it, but in the end lost sight of the church's purpose in all the horror.
"If you died tonight, would you go to Heaven or Hell," I was asked as I exited "Nightmare." How about a "you live around here" or even "have you considered attending our church?" I understand that the staff of "Nightmare" was constrained by time, as groups are carefully and masterfully shuffled through the scare house, and therefore only have a short window to witness, but that caught me off guard.
The main problem I have with "Nightmare" can be summarized in one word: manipulation. It can be a wonderful thing to sit down with someone and discuss belief, origins and life. We can all learn from one another. The problem I have is when you take a strong human emotion meant to protect and use it to "save." I guess it is Guts' position that saving is saving. I don't agree. Couple that with the fact that most of those in attendance were minors.
I don't wish to give away all the scenes of "Nightmare." When a friend ruins a movie for me it is all I can do not to berate him or her, so I'll avoid being "that guy" here, but I can't let one scene pass without mentioning it.
While Guts did not weigh in on homosexuality, they did express a curious position on abortion. One of the first scenes involved a grizzly man covered in fake blood. At first glance I thought he was a serial killer or butcher. Maybe Guts has a problem with consumption of pork, I thought. As I made my way into the room I saw a woman on a blood soaked table lying in a birthing position. As the loud music blared and the strobe lights flickered, I saw the butcher make his way toward the woman. He reached between her legs and forcefully removed a fetus. He angrily strolled back across the room, the fetus lifelessly dangling from his right hand, and spiked it like a football into a small tub. From there the "doctor" made his way to a refrigerator and withdrew a cold beer. He didn't remove his blood drenched gloves or wipe his brow. He merely popped the tab and drank the alcoholic beverage.
His assistant was four-and-a-half-feet tall and carried a baby's leg. He tried to touch me with the bloody foot, but I declined.
I understand that Guts is not in favor of abortion, but this doesn't seem to be an accurate portrayal of the situation in modern America. It doesn't seek to create dialogue or present factual arguments. It's pure distortion with the enhanced aid of fear.
"Save with fear" was a past motto or at least a Biblical quote good enough for a "Nightmare" t-shirt. Why not save with honesty? Save with discussion? Save with the merits of your beliefs and only those beliefs?
All comments and column suggestions are welcome. Send to ifarley@urbantulsa.com
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Don't dig too deep into religious activities, if you don't want to be pulled in by them then don't be. I agree they have a bad way of doing things and getting a point across, but most religions do.
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I Agree, Clouded Judgment, The Nightmare is supposed to scare the "hell" out of you and it will do that.
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Sorry, it's really long, I was bored watching OU/KU...
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(If you don't want to read a long comment, skip this one)
I'd have to agree that I'm really not a huge fan of the "fear technique" as a means of attempting to get someone saved. I would agree that it does seem to be a form of "manipulation" to some degree, but like you said, from their perspective, salvation is an event which should be achieved by any means necessary. I disagree, it seems you disagree also. I'd also agree with you that conversations about beliefs, life, etc are best enjoyed in a different setting, with perhaps a little more segue than you (and I) experienced. However, like you said, they are constrained for time (and I must say did a good job of keeping everything going as far as organization/production) and, going back to the previous point, are after getting the individual saved in the most efficient way possible in the allotted time. I believe there are better ways to convert someone, if that's your end goal.
Concerning your understanding of the abortion room (which I'll get to my views on later), I feel like you're holding the room, possibly the nightmare as a whole, up to your standards (reasonable debate, factual positions, cohesive rationale, etc) rather than theirs as a "haunted house meets jesus" portrayal. Not that I'm pro nightmare necessarily, I'm just saying that it doesn't seem reasonable to go into a haunted house with a religious theme and expect a clean cut picture of the average abortion scene, you almost have to expect something over the top to some degree and turn it down a few notches to get a more accurate portrayal.
That being said, I feel that the nightmare this year (perhaps also in years past, I haven't been for about 7 years), has significantly declined in communicating the message that I believe they are trying to get across. In years past, the audience would travel through a number of scenes of progressing intensity, most of which were portrayed in a much more believable manner. For example, in the past, there was the room with the kids (in what looked like a delorean, awesome in its own right) who had been doing too much drinking, drove off and ran into a home filled with a family enjoying Christmas and the audience comes in to see the aftermath. Another room is a room where a multitude of drugs are being used and some kids have clearly overdosed, one of which was pregnant. Another room shows some fighting amongst a family only to have their (apparently) estranged child kill him(her?)self in the other room. These were believable situations that you could go through and think "Hey, my friend got in a wreck while driving drunk" or "Ya, I know how that kid feels when his parents fight, I've thought about that myself". The old nightmare got progressively worse until the audience was led into some portrayal of hell, followed by some portrayal of Christ and crucifixion which communicates the message of deliverance from all the evil the audience had just witnessed. (SPOILERS AHEAD--DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW SOME CONTENT OF THE CURRENT NIGHTMARE)
This nightmare was significantly different. I felt that most of the rooms had little to nothing to connect to the salvation message of the last few rooms (the crucifix and video by bill scheer). Some of the rooms were still believable/relevant, such as the school shooting room, the rape/molestation room, but most just seemed dramatic to be dramatic, not really communicating a message or allowing the audience to atleast feel the emotion in the room for very long (like you said, maybe two minutes in a room?). Plus, some of the rooms were just too far gone to really be communicating much of anything to me. One example, the zombie room...what were they trying to communicate here, this was the last room I expected in the nightmare. Maybe I misunderstood something but I def. don't think it was unreasonable to interpret that as a zombie room. Plus, as you mentioned, the "abortion" room seemed to be much to vague to really allow any sort of interpretation of a message. Clearly, there was some sort of abortion going on but you couldn't say for sure that this was in the will of the woman on the table or not, one because she appeared to be bound (though I could have been mistaken) and two because of the two extra women in the room who were clearly being held against their will. I felt like the room said nothing about abortion as a practice because it was just too ambiguous as to whether this was just something over the top to be over the top ( it is halloween after all...) or whether they were trying to communicate something? Even if it was supposed to be a room commenting on the horrors of abortion, physical or emotional, the setting had too much commentary to allow that to speak. The message was more "bad things happen in bubba's shed" than it was "abortion is a sin and God doesn't like it".
Sure, many people will argue "but there were so many rooms depicting hell, how can you argue that there wasn't a cohesion between the main rooms and the end???" I felt the hell rooms were really too ambiguous and spread apart to be effective hell rooms, and most of them really had their focus more on scaring the individuals (popping up in their faces, shaking the room, rats) rather than communicating the idea that this is hell. The room where all the kids were caged up did a decent job but to someone entirely unfamiliar with Christian imagery, this room might have looked like a mockery of a scene from indiana jones in temple of doom.
All the rooms outside of the few at the end really didn't seem to link into the Christian message that I believe guts was trying to portray. Certainly they communicated fear, but fear of what? Death? Damnation? No, fear of zombies, abercrombie models gone bad and school shootings, not separation from God. Maybe some fear of being stuck in hell, but still sketchy. Overall, the nightmare, to me, was a scary house (very well done in production/acting/effects/crowd control) that had a few rooms about God thrown in at the end. They were much better at communicating their message in the days of old, when the event took more of a storyline feel and allowed the audience to relate to believable situations which were not meant to scare solely on their portrayal but on the fact that they happened, they happened to people you knew and they destroyed lives. I'll stop with this section of the essay here, this is getting really long, heh.
I do want to quickly respond to the comment by uniq...divine however. First, did you not expect an opinion when you came to read this article? Aren't all news article flavored by some sort of opinion, particularly one such as this, where the author is clearly trying to state his opinion? I don't see why (if you are and I'm not misunderstanding what you're saying) you're being critical of him voicing his opinion and starting the mudslinging off right at the beginning. Second, while I could agree to some degree that the abortion room is communicating emotions that might be found in a woman who has had an abortion, I think the room is much to ambiguous (as I mentioned above) to be communicating anything definitive about abortion, its practice or really any emotions connected with it. If that were the case, what do the other two bound women represent, the fact that it's in bubba's shed, the "little person" (sorry, probably not P.C.)?? It just wasn't well done in my opinion. Although, I am a man, however, so I might not be able to understand. Third, I didn't see much reasoning behind your defense of Guts as a church because I didn't feel Mr. Farley did much to attack the church. Rather, it seemed he attacked the evangelistic model of fear-based salvation experiences, which Guts does use but I don't believe he said anything about the church other than this practice used in the nightmare. How does this "clouded perception" attack the church itself, rather than simply a practice of the church? It's not any different than an article saying "_____ church has a big play toy in their church for the children and I don't feel that big play toys are an effective means of communicating the gospel to children." (Please don't read into anything like I hate children or children's ministry or big play toys, I enjoy all the above). It seems like you took Mr. Farley's comments a bit personally, and would be interested to further discuss some of your previous points.
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Wow what a great recollection of your opinion. I almost feel as if I had read some amateurs blog on the internet. I'm sure however that you're really good at what you do and must have still been scared while writing this paper to accurately make sense of anything. Nightmare isn't supposed to accurately portray abortion. It's a depiction of what your life would be like without God in it. The scene is set up in a manner of the "hell" that abortion is. You are a man and wouldn't understand it. Take a poll of women who have had abortions let them walk through that room and see if they can't relate to the mental aspects of that room. Bottom line Guts does the things and events the way they do so somebody else doesn't have to. It's a church that is relatable to a younger generation and still has an inspirational ministry for the older generation. So before you write this church off because of your clouded perception stop by and listen to a service you'll soon realize why Guts does things the way they do.
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