A horde of shrieking youngsters, pursued by clowns smeared with blood, burst forth from a north inner-city venue enveloped in darkness. Their expressions oscillate between sheer delight and stark terror.
One mother taunts her young son playfully, wiping the tear-streaked, pale countenance, “Not so courageous now you are, aren’t you?” threatening to return him to the chaotic scene if he misbehaves. Observing the intense impact of her words on her disturbed little one, she decides to comfort him with a warm embrace instead.
For some children, this may be an encounter of sheer terror while for many others, it is an experience of pure enjoyment. Emerging from Agatha’s Haunted Hall of Horrors stationed on Dunne Street, Dublin 1, the majority of the attendees are overwhelmed with adrenaline, praising the effectiveness of the stunningly orchestrated Halloween event.
The spine-chilling experience subjects them to face off creepy clowns, decapitated adults, limbless kids with blood-filled eyes, and demonic doctors, all under flickering strobe lights and eerie music.
Quizzing his comrades whether they found the event scary, a 10-year-old participant comments, giving the dauntless facade, “It ain’t scary at all” despite his hasty retreat suggesting otherwise. A girl half his age pleads with her mother for another round, thrilled by the thought of shrieking at the ghouls and phantoms on display. Most of these frightful beings are impersonated by secondary school children and local community groups.
The frighteningly delightful agreed, even the teary-eyed tiny tot is enjoying to his heart’s content. This event is one of many attractions of the neighbourhood Halloween fest, aimed not just to entertain but also to divert the locals from the much hazardous and harmful practices involving fires and fireworks that are prevalent during this season.
The Big Scream Festival, a 10-day affair unfolding in the northeastern heart of the city, offers a range of programmes for toddlers to septuagenarians and beyond. Alongside the spine-chilling Hall of Horrors, the festival has incorporated adrenaline-inducing fitness activities, literary events at the library, culinary demos, and a grand Big Scream Carnival at Sean MacDermott Street. Additionally, a smaller scale Skelabration is set up on the adjacent Sheriff Street, catering specifically to little ones.
“The objective is fabricating numerous engagements leading up to Halloween, in anticipation that people choose safer alternatives over potentially risky endeavours that could spoil our beautiful parks,” explained Leona Fynes, representative of Dublin City Council.
Karen Meenan, the director of the festival, guided festivalgoers into the haunted hall on Tuesday night. “This is a project of youth groups based in the northeastern inner city, but merely one of around 30 initiatives spanning ten days and designed to entertain everyone from preschoolers to elderly people. The festival is multicultural, spans generations, and the response has been sensational,” she stated.
She was eager to underline Swan Youth Service’s contribution, offering their Agatha Hall location for the horror spectacle.
The festival was constructed under the artistic supervision of Christina Sweetman Cullen, with significant input from her young daughter Brooke. Christina along with children and community groups from the north of the city, worked relentlessly for weeks to render the haunted hall as terrifying as possible. “This year, it’s decidedly gorier,” she admitted, “compared to last year’s relatively child-friendly version,” before she retreated into the haunting darkness to the sound of laughter and screams.