Ghosts on the Balcony 2022
The Birmingham 8 Theatre started as a playhouse in 1927 and ended up converting into showing movies in the 1980s. Supposedly, for years now guests and employees both have experienced paranormal activity such as hearing voices and footsteps, as well as objects moving on their own. With this history, it was decided that their would be no movies shown in the month of October, instead using that time to open up a unique haunted attraction. Whats guests find inside is certainly a different take on a haunted event that succeeds in some forms but will need some serious work to continue beyond its debut year.
The Birmingham 8 starts off the experience by leading groups into the upper level of the building, guiding those massed together first to a bar to get everyone in a festive mood, and finally into the bowels of the building itself. The first half of the event is vastly different from most haunted attractions, as it is more of a performance piece than an attempt to get scares. A caretaker describes the story of a doctor who loved to perform experiments on patients. Honestly, that is about as deep as the story goes, just a generic mad doctor tale. What makes this interesting is the performance by the actors, whose acts range from long monologues to funny interactions with guests to posing riddles to be solved. It is these performances which make this first half work. It is interesting to hear the stories of patients and then the doctor himself. Nothing about this portion of the event is actually scary, however there is a genuine creepiness in the atmosphere, as if this whole play-like is building to a crescendo that will unleash in a fear-filled second half. Unfortunately that doesn't happen.
The second half begins with a trip back downstairs into a theater that has been converted into a forest. A rather impressive set design that is followed with other nicely done sets, including a dark maze that caused quite the confusion, as well as the large final room inhabited by a doctor, the mangled remains of victims, and his eager assistant. At times it is easy to forget that you are inside a place where movies are shown. It, along with acting are the highlight of the event. Where the event falls short is scares. The forest scene described above? One actor inside of it. While the scene is designed in such a fashion that the actor is able to jump back and forth between the rows of trees, the group size is kept to around a dozen people. 12 to 1 does not give the greatest odds for success when it comes to scaring. There are just not enough scares available, especially if you are near the back of a group. It is an event that is legitimately fun to look at, but the whole point is to get scared, which just doesn't occur much. This is a massive problem after the first half doesn't attempt to go for scares at all. The aforementioned maze also highlights an issue over where to go at times, which is especially an issue with the maze. It was hard to tell if we were going on the right path, and the only marking was a arrow on the floor at the end that has hard to see. It led to confusion to not only our group, but the group afterwards as well. Placing a sign at eye level or even having an employee at the end to affirm the right direction would be helpful.
The location for this house is a unique one that we have not seen before. The set design and the ability of the actors to tell a story set up for something special. However, the lack of scares due to limited amount of actors, especially for the group sizes they are pushing through at once make for a disappointing event at the moment. Fortunately, this is just year one, and can easily lead to much better years if they continue. Our advice would be to lower the size of the groups for the second half, maybe pulse through 4 or 5 people at a time at most, and add another maybe half dozen actors to the scenes. It isn't the biggest location so just that amount with the ability to move freely through scenes like the forest would go a long way to making this a much more intense house that would be fantastic. Go to this one if you want something different from the norm, but not if you want a high impact house.
Ghosts on the Balcony 6 / 10
