Shanghai Nightmare

Area: When it's not being all creative during the day, those leftover city fringes that abut the creek are the scariest goddamn areas in Shanghai. There's weeping willows and thousands upon thousands of dead souls locked up in high-rises, patches of pitch-black bamboo swaying in the wind, lots of angular shadows, and decrepit warehouses. There's even a bunch of brave evening joggers, who it's pretty easy to imagine being yoinked off their path by a serial killer hiding in a dark corner. Shanghai Nightmare is right in the middle of that whole situation.

It's near, eh, nothing really. It's close to the Chengdu Bei Lu bridge over Suzhou, just east of it on Nan Suzhou Lu, and a quick walk from the Xinzha Lu metro station. If you're coming by cab, you'll either get dropped at Beijing Lu and Xinqiao Lu (walk north up Xinqiao Lu, hang a left at the creek) or the Chengdu Bei Lu service road that dead-ends at the creek (walk east on Nan Suzhou Lu).

What it is: A haunted house! Shanghai's, and ostensibly, mainland China's, first haunted house. Shanghai Nightmare has taken over a crumbling 1902 warehouse on the creek and turned it into a maze of fright, but only until Halloween. (It's slated to close after Halloween, though if it's really successful, they'll consider keeping it open.) It's real good, too. There are 13 "scenarios" to walk through, starting with a girl in a nightgown crawling across a darkened hallway, creepy rooms full of rogue surgeons, dead teenagers, roaches on walls, and actors scaring the shit out of you, even when you know they're coming. And then there's an endless mirrored, smoked, and laser-lit forest, a giant spinning tube splattered with day-glo paint to walk through, and other delightfully terrifying opportunities to soil yourself.

The whole thing is done up real nice. It's the pet project of a corporate escapee and his artsy girlfriend, and they've been working on it for a year, including a trip to America for HauntCon, an American tradeshow for the haunted house industry.

Atmosphere: It's scary and fun and everyone should go once. But what I found even scarier than the haunted house was the rest of the city, after going to the haunted house. The tumbledown neighborhood around the creek that's still clinging to dear life is really terrifying, with its pitch-black lanes and midnight alleys and spiderweb decor, when you're on edge. Basically, it turns the entire city into a haunted house for a while, which is kind of fun. Try it. Wander the lanes west of Chengdu Bei Lu after you go.

Damage: It's 98rmb to just go through the house. Being in Shanghai, of course there's also a VIP ticket. Cough up 198rmb and you get: 1. to skip to the front of the lines, should there be any; 2. a t-shirt; 3. a vodka drink at the end; 4. some face. They're also working out a system that allows you to pay 20rmb for a "lantern" that acts as a ghoul-repellent -- if you're in a group, the actors won't single you out for the scarier stuff.

Also, until the end of September, if you mention their website, you get 20% off at the door.

Who's going: Ghouls, goblins, ghosts, axe murderers, illegal dentists, disemboweled war veterans, people whose eyes have melted, radiation victims, Siamese twins preserved in formaldehyde, Gary Glitter, priests, exorcists, the exorcised, pissed-off demons, mutant cockroaches with Unionpay cards, financial advisors, independently traveling rotten limbs, Danzig, Egyptian mummies, and that girl who got murdered by Jason's mom in Friday the Thirteenth.