Jackson’s Underworld: One Hell of a time
Once more up the flights of stairs that lead deep into the heart of the Underworld. Passing through a room filled with skeletons, surrounded by chain link fences confining a captive audience. A dismembered head reminds you of what you are about to put yourself through. It is time to step deep into the multiple floors of the Underworld, which makes some drastic improvements over last season, becoming an incredible house.
Jackson’s Underworld does a phenomenal job of having varied sets that all are well designed. A backwater bayou features shacks that hide terror lurking in them. Hospital rooms feature deranged doctors with gore dropping from every conceivable spot. Rooms are varied, ranging from tight corridors that have little lighting, to wide open spaces featuring large-scale animatronics and multiple monsters coming from every angle. One scene that stood up was a sizable dark room that featured tons of fog and a green light around waist level that made it hard to see below you. An actor that was taunting from the end of the room managed to come out from out of nowhere from the fog, getting one of the best scares possible. Many of the sets are designed with scares like these in mind, allowing the actors plenty of chances to work.
The house also does a great job of using various props and animatronics. In many cases they are used as supplements to the scene, and not the main focus. Combined with areas that contain moving floors, walls that move, and other various tricks to keep you off guard, the house makes the audience feel like they are never safe. In many ways this is reminiscent of last year’s house, which combined all these elements to make a great house, that unfortunately hampered by dead space that desperately needed actors.
Luckily, this year the actors are not only entertaining, but numerous enough to eliminate the dead space issue of last year. The monsters take advantage of their set pieces and accompanying props to get some fine scares. Once your guard is down, many of them will follow up a scare in ways that can either ratchet up the fear, by saying genuinely creepy things, or make you laugh with some randomly placed humor that can lighten the tension just enough to make the next scare rattle you further. By working on making every room feel like terror is a second away, Jackson’s Underworld goes a great house that shows a lot of promise, to the model of what many houses try to be. It manages to combine good sets with enjoyable animatronic work that provides misdirection for actors that know their craft. Jackson’s Underworld is an unbelievable house this year and is deserving of a visit.
5 / 5
