This year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe is packed with creepy shows, from a jaw-clenching haunting to sci-fi terror. Our writer, a self-confessed wimp who usually avoids horror films, braved a full day of horror theatre to find out just how scary the stage can be.
The journey began gently with Elysium, a satirical musical about a gated community where exclusivity breeds danger. Performed by Ghouls Aloud, the show uses lilting songs and eerie harmonies to slowly build unease, though some tangents weaken the narrative. The darkness creeps in gradually, and the writer admits a preference for horror set to music.
A stark contrast came with Scatter: A Horror Play, a pitch-black show relying on intense shadows and jump scares. Patrick McPherson plays Tom, who recounts a trip to scatter his father’s ashes in rural Wales, uncovering a sinister family legacy. The design dominates, but the effective use of torchlight and sudden screams keeps the tension high, leaving the writer’s heart racing.
The final show, Sponsored By the Void, offered a queer sci-fi comedy where a supernatural visitor helps a woman break free from a useless boyfriend. The real horror is subservience to men, delivered with goofy charm and sharp performances. The writer concludes that theatre can indeed scare, but the scares are often more psychological than cinematic, relying on atmosphere and storytelling rather than gore.
