Delusion is an immersive horror theater experience located in Los Angeles. Each year Delusion changes the theme, creating a unique horror event. This year the Delusion experience revolved around vampires. We discuss the good and the bad in our 2016 Delusion Review of His Crimson Queen.
Delusion: His Crimson Queen Rating
Delusion Review 2016 : His Crimson Queen
We have include a synopsis below. If you want to know what happens in in His Crimson Queen make sure to read it. Otherwise, just skip over it and read our Delusion review.
The Good
Set Design
Delusion does a phenominal job with set design. Year after year, they have created the most authentic environments of any hauntings in Los Angeles. This year, there was a room with plants that feels like something straight out of Poison Ivy’s lair. The rooms kept us in the story, creating an authentic feel.
Make sure to take a moment to appreciate some of the rooms. There are a lot of small features that can be overlooked in the panic. The only place that we believe has done a better job with the sets is Sleep no more in New York.
The Special Effects
There are some fantastic effects in this production. Animatronic skeletons coming to life like the the old stop motion films by Ray Harryhausen. Hand cranks that only power the light as long as someone is working them. These are all great aides to scaring the audience.
The actors
Any theater production is going to rely heavily on the actors themselves. We loved the man with the eye patch, even though we don’t remember his name. We won’t soon forget the high pitched laughter of the adult children in the attic either.
Scary moments
This is what people pay the money for in Halloween. Delusion has a few moments of pure terror. Audience member elbowing each other as they rush to escape a room. They may have been few and far between, but they were there.
The bad
The story
We felt that Delusion tried to over complicate things. Story is important, but this seemed overly complicated. The audience was introduced to one new character after another. We eventually stopped caring who the new characters were and why they were important.
We became so turned around that when the climax came it didn’t mean much to us. Our group stared on placidly as the two actors moaned and screamed to death for an agonizingly long time.
Audience interaction.
This was the worst part of Delusion for us. The audience “was born from Selene” so we were told we had powers and had to use them. This meant we had to wave our hands at actors and them getting yanked away. The ropes used to pull them away were painfully obvious. It was rather cringe-worthy at times.
These awkward audience “power” interactions also pulled us out of the story. We would run screaming from a vampire only to be stopped in the next room. A new actor then would force us to wave our hands around to capture a vampire under our spell. It made us feel a bit silly.
The Effects
We are all for special effects. One of the best parts of the 2012 Delusion was when zombies crawled along the wall towards us, seeming to defy gravity. The problem with His Crimson Bride is how many special effects they tried to cram into it.
Granted, there were some really good ones (read the spoiler above if you want to know specifics). Yet, by trying to do so many the audience began to grow bored of them. Worse, it began to pull us out of the story. Parts of our group began to laugh at some of the effects, which is not exactly what you want in a horror immersive theater.
The Acting
The acting was decent. There were a handful of actors who were great, and the rest were alright. We did feel a bit bad for the actors. They not only had to act a complicated story, but also herd 10 or so confused audience goers. Plus they had to continually instruct us to use our awkward powers.
The Price
Immersive theater does come with a high price tag. There is a lot more involved and it targets a smaller audience. That being said, the $70 price tag might not have been worth it this year. Past years I would have said it was easily worth it.
Delusion 2016: His Crimson Queen
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Delusion Review 2016 : Summary
There were some very enjoyable parts of His Crimson Queen, but in general we were pretty let down. They tried to involve the audience too much. It only pulled us from the story and make for some awkward moments. They also included far too many special effects. We can only see so many vampires floating around on badly hidden ropes before it gets silly.
We still believe Delusion is one of the best immersive theaters in Los Angeles. Delusion: The Blood Rite was the reason we became interested in immersive theater. We’ve attended many events, good and bad. So that being said, make sure to take our rating with a grain of salt. We do recommend trying it out for newcomers, as it is definitely a unique experience.
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