The San Francisco Dungeon
Myself and a friend have both worked in and
visited various scare attraction during our time, and on our recent trip to the
West Coast of America, we were curious to see how the Dungeon brand would fit
in the docks of Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. With its chilled
atmosphere, blue skies and boat tours we wondered how the American’s were going
to capture the Dungeon brand well, considering there were no actual Dungeons
used throughout San Francisco’s history. However, we made it a priority to see
and made our way down one afternoon.
Situated next to Madame Tussauds on Jefferson Street, we booked our tickets and attended the next possible showing. The interior was wooden and golden brown, typical to an Old Western town, with an very animated actor who was luring guests in off the Street to visit, including us. Unlike the fast paced nature of the London Dungeon, this one was performing shows every half an hour. (I learnt later on that there would normally be a 10 minute turn around on busier days, which is more like what we are used to in the UK.) We didn’t have to queue, and there was no fuss to get us inside - it was quite a leisurable and short queuing experience!
We were taken downstairs into a gloomy basement, as we watched the rats scurry around their boxes we were told to wait until the rest of our group arrived. When there were 8 of us, they led us into the first room which was named ’The Descent.’ In our group was myself and my friend, a couple, and a family of nervous children and a very excitable father. (He was harder to control than the children.)
We were greeted by The Barker with a goofy smile and creepy disposition. Wearing a typical carnival costume and top hat, he introduced himself and told us how we were about to embark on a journey through the history of San Francisco, starting from 1848. After building the tension with a few jump scares incorporated with the lights flashing, he presented to us the Wheel of Misfortune. It was exactly how it sounds - a wheel that an audience member was asked to spin in order for us to win some ‘prizes.’ This included Gold, a Cruise around the bay, an Evening of fun at Miss Piggott’s Saloon, or …retribution. Our wheel spinner was called Minerva, who seemed quite nervous at the whole idea and had been plucked from the audience to choose our fate. Low and behold, we stopped on Retribution, and were soon being escorted into an old rickety elevator which would take us to the mines. The effect of the moving elevator was created through a vibrating floor, and gaps in the walls filtering red light, thus giving the illusion that we were falling to the ground as fast as we could. The use of the flashing lights was utilised very well by the same actor. Moving spaces within a blink of an eye, he was able to scare people amongst the confusion across the whole room as he cackled at us and in-between our screams. (Not mine, but Minerva’s…)
Unfortunately for us, the second room known as ‘Gold Rush Greed’ seemed to be having technical difficulties. The actor approached a Monk figure set up on a raised stage as he began talking about Gold and the Miners in San Francisco. However, the figure did not reply or move in the slightest as he spoke to it, leading my friend and I to figure out (no pun intended) that the show’s effects were not working in this room. From my knowledge, the figure is supposed to be brought to life through the technology of projection mapping onto the face, and an interaction between them and the Barker is supposed to take place. Maybe if we were not scare actors ourselves, we would have been oblivious to the fault - the rest of the group seemed to be anyways. Having said that though, the actor did a fantastic job of improvising and holding the room himself by proceeding to tell the story alone. With the use of jump or impact scares, he was able to still hold the tension the previous Elevator had done so well to create, before taking us to The Lost Mine’s of Sutton Creek.
The Lost Mine’s of Sutton Creek was a mirror maze filled with sounds and projections to distract us on our journey around and our quest to find the exit. A mirror maze is something that is quite familiar throughout the Dungeon brands, but still never fails to confuse people, or lead them to walk into their own reflection. After a few minutes of giggling and screaming at our own reflections, a voice suddenly rang out telling us to “Hurry up quickly.” A feisty woman peeked around from a hidden door and lead us through ‘The Streets of San Francisco.’
Here we were ushered into a room before she went onto explain about a criminal gang named the ‘Hounds.’ Looking down at the audience as she stood on a raised platform, she began to explain the History behind the gang, before her eyes cast to me and yelling “Whose side are you on?” Stupidly, I thought I was doing the right thing by replying with “The Good Side,” to which her response was “The Good Side?! You’re from the Good Side!?” Before I knew it, I was up on that stage and slung into a cage and told to wait there as punishment for being a potential spy. I carried on to watch the show through the cage bars, where another audience member was brought to a chair to be used as demonstration for her torture equipment. Insert a joke about how the final tool cannot be used on a lady, and the audience was giggling nervously. (The excited father was making most of the noise here in the forms of “Ah yes,” and an occasional “Whoop” as his son wriggled uncomfortably in the chair.) As she went to make the chop on our unfortunate volunteer, the doors around us began to rattle, and voices could be heard outside demanding for the door to be open. Alarmed, our female gang member turned to me and accused me of rattling her gang’s headquarters before setting me free to run after my group into ‘The Court of San Francisco.’
We sat down in what was the smallest Court room I have seen in a Dungeon attraction, and looked up to a very animated Judge. Eyeballing us as we sat down, she scoured over us all before introducing herself and going on to pick her first subject to throw into the Dock. Of course, little Minerva was picked, and we were encouraged to boo her as she was trialled for intoxicated dancing the previous night whilst yelling that her name was ’Sweaty Betty.’ The motto for this room was “Give em a fair trial, then Hang ‘Em High!” which we were all encouraged to yell before each court case. The more we said this, the more comfortable the audience became with participation, and the more ridiculous (in a good way) it became. However, our Judge was not done and her final subject was… me. (I must have looked suspicious.) Throwing me into the docks she asked me for my name, and before I knew it she was taking the mic out of name, mimicking it and my supposedly obvious British Accent. (All the other guests where from Stateside.) Asking me where I was from, I replied with London and before I knew it she was yelling “ We can’t just have people from London running around San Francisco, it makes us look dirty! sit back down!” To which I did as the rest of my group booed before yelling “Hang ‘Em High!” This room allowed for the most audience participation, and the actress in this particular room had great comedic timing and was a memorable character. She was a great asset to the attraction, and helped us as audience members to become involved in the scene by breaking the fourth wall.
Miss Piggott’s Saloon was next and unfortunately for me, was the room that lacked the most out of the whole attraction. Here we are introduced to the character of Miss Piggott, a supposed to be charming hostess who lures you into staying for a drink at her bar, whilst she slips you into a drunken stupor to sell you off to be placed aboard a Ship as a new and unwilling crew member. The actress inside however did not match up to the larger than life character I believe she was meant to be portrayed as. As an actor in previous attractions I understand that everyone has their own take on characters and how to operate certain scenes, but she just wasn’t strong enough to carry the story effectively. However, we could see she was really trying, and to be fair on her, the Father from the family was starting to make silly noises again, but she just didn’t seem to have us captured like all the previous actors had done so well to do so.
Pretty much a replica of the Sweeny Todd room in London, we were plummeted into darkness where an audio was played across a surround sound to give the illusion that someone was behind us, waiting to take us and ’Shanghai’ us as they called it. The only thing that genuinely scared me in this room was the back poke which was meant to be the sensation of a gun being held to your back. I’ve had many a back poke across attractions far and wide in my time, but the ones in America are somewhat unnerving. There is no warning and the sudden jolt of a mechanical arm almost invading your body as fast as this one seriously had me and my friend in fits of yelps and nervous laughter. When the lights came up, Miss Piggott came out from her hiding place and exclaimed that normally we would be sent off to Sea by now, but seeing as “our bodies were worth more to the Doctors, she would send us off there instead.”
Next, we were sent to Shanghai Kelly’s Raft Ride, which again, unfortunately for us was not working, much to our disappointment. However, once again I felt the actors did a great job in improvising around this technical difficulty and I didn’t feel my experience was dampened. (Although it would have been great to see.) It was only when I realised that the Boat Ride was not up and running that I understood why Miss Piggott had decided to sell us to the Doctor instead of sending us off on a boat. A very clever and effective way of keep our experience alive regardless of the shutdown.
Moving onto the Doctor’s surgery, or ‘Chinatown Plague Streets,’ we met a very scatty woman with red curly hair who exclaimed that the Doctor was not in, so she would be conducting the autopsy today instead. She was by far one of the best actress’ in the whole attraction. This room was very much a mirrored performance to the Surgery in the London attraction, where the Doctor would rummage around a corpse midway through it’s autopsy to find organs and squirt water out of them towards us, the audience. (Well, I’ve always assumed it’s water anyways…) Another room that picks a volunteer from it’s audience, our favourite annoying dad was put forward to sit in the chair where the Doctor would demonstrate her medical tools on him. The scene ends on the Doctor closing a curtain around our victim, with the clever use of lighting and sound to lead the audience to believe that the demonstration had turned a bit messy, and that sadly, he would no longer be joining for the rest of our journey. (Maybe it was going to be a good thing…)
Our finale was called ‘The Ghosts of Alcatraz,’ something that hadn’t really crossed my mind, which is stupid really considering we had visited Alcatraz Island the day before…
A very silent guard lead us into a large prison cell with rows of seats lined around the edge of the cage. There was a table in the middle, and once all of us had sat down, he closed the cell door behind us. The actor didn’t have to do much to capture our attention - he was eerily quiet and I waiting for the scare to come in at some point. He began to tell us the horror story of a former inmate who played the Harmonica, and how he was bullied whilst inside Alcatraz. The tension builds up once again as he continues to tell us that the prisoner became so distressed that he ended up taking his own life, and now haunts the corridors and cells of Alcatraz with the sound of his harmonica playing in the distance. At this moment, props on the table began to move, the lights flickered and the sound of the Harmonica became so loud it started to distress the audience. And then, there, in a blink of an eye, was the prisoner in front of me in ripped clothing before roaring and lunging towards me amongst the strobed lighting. I have to be honest here, I absolutely swore to the high heavens and jumped up, as the same happened to my friend a second later. As someone who has worked in attractions, you tend to let your guard down more as you expect and can predict the scares… Not this time. The whole audience erupted into screams as he scampered around our feet, with the room still trembling and tossing things off of the table. Once he had disappeared, the lights came up and once again stood the Guard who thanked us for visiting the history of San Francisco, and that he hoped he would see us again. He probably said some other things too, but I couldn’t remember as I was too busy trying to catch my breath. Having seen the whole attraction at this point, I can safely say that this final scene was the most effective and original that separated this particular Branch away from the rest.
Our exit finished through into the gift shop, and our journey had been a total of 50 minutes. The only thing I wished for, was that the experience had been longer, which is retrospect, can only be a good thing. Had the Gold Mine and Boat Ride been working, we would of had a longer experience but as mentioned before, it did not dampen my visit. Overall, the operation of the rooms were similar to those I had visited before, (London and Edinburgh) and the guest’s journey was one I was very familiar with. Having said that though, the San Francisco Dungeons provided a lot of fun a long the way with surprises around the corner to keep us engaged throughout our experience. It was lovely to have such an intimate experience due to the size of our group, and was refreshing to see that the same material can still be entertaining - a credit to the Actors who were working on this very sunny day in the middle of March. If you are ever in the San Francisco bay area, then be sure to check it out and get yourself ’Shanghaied.’
Situated next to Madame Tussauds on Jefferson Street, we booked our tickets and attended the next possible showing. The interior was wooden and golden brown, typical to an Old Western town, with an very animated actor who was luring guests in off the Street to visit, including us. Unlike the fast paced nature of the London Dungeon, this one was performing shows every half an hour. (I learnt later on that there would normally be a 10 minute turn around on busier days, which is more like what we are used to in the UK.) We didn’t have to queue, and there was no fuss to get us inside - it was quite a leisurable and short queuing experience!
We were taken downstairs into a gloomy basement, as we watched the rats scurry around their boxes we were told to wait until the rest of our group arrived. When there were 8 of us, they led us into the first room which was named ’The Descent.’ In our group was myself and my friend, a couple, and a family of nervous children and a very excitable father. (He was harder to control than the children.)
We were greeted by The Barker with a goofy smile and creepy disposition. Wearing a typical carnival costume and top hat, he introduced himself and told us how we were about to embark on a journey through the history of San Francisco, starting from 1848. After building the tension with a few jump scares incorporated with the lights flashing, he presented to us the Wheel of Misfortune. It was exactly how it sounds - a wheel that an audience member was asked to spin in order for us to win some ‘prizes.’ This included Gold, a Cruise around the bay, an Evening of fun at Miss Piggott’s Saloon, or …retribution. Our wheel spinner was called Minerva, who seemed quite nervous at the whole idea and had been plucked from the audience to choose our fate. Low and behold, we stopped on Retribution, and were soon being escorted into an old rickety elevator which would take us to the mines. The effect of the moving elevator was created through a vibrating floor, and gaps in the walls filtering red light, thus giving the illusion that we were falling to the ground as fast as we could. The use of the flashing lights was utilised very well by the same actor. Moving spaces within a blink of an eye, he was able to scare people amongst the confusion across the whole room as he cackled at us and in-between our screams. (Not mine, but Minerva’s…)
Unfortunately for us, the second room known as ‘Gold Rush Greed’ seemed to be having technical difficulties. The actor approached a Monk figure set up on a raised stage as he began talking about Gold and the Miners in San Francisco. However, the figure did not reply or move in the slightest as he spoke to it, leading my friend and I to figure out (no pun intended) that the show’s effects were not working in this room. From my knowledge, the figure is supposed to be brought to life through the technology of projection mapping onto the face, and an interaction between them and the Barker is supposed to take place. Maybe if we were not scare actors ourselves, we would have been oblivious to the fault - the rest of the group seemed to be anyways. Having said that though, the actor did a fantastic job of improvising and holding the room himself by proceeding to tell the story alone. With the use of jump or impact scares, he was able to still hold the tension the previous Elevator had done so well to create, before taking us to The Lost Mine’s of Sutton Creek.
The Lost Mine’s of Sutton Creek was a mirror maze filled with sounds and projections to distract us on our journey around and our quest to find the exit. A mirror maze is something that is quite familiar throughout the Dungeon brands, but still never fails to confuse people, or lead them to walk into their own reflection. After a few minutes of giggling and screaming at our own reflections, a voice suddenly rang out telling us to “Hurry up quickly.” A feisty woman peeked around from a hidden door and lead us through ‘The Streets of San Francisco.’
Here we were ushered into a room before she went onto explain about a criminal gang named the ‘Hounds.’ Looking down at the audience as she stood on a raised platform, she began to explain the History behind the gang, before her eyes cast to me and yelling “Whose side are you on?” Stupidly, I thought I was doing the right thing by replying with “The Good Side,” to which her response was “The Good Side?! You’re from the Good Side!?” Before I knew it, I was up on that stage and slung into a cage and told to wait there as punishment for being a potential spy. I carried on to watch the show through the cage bars, where another audience member was brought to a chair to be used as demonstration for her torture equipment. Insert a joke about how the final tool cannot be used on a lady, and the audience was giggling nervously. (The excited father was making most of the noise here in the forms of “Ah yes,” and an occasional “Whoop” as his son wriggled uncomfortably in the chair.) As she went to make the chop on our unfortunate volunteer, the doors around us began to rattle, and voices could be heard outside demanding for the door to be open. Alarmed, our female gang member turned to me and accused me of rattling her gang’s headquarters before setting me free to run after my group into ‘The Court of San Francisco.’
We sat down in what was the smallest Court room I have seen in a Dungeon attraction, and looked up to a very animated Judge. Eyeballing us as we sat down, she scoured over us all before introducing herself and going on to pick her first subject to throw into the Dock. Of course, little Minerva was picked, and we were encouraged to boo her as she was trialled for intoxicated dancing the previous night whilst yelling that her name was ’Sweaty Betty.’ The motto for this room was “Give em a fair trial, then Hang ‘Em High!” which we were all encouraged to yell before each court case. The more we said this, the more comfortable the audience became with participation, and the more ridiculous (in a good way) it became. However, our Judge was not done and her final subject was… me. (I must have looked suspicious.) Throwing me into the docks she asked me for my name, and before I knew it she was taking the mic out of name, mimicking it and my supposedly obvious British Accent. (All the other guests where from Stateside.) Asking me where I was from, I replied with London and before I knew it she was yelling “ We can’t just have people from London running around San Francisco, it makes us look dirty! sit back down!” To which I did as the rest of my group booed before yelling “Hang ‘Em High!” This room allowed for the most audience participation, and the actress in this particular room had great comedic timing and was a memorable character. She was a great asset to the attraction, and helped us as audience members to become involved in the scene by breaking the fourth wall.
Miss Piggott’s Saloon was next and unfortunately for me, was the room that lacked the most out of the whole attraction. Here we are introduced to the character of Miss Piggott, a supposed to be charming hostess who lures you into staying for a drink at her bar, whilst she slips you into a drunken stupor to sell you off to be placed aboard a Ship as a new and unwilling crew member. The actress inside however did not match up to the larger than life character I believe she was meant to be portrayed as. As an actor in previous attractions I understand that everyone has their own take on characters and how to operate certain scenes, but she just wasn’t strong enough to carry the story effectively. However, we could see she was really trying, and to be fair on her, the Father from the family was starting to make silly noises again, but she just didn’t seem to have us captured like all the previous actors had done so well to do so.
Pretty much a replica of the Sweeny Todd room in London, we were plummeted into darkness where an audio was played across a surround sound to give the illusion that someone was behind us, waiting to take us and ’Shanghai’ us as they called it. The only thing that genuinely scared me in this room was the back poke which was meant to be the sensation of a gun being held to your back. I’ve had many a back poke across attractions far and wide in my time, but the ones in America are somewhat unnerving. There is no warning and the sudden jolt of a mechanical arm almost invading your body as fast as this one seriously had me and my friend in fits of yelps and nervous laughter. When the lights came up, Miss Piggott came out from her hiding place and exclaimed that normally we would be sent off to Sea by now, but seeing as “our bodies were worth more to the Doctors, she would send us off there instead.”
Next, we were sent to Shanghai Kelly’s Raft Ride, which again, unfortunately for us was not working, much to our disappointment. However, once again I felt the actors did a great job in improvising around this technical difficulty and I didn’t feel my experience was dampened. (Although it would have been great to see.) It was only when I realised that the Boat Ride was not up and running that I understood why Miss Piggott had decided to sell us to the Doctor instead of sending us off on a boat. A very clever and effective way of keep our experience alive regardless of the shutdown.
Moving onto the Doctor’s surgery, or ‘Chinatown Plague Streets,’ we met a very scatty woman with red curly hair who exclaimed that the Doctor was not in, so she would be conducting the autopsy today instead. She was by far one of the best actress’ in the whole attraction. This room was very much a mirrored performance to the Surgery in the London attraction, where the Doctor would rummage around a corpse midway through it’s autopsy to find organs and squirt water out of them towards us, the audience. (Well, I’ve always assumed it’s water anyways…) Another room that picks a volunteer from it’s audience, our favourite annoying dad was put forward to sit in the chair where the Doctor would demonstrate her medical tools on him. The scene ends on the Doctor closing a curtain around our victim, with the clever use of lighting and sound to lead the audience to believe that the demonstration had turned a bit messy, and that sadly, he would no longer be joining for the rest of our journey. (Maybe it was going to be a good thing…)
Our finale was called ‘The Ghosts of Alcatraz,’ something that hadn’t really crossed my mind, which is stupid really considering we had visited Alcatraz Island the day before…
A very silent guard lead us into a large prison cell with rows of seats lined around the edge of the cage. There was a table in the middle, and once all of us had sat down, he closed the cell door behind us. The actor didn’t have to do much to capture our attention - he was eerily quiet and I waiting for the scare to come in at some point. He began to tell us the horror story of a former inmate who played the Harmonica, and how he was bullied whilst inside Alcatraz. The tension builds up once again as he continues to tell us that the prisoner became so distressed that he ended up taking his own life, and now haunts the corridors and cells of Alcatraz with the sound of his harmonica playing in the distance. At this moment, props on the table began to move, the lights flickered and the sound of the Harmonica became so loud it started to distress the audience. And then, there, in a blink of an eye, was the prisoner in front of me in ripped clothing before roaring and lunging towards me amongst the strobed lighting. I have to be honest here, I absolutely swore to the high heavens and jumped up, as the same happened to my friend a second later. As someone who has worked in attractions, you tend to let your guard down more as you expect and can predict the scares… Not this time. The whole audience erupted into screams as he scampered around our feet, with the room still trembling and tossing things off of the table. Once he had disappeared, the lights came up and once again stood the Guard who thanked us for visiting the history of San Francisco, and that he hoped he would see us again. He probably said some other things too, but I couldn’t remember as I was too busy trying to catch my breath. Having seen the whole attraction at this point, I can safely say that this final scene was the most effective and original that separated this particular Branch away from the rest.
Our exit finished through into the gift shop, and our journey had been a total of 50 minutes. The only thing I wished for, was that the experience had been longer, which is retrospect, can only be a good thing. Had the Gold Mine and Boat Ride been working, we would of had a longer experience but as mentioned before, it did not dampen my visit. Overall, the operation of the rooms were similar to those I had visited before, (London and Edinburgh) and the guest’s journey was one I was very familiar with. Having said that though, the San Francisco Dungeons provided a lot of fun a long the way with surprises around the corner to keep us engaged throughout our experience. It was lovely to have such an intimate experience due to the size of our group, and was refreshing to see that the same material can still be entertaining - a credit to the Actors who were working on this very sunny day in the middle of March. If you are ever in the San Francisco bay area, then be sure to check it out and get yourself ’Shanghaied.’
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