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Metroplex Atheists
Metroplex Atheists Visits Hell House 2001! For the uninitiated: "Hell House" is a haunted house franchise that several churches in the US show around Halloween. They are intended to be as scary as other commercial houses, but the scares are real! We visited the house in 2000, and it was such a popular feature that many returned for another round of Christian-themed scares. . .
Brian McIntosh's report This year's Hell House was drastically less popular than last year. When we left for our hellish experience there was maybe 1/5 of the number of people that had been there the year before. Many of us wore our Atheist-themed shirts with pride and one button. We met a couple from Denton who saw our planned event on the website and joined us. In all there were 10 of us. We first had our photo taken. We asked the ticket sales girl to do it, who looked at us with a little trepidation after she read our shirts. The event organizers were quick to stop the picture taking this year so not many were taken of inside the Hell House.
Sorry we've got few pictures this year. Picture-taking was forbidden and enforced. The terror began in the cattle lines with blaring Christian rock music and a huge crowd of young kids (12-15) shoving each other incessantly. I, wearing my "Atheist Club" T-shirt, was asked repeatedly just what Atheist Club meant. My answer was that it was a club at my University. This answer, however, was not satisfactory, and I had to explain that it was a club for Atheists. I could overhear others behind me debating as to what atheist really meant. A young man of about 25 spoke with me briefly about the saving power of Christian rock music but stopped when I told that I too enjoyed the stylings of POD (a popular Christian band). Then it was a high-speed hayride to the Hell House. Apparently Jesus doesn't believe in safe speed or seat restraints as we whipped through the roads. More than once we had to desperately grab onto each other to literally keep from being thrown off. Everett (leftmost in the picture) disappeared, and there was speculation as to what had happened. Some claimed he had gotten tired of waiting in line and he left early, stating "this sucks, I'm outta here". Others claim that this was a metaphor for how the world sucked and that he was going to a better place and that we should all worship him and he was raptured. We may never know the whole story. While we waited our turn at the Hell House to enter we struck up a brief conversation with the group of about 8 girls who were with us. Turns out they were reading Harry Potter in school. This bit of info becomes funny later. The web site claimed, and numerous organizers claim, that this Hell House was better than ever with new scenes. There were a few new scenes, but it was more tacky too. From what I saw last year it would seem that the critique we posted on the Metroplex Atheists website was taken to heart as many of the issues we raised had been addressed. The demons no longer said "excuse me", now they just shoved us out of the way. Still no cursing, maybe next year. The prevailing theme this year was that women are the downfall of men. The first skit described a man who began viewing pornography in junior high and later went to strip clubs and frequented ladies of the evening. Later, when he was married, he had to view porno on the internet. I'm not kidding about "had to", because his wife wouldn't give him what he wanted/needed. It appeared that he had gotten divorced or estranged from his wife and had come by her home to find her gone (played out in narration). The action begins with dad savagely beating his daughter who appears to be in handcuffs and forces her to call her mother at work. With terror in her voice she begs her mother to come home while Dad screams in the background. Mom, being the sympathetic kind, says that she is busy and can't leave. Finally Dad wrenches the phone away and warns Mom that there will be hell to pay if she doesn't come home immediately. Mom enters and finds that two of her daughters have been brutally murdered. Rather than attacking her ex-husband or calling for help or running away, mom finds that the best solution to this problem is to turn her back on the man with a gun. Dad, egged on by demons, decides that murder is still the best option and kills mom, the remaining daughter, and himself. All that from porno in jr. high. The next scene was the tried-and-true drunk driver bit with the wrecked car. It started with four teens, three of which are falling down drunk. The kids were wearing Cedar Hill High School letter jackets, a theme that carried throughout --I'm not going to send my kids there. One friend hadn't had a drink all night and the four of them wanted to drive down the street to a new party. The drunks argued vehemently over their right to drive, while the sober Christian one claimed that she should. After being laughed at for her faith, she gets upset and leaves the drunks with their car keys! They, of course, get in a wreck and two die. While being dragged away, the boy shouts that he had gone to church every Sunday for years, but the demon says that he didn't really mean it when he was there. We then move to the hospital scene where we find the other girl on the verge of death and her friend by her side. Gone was the ER theme music and the gay man with AIDS. The girl with the failed abortion was still there though. Someone in our group pointed out that this is why women should go to clinics for abortion and not use coat hangers. Everyone started giggling, including the girls who weren't with us. The demon had to come over and tell them to be quiet. The car wreck victim deciding that God didn't love her cursed his name and went to hell. The girl who got an abortion cried out to Jesus, who sent down an angel (a bit late, missing her cue) to protect her from the demon. Next came the rave. It wasn't very clear what was happening. From what I am told some girl took some dope and died immediately. Frosty the snowman and the gang rape were gone too. After that came the drug deal which had only black and Hispanic characters. One person was clearly the leader of the cartel as he bossed his girlfriend around with the threat of violence. Upon hearing that one of his dealers (who two weeks previously had killed some people in cold blood) turned Christian, the leader became irate. Finally the Drug Dealer For Jesus arrived and explained that he didn't want to sell dope anymore. After a brief argument, the leader acquiesced and said that he understood, was upset but could live with this new event. Then the new Christian turned in his money from the dope he had been selling. Unfortunately he was short, and it takes money to start a new life. The Christian explained that, after talking with a pastor, he couldn't sell drugs anymore, and he was troubled about that whole murder thing from two weeks ago. Why he didn't come up with the rest of the money to give to the leader wasn't clear. Personally, if I work for a person who has the competition murdered, I'm not going to cheat him out of his money, but that's just me. So the Christian got it in the back. The girl voiced a small voice of objection but not too much. And, yes, this years drug deal was in a barn as well. There was no animal dung this time, which was a plus! Then we moved on to high school where we find Scott contemplating suicide. Throughout many of these skits we chimed in with words of wisdom for the characters, but they never reacted. So we became bolder. Scott complains of constantly being picked on and decides that the best answer is to kill himself in the hallway. We as a group including the girls who weren't with our group encourage Scott that the answer isn't suicide but murder. Some other kids come in and pound on Scott for awhile to suggest that shooting someone in self-defense isn't unreasonable. Sadly, they even had one of the characters wearing a Marines T-shirt. He didn't beat up on Scott, though. He simply laughed and told the others to stop before they killed him. He was later allowed to live. Scott kills the others but feels really bad about it. Next we find the demon worship. It begins with a girl of about 15 who got into the occult by reading Harry Potter (I pointed and said "that's you" to the non-atheist girls, they didn't care for that) several years ago. Nobody asks how she did that since Harry Potter hadn't been written until a few years ago. The girl and a boy decide to raise the dead. After that is done (in 15 minutes or less!), the boy decides that Satan needs a sacrifice. This scene was done outside and the characters comment about the moon and how they are outside. That being said, the boy gets a knife and tells the girl that she is to be the sacrifice, but the girl screams her disapproval. I called out that she could run away she hadn't been tied down or anything the boy just told her she was to be killed. My attempt to help falls on deaf ears. From there we move to Amber, who has to tell her boyfriend that he got her pregnant. Well, probably him. Her boyfriend, Paul, arrives, and we encourage him to do what young men who accidentally got a girl pregnant have done for years, join the Army! Amber tells Paul what the sad news is. Paul tells Amber that he knows all about the party she went to where she got drunk and some guy raped her. Then Paul, using the justification, "You like it rough" also rapes her. We move into the bedroom scene for the most depressing part of the show. Paul leaves, tells Amber that he doesn't want to see her again, and throws her stuff around. Amber climbs out of bed and, apparently in an attempt to make the show more realistic, actually undid the front of her pants so she could re-zip and buckle them. She tastefully turns her back to us but by doing so she faces a mirror. Amber in tears ignores our instructions to call the police and is reminded by a demon about how her dad had raped her. This girl has had a hard life. Amber curses god and cuts her wrist. On to the Jesus movies. Mel Gibson was no longer in the skits this time. It was only movies about Jesus. Then it was onto the gates of heaven. A few young children are lying around, and we finally figure out that these kids are supposed to represent the people we saw in the skits before. They weren't even wearing the same clothes! It took awhile to figure out who everyone was supposed to be. The kids cry out wanting to know why God didn't help them when they needed him most. He responds that he saw what was happening and felt really bad about it. No definite answer as to the no help thing. The gates of heaven open up and the saved gleefully leave the damned behind. Though with all the aluminum foil on the walls in there, Heaven looked like it might be an oven. Hell was smoke filled and quite dank. No tortured souls this year --just another demon who held a human skull. We missed most of what the recording had to say because the whole group walked all the way across the wobbling bridge and he had to tell us to get back on it. Hell isn't scary unless there is unsure footing. Into the coffins. I was in one with Ginny Barnett, who turned down my suggestions that we make it a make out closet. I bet the Christians on the other side would have been surprised to find that. Then it was onto the high-pressure sales pitch. It had the same guy in there as last year but he stood against the back wall while his apprentice did the sale. He first asked us if we accepted that we would either go to heaven or hell when we died. Since most of the group was atheist (we outnumbered the Christian girls by one) we answered with a no. He said that was okay because we were wrong. God had found a perfect human without sin to die for us. An audience member offered Mohammed as that person but this was ignored. No, it turns out that the perfect person God found to die for us was Jesus. Yes you heard right, gone is the Immaculate Conception bit, Jesus was a human first and God called him. It's certainly difficult to keep track of theology from year to year. After a few barbs from the audience, he stated that we could wear our buttons (points but doesn't look at Rachel) and we could wear our shirts (points but doesn't look at me) but we know deep down what it is all about. He then asks us to go and pray. The 8 girls leave after a few lead the way. Randy and a few others got bored and started to walk out and the person leaning against the wall stopped us and asked if we were just going to play around and that we shouldn't do that. Randy stated that he was bored and wanted to leave. The rest of us followed suit. No prayer-mints were offered this year. While we were leaving, a few of the "prayer warriors" noticed our shirts and murmured amongst themselves. In all it was rather amusing, and it continued with the teachings that if a person isn't a white male then they are hellbound. No reference to the hellbound nature of homosexuals or non-Protestants, but maybe that is understood. We grouped together to have our after picture taken and someone saw my shirt and stated that he liked our web site and looked forward to reading our review this year.
James Rouse's report Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here My trip to Hell came in a familiar form of temptation, that of a friend innocently inviting me on an outing, "Hey you wanna go to Hellhouse with me and my Atheist group?" I thought about the quiet serenity of staying at home reading a book to going out with relative strangers who would be a (non)silent minority within a rather vocal majority. I told him, "sure." What follows are my own obversvations of the event. Consider, now that it will be biased. Upon arrival I was offered a Darwin shirt, to stand out of the crowd. My friend was wearing his AtheistClub t-shirt and I was told of what other members of the group would be wearing to be provocative. I decided my drab civvies were the best choice. If anything I could be the voice of reason within a vigilante lynch mob, should emotions rise to that point. Fortunately things never came to that. After waiting for an hour, the entirety of the group that would appear had arrived. With tickets in hand, the 9 of us packed into the s-curves of the cattle chutes (coincidence?) awaiting the "haunted hayride" to the Hellhouse. I could not help but think that the trailer rig we were to ride in was quite dangerous at the speed with which they were taking us through the field. Harnesses, seatbelts, ropes, railings, all would have made me feel more at ease but none were present. I felt the need to comment that while Jesus saves, he doesn't save as much as seatbelts. After an hour's wait in line the question is voiced, "why's it taking so long?" and I have to quip, that "they're looking us up in the Book of Life." When our turn to ride came, my previous misgivings about the trailer were not put aside, just reinforced. Especially by one of the guides warning us that if we were to fall to shout clearly for the driver to stop so he could back up, and over us (point emphasized) so we may be picked up again. Ah here we are at the entrance to hell. I'm trying to decide if the irony of an otherwise chilly autumn night ruins the concept of the hell I've been accustomed to, that being fire and brimstone. Alas. Shivering in the front as I was I notice a camera above the entrance. I gasp and have a fear remembering the episode of the Simpson's where all the town's residents were shown invited to the Cultist camp and shown a film that "you could leave at anytime" during the showing but upon standing up a light and all attention was forced on you so you would sit back down and after hours of brainwashing, all dedicated they're support and money to The Leader. In asking the ticket takers for its purpose I was told so they'd know when to queue the next scene as people toured through it. Convenient. Then all paranoia is set aside when we're told we're up. Being led through a Hefty sack lined hallway I expected the first prop to be slightly better then a 13" inch TV giving us a thirty second soundbite hyping an event we already paid money for. Somewhat redundant but then we were led to into the first set and the fun begins. Quadruple Murder/Suicide: The scene is a two seater couch center, and a desk to the right with laptop computer phone and behind it, a loudspeaker with a narrator telling us the evils of carnal knowledge of the body. I look to my left but see no fruit bearing trees so I know I've not stepped into Eden. On the wall, a projector is beaming random images of advertisements for stripclubs, sex clubs, XXX shops and the like. The room is very dark and once the images stop a projector puts a square of blue light across the couch in a bad lighting job, that just heightens tension. After a narration of which I zoned out to and ignored, some fairly fast and heavy music starts to play and I'm diggin' it. Bobbing my head enjoying the surroundings, I'm abruptly shoved to the side as some old man leads a little girl into the room and throws her onto the couch with a mock slap to the face. Eyebrows raised, I start jamming to the music a little bit more. Observing the setup, I also cannot help but feel that this is all like a music video and MTV doesn't hold a candle to this, its cool. Little girl crying on the couch and dad(?) apparently in a rage pacing around like a caged animal, our friendly narrator chimes back in to tell us that "Frank's fall began in jr high when he began looking at pornography. Later in college when he began to have sex with multiple women, some of which were hookers. Then he married, but because his lust was unsated he had to turn to the internet and when his wife began to deny him of what he needed he lost control." The father picks up a phone, and little girl begging him to stop, he calls his (ex? were not made clear on this point) wife at work. Gives phone to girl and demands she tell mom to come home. Little girl cries out and begs mom to come home but a women's voice on the loudspeaker says, "honey you know I'm busy at work and can't leave." Now I do not have kids, but I think that my child crying and begging me to come home would provoke a little bit more of a reaction from me then a chastisement about disturbing me at work. Frank grabs the phone and demands wife comes home, now grasping the situation, she confronts him with requests not to do anything rash. He warns not to call the police or he'll lose it, the same sort of threats domestic abusers issue to they're victims. Slams phone down and a narrator's voice tells us that "your wife is an evil woman, she wouldn't give you what you needed and so now you've lost your family. She should have given you sex more often." Here I'm forced to make assumptions, we all are. The narrator's voice on the speaker before was setting the tone of the scene speaking against the images of sex on TV, books, streets. But now the voice telling Frank that his wife didn't provide enough sex was presumably a demon...tempting him? I don't know. Its not a short leap of inductive logic for me to think that the Hellhouse proprietors are telling women to give it up to their husbands more often. If you don't put out more often, this is what happens (homicidal lunacy). Now that's demeaning to men's intelligence and sense of self control and even more demeaning to women, reducing them to the rolls of Korean sex slaves in WWII Japan. Anyway, Frank leads girl into next room and we are all bid to follow. We are now in a living room with a blood soaked baby stroller, a girl dead on the floor in a pool of her own blood and another girl tied to a chair crying and begging Frank to stop. Meanwhile Frank is pacing around the room with a loaded gun. Demons walk around talking to Frank urging him to finish the job, kill the remaining girl when mom busts in the door. As an aside, I'd rather it be some policeman that mom called from work knowing the tense situation to be found, but she comes in herself. In the ensuing argument and tears mom and dad have, the demons convince Frank to shoot her, strangle daughter and ultimately shoot himself. Quadruple homicide, suicide guess who's gone to hell. If only he'd turned to God, that would have saved them all. Nevermind restraining orders, self defense classes, 9-1-1, police, shelters for the abused, perhaps even family counseling or anger management courses. We leave the room. Car Wreck We're standing on gravel and see the rear half of an Oldsmobile. The front is covered by the same Hefty sack walls that surround virtually all the scenes. Four teens drunkenly stumble in from the side and the conversation rolls around how drunk they all are, how great the school game is, and how they should drive to a different party. Hmm, is it cliche to have the drunken jock? One of the group asks to drive as she has not had any to drink and is perfectly sober. The guy, arguing from his position on the ground where he tripped and fell argues that she hasn't had enough to drink. They all laugh at the sober one. The sober one then says, "Fine" and stomps off. Not much of a friend to let her three drunken peers stumble into a car and drive into oblivion. What's the true message...? we leave the room. Car Wreck part II Now I thought this was a rather well acted scene. Its the front of the Oldsmobile we saw before and its torn all to...well, hell from a head on collision. One girl is blood soaked crawling away and another lies dead behind an open driver's side door. An EMT runs in and administers to those she can then leaves the scene. Which frightens me more then anything else, medical personnel leaving you in your own blood after checking your pulse. The guy who drove gets up from behind the car and starts crying about his injured friends and a demon comes to him and laughs hideously about how he killed her, it was his fault, now his drinking has drawn him towards hell where he will be tormented. Not much to say, you're an idiot for committing DWI. We leave the room. Hospital ER This is fairly interesting here. Pretty good props that they have. There's a girl on a hospital gurney and with a lot of blood and lacerations. I believe she's a survivor from the previous car wreck. I think its also only fair to point out that I believe she was the same girl who refused to get into the car with the drunks. Biiiig hole in the plot. Really, two girls (blonde) and a guy get into the car. The one who refused was a brunette. Now in the ER the one in bed with horrible injuries is the brunette. I thought this was an unrelated vignette, but she cries out for the dead boy the demon led off and her friend breaks the news to her gently and she writhes in emotional agony. So she was related to the previous car wreck? I was so confused trying to make connections that I lost track of the continuation of the storyline. This is when a nurse rolls another girl into the room. On the bed, her legs are spread and there's blood pouring from her crotch. Very gratuitous but makes the point. The nurse says she had an abortion two days previously and had started bleeding profusely at that moment. I feel the need to point out to no one in particular that that's why you go to a medical clinic instead of a coathanger. This is when "Keep Hope Alive" by the Crystal Method begins playing in the background and like the first scene, my mind leaves while I'm jamming away. With two girls writhing in agony the demon is walking back and forth chiding them both. "you've lost your boyfriend, where's your god now?" and "you've lost your baby, you'll never hear his voice." The demon is doing its best to get both to recant any Christian faith and denounce God. Finally the girl suffering an embolism from her botched abortion cries to Jesus to forgive and save her. While the Demon laughs, a girl in white shows up saying, "no, you cannot have her, she cried to Jesus and her pleas were heard she belongs to the Lord." The car accident victim cries out that she hates Jesus, where was He? and the Demon prances to her and says, "this one's mine." All actors stop moving. As if it weren't bad enough with the subtle to blatant sexism in the first scene this has got me all kinds of riled. I learned here that Pascal's Wager is the way to go. The girl dying from the abortion crys to God and is forgiven minutes before she dies. Even though we're told she lived a life of debauchery leading up to the "murder" of her baby. So the way to go, is on your deathbed, recant your hedonistic life of Riley and cry to the mercy of Jesus and boom you're in? That would seem to undermine the whole Faith thing in religion. Do what you want just repent your ways before your number's up. But despite my levity, I'm still quite angry that this scene supports Pascal's Wager when I feel it undermines Faith by definition. We leave the room. Rave Standing in a Hefty sack corridor again waiting to enter the next scene, three actors appear on the stairway and look behind us and shout that someone is here. I don't know if its part of the acting or not, but I turn to look behind me and only see a demon sitting there. I guess I'm to understand that they were waiting for their pusher to arrive, or some boy they're infatuated with, or another friend...something I don't know. But they run inside a door and music starts playing. We are led into the room and its lots of fun. Completely darkened with glow in the dark paint on the walls, a laser fx generator doo-hickey, blacklights and loud dance music we're looking at a rave in progress. For the next five minutes I dance in place and watch the other actors dance as well. They say their lines, but the music is so loud I can't understand it at all. Finally one of the actors collapses on the ground and the others laugh at her. One of the other actors runs to the fallen member and looks concerned. I think it was a drug overdose. Just another victim of Ecstasy. If only they'd read in the Bible, in I Thessalonians where Drugs are denounced, and Christians are admonished not to smoke the mean green or ingest X. Personally, this seems to me to just hammer in the point..DON'T DO DRUGS...DRUGS KILL. But that's commonsense too. I didn't feel the need to turn to God. I did feel the need to tell the actors, "Listen to Nancy Reagan." We leave the room. Drug Deal We're in a barn with a card table that has a few baggies of white powder, an open briefcase, and a revolver. The actors are a Pablo Escobar type yelling and complaining at another actor a pretty girl sitting at the table fairly unfazed by any of the situation she's in. Some kid comes in and tells how much he sold and how he needs more to sell. Pablo Escobar type compliments his salesmanship. Kid leaves. Another kid comes in and looks awfully nervous. Pablo Escobar type tries to greet him welcomingly, but the kid will have none of it. Only says how bad he feels about killing someone previously, he talked to a preacher and feels like turning himself in to the police. The dealer is upset by this turn of events, demands the money for the drugs, and ultimately shoots the kid in the back as he tries to walk away. Now I laud the efforts of the kid who's feeling guilty about cold blooded murder and rethinking his path in life. But I am not surprised he's shot, as a capitalist, I can see the dealer's point of view as well...where's his money after all? What's to say this kid won't turn him into the police? But the message I got wasn't that God would have been his bullet proof vest. Rather it was the corollary of what I learned at the Rave...DON'T SELL DRUGS EITHER. We leave the room. School Shooting There's a kid pacing up and down in front of some lockers with a demon talking to him. I predict anabolic steroids, but was wrong. Don't second guess the pathways to hell, I learn. The demon tells Scott that nobody likes him, not his peers, not his family, not his parents...why he's never had a girlfriend. He should do something about it. He should show them all. Scott pulls a gun from his locker and nods to self. The demon tells Scott more reasons why he should start offing people. Three thugs show up and start shoving Scott around. Slamming into walls, shoving to ground, hell it was pissing me off at this point, I can see how the kid could reach this point. What's more shameful is that one of the kids was wearing a Marines shirt. That's not a good message in and of itself, our armed forces are made up of no account, thugs? But luckily he mostly just watches and does not involve himself instead he asks them stop once, but then quietly ignores the proceedings as Scott is strangled against the wall. Leaving him to himself finally, Scott goes to his locker pulls the gun and fires once, twice. Two dead, one (in the Marines shirt) running scared still not a good symbol for our armed forces. The Demon laughs, "hahahaha, you will spend the rest of your life in prison and mental institutions for this." The evil apparition has a point. I think Scott had a chance at a self defense angle. Better yet, talk your feelings out with a school administrator, try to correct the rioting in they're own school's hallways with expanded security or onsite police. We leave the room. Satanic Ritual We are in a hallway looking at an upraised stage open to the sky. This is apparently a black mass. Some girl looking like she's straight off the cover of a Lords of Acid album tells us that she's been working hard to suck some innocent girl into this false religion, Jenny I think her name was. That first she tempted Jenny with Harry Potter books as a little girl and later Dungeons and Dragons and finally bringing into her life some guy who was a devil worshipper. Now while I don't know the age of this Jenny, I do know from research that Harry Potter was first printed in 1997 in the United Kingdom and I wonder how old this Jenny person was when she read them. Because she appeared to be in her late teens. Oh well, its inconsequential. All things Magick lead to Satan anyway. The ceremony begins. I don't know what they are trying to accomplish, raising the dead, giving they're souls to some pagan deity, or just looking for directions from something other then Rand-McNally. I do know that I did not hear Satan, Beelzebub, Lord of Darkness, Prince of Lies, Shaitan or any other invocation of a specific name intoned. But during the ceremony her personal Demoness starts to talk to the guy, presumably her boyfriend and convinces him that she needs a larger sacrifice. Don't just cut the wrist of Jenny to seal the pact, no, tell her you're going to kill her, walk around the set aimlessly before cutting her throat. Jenny, cries out in dismay at learning this, because she thought this guy loved her. Apparently not. I also wonder why she could not run away from the psycho. She had ample space and time. God saves but not the stupid who miss the opportunity when presented with it. After her throat is slit, the Demoness laughs evilly and the ex-boyfriend just dance around on the stage. The boyfriend actor actually steps off the stage down on the ground with us and starts to stare us all down. As he passes me I have to warn him not to go "back there" vaguely thumbing over my shoulder, as Scott is still regulating, and dispensing justice with a gun as he sees fit. The actor climbs back on stage. We leave the room. Amber Now this scene went hand in hand with the first scene of Frank the lecher in that it was confusing in its message sexually and horribly demeaned women. We're in a pleasant living room and Amber makes a call on the phone asking her boyfriend to come over. He agrees. She's worried and crying and wondering what's going to happen when she breaks the news she has. The demon is laughing at Amber about her pregnancy and how she's "pretty certain" that the baby is her boyfriend's. Will she tell him about the party she was at a couple of months ago? Evil laughing. Some guy stomps in from behind us who turns out to be the boyfriend. He asks what she wants she breaks it gently, she's pregnant. They talk a bit, she's still scared about what his reactions will be, he strangely enough has no reaction. She asks him to say something, he yells, that he's a bit distracted at the moment. Conversation now turns to the party. Amber's boyfriend is quite angry now, accusing her of being a whore at the this party. How he talked to "so and so and he told me how you gave it up so easily." She crys and says she was drunk and didn't know what she was doing. Message...don't do drugs OR DRINK. From the context clues given about this party she was at, we're led to believe she was raped by if not one then multiple attackers. Even if she was not forced, she still had sex under the influence of alcohol which is by definition of Texas law, rape. Her boyfriend could have been a bit more understanding but instead starts shaking her and says, "I know you like it rough" and drags her through the doorway. I became emotionally involved in this scene because he knew the sex she had was forced. And upon hearing she was pregnant now rapes her. What in the hell does this accomplish? Another projector was employed to add tension to this moment, showing people in a bedroom wrestling around. It was a black and white with blurs all throughout so you couldn't see much detail, which I'm glad for. We leave the room Amber part II Once we are all through into the next room, a bedroom scene, showing the boyfriend putting his clothes back on and Amber curled in a fetal position on the bed, one of our companions looks backwards through the Hefty sack doorway. I warn her, "don't look back or you'll turn into a pillar of salt." But the dialogue begins again...to the tune of Sarah McLachlan's song, "Possession." I don't understand why...perhaps its the lyric, "...and I would be the one, to hold you down; kisses so hard." Maybe Sarah McLachlan doesn't write love songs, she writes songs of rape and sexual assault. Maybe I've been mislead. The boyfriend, once his clothes are back on tells her off and leaves. Amber gets out of the bed and buttons up and zips up. The demon in her bedroom starts yelling at her and apparently there's a slippery slope argument made as to why Amber is so horrible. Its your fault you're pregnant, your boyfriend doesn't love you, that's why you were raped, that's why you were raped at that party, that's why your daddy molested you when you were young (which blew the audience away) why don't you end it all now. And Amber slices her wrists dying. I believe this was the most powerful story they had. It tells you 1. don't get drunk 2. report rape and incest instead of internalizing it all 3. use birth control to avoid these messy situations 4. better yet abstain as best as you can considering her circumstances 5. maybe seek some counseling regarding the child molestation thing. Either way to many plotlines converged in this one vignette that we all were confused a bit at the rationalization of the boyfriend and the demon, but it sounded to much like they were shifting the blame and making it a "the Victim's fault" argument of rape. I really felt sorry for Amber. We leave the room. Vague room Still angry about Amber's sorry situation and the blame she incorrectly received for it, we enter a room that's horribly drab. We're watching a big screen TV that's playing scenes of the World Trade Center bombing which I think is just tacky. The narrator comes on over speaker telling us of the tragic and unfortunate events of September 11th asks the rhetorical question, "Why does God allow these things to happen?" And answers about human freewill. And how victims are affected by they're own or others freewill. Doesn't answer how the faithful are affected negatively by the unfaithful's freewill. Still showing footage of the WTC we're asked, "Where will we go when we die." That's rude. Then there's footage of teh New Testament depiction of Christ's torture and crucifixion. And the speech leads to being reminded, "Jesus died for your sins." For emphasis we are led into coffins in the wall and locked in. I'm unaware of whether or not it was actors on the outside banging on the coffin or my fellow audience members banging inside their coffins, maybe there are more claustrophobics then I originally thought either way i got tired of the banging noises. But the doors in the opposite side of our coffins are opened onto a new room. We enter the room. Heaven Tin foil drapes the walls as an angel stands in front of a double door gate in front of the Book of Life while kids aged 8-12 lie on the floor. These kids get up off the floor ask where they are, are surprised that they're at heaven's gates. In the conversation that ensues, we learn that its the teenagers who died earlier in the Hellhouse. But if they're the teens from earlier, why aren't they of the same age, why are they elementary level children? Maybe they actually weren't the same teens/kids. I'm left scratching my head. Some were allowed to enter the gates and some others were not in the Book of Life under the Angel's hand and so we're banished to hell. We leave the room. Hell Hell is interesting, its a rickety bridge and three bigscreen TVs. More music is piped in that I thought was rather fun and am jamming to once again, wondering why Satan(?) has a skull in his hand, glow in the dark nails, and wears Jnco jeans. Behind him the three TVs are showing random images of fire and lost souls and falling through flames into hell. I recognized one scene from the Robin William's movie "What Dreams May Come" when he, Cuba Gooding Jr, and the old man were rafting across the sea of lost souls. Other scenes I recognized from Slayer music videos. As I understand it, Hellhouse is copyrighted material and rabidly protects that by not allowing cameras or video inside (as some of our members found out). I certainly hope that they returned the favor and paid royalties to the original creators and holders of said intellectual property that they displayed on the TVs of hell. The narrator spoke through the speaker again, but I couldn't understand what was being said as the music was loud and I was entranced by the TVs and the videos. I felt like I was at a nightclub with the fog machines, music and all. We leave the room. Being saved We're led into a room that looks like a kitchen with two guys standing there. I wonder what's next, is this a homosexual scene? No, once more I learned, don't double guess the paths to hell, it was the sales pitch. The man in front asked us if the images we saw scared us, cause they should they're found in everyday life. We could die right now, where would we go, but we can repent. Because God found a perfect human being who suffered on the cross for our sins. Yes, God found Jesus. God didn't conceive in Mary, the Savior, but rather found a perfect, unblemished human being free of sin. I find that slip funny. The man then tells us that I don't care about the shirts or the pins, Jesus can save you. Some in the crowd snigger, the ones wearing the provocative clothing that is. I'm glad I'm still plainclothesed as I am, because I don't feel like an argument, I want to go home. The man, continues with saying that in the next room are people who want to pray for you and help you be saved. Those who wish to be saved can now go. The group of eight girls who'd been through the Hellhouse with us, leave to pray. The Atheists are left behind, though a couple start to follow. The, until now, silent man by the door to the prayer room asks, "this is for those who are serious, do you want to pray or are you there to play?" One of our number says, quite innocently, "I'm just looking for the exit." We're pointed to the door and we say sayonara. Conclusions... At the end as we're walking back across the field to our respective cars and we're comparing notes I feel that each scene gave us a message that made common sense, and virtually none of them, I feel a personal relationship with Jesus would have been the first solution to resolving. You either, wear a condom, seek sound advice medically or professionally, don't do drugs, listen to MADD and don't drink and drive, or involve the police. The worst thing though is that I also go the impression as stated earlier, that women were only good for sex and if they argued or complained it was they're own fault for any bad that happened to them. I don't know. I think I'll have to go next year, just to see what else they throw at you. Maybe this time I'll wear a shirt plainly stating with what camp I'm sided.
Hope to see you at the next event, folks!
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