Review & Interview: San Francisco’s Terror Vault reopens The Initiation
We review The Initiation: Revival and interview Into the Dark producers David Flower & Joshua Grannell about resurrecting last Halloween’s immersive horror show for a limited engagement in February & March.
Though Hollywood Gothique usually restricts its attention to horror-themed arts and entertainment in Los Angeles, we occasionally wander father afield, and no event is more likely to lure us from our usual haunting grounds than Terror Vault in San Francisco, which is launching a revival of last year’s The Initiation on Friday. The Initiation: Revival, in which audiences infiltrate a cult to rescue its missing co-founder, is the latest immersive show from Into The Dark, which stages a new installment of Terror Vault every October. The Initiation was so popular during its Halloween engagement that Into the Dark decided to resurrect it for two weekends in February and March, before tearing down the sets to begin work on their next production.
Into the Dark’s Terror Vault offers a combination of haunted attraction and interactive theatre that takes audiences on a narrative journey through the bowels of the San Francisco Mint. Filled with gender-bending characters eager to invade comfort zones, past shows such as such as The Summoning and The Immortal Reckoning have featured a certain amount of camp mixed with horror (the vibe can be somewhat reminiscent of The Count’s Den). There may be contact between actors and audience, but audiences can opt out; most interactivity is straightforward – you are more likely to be told what to do than encouraged to venture off on your own (though The Initiation: Revival offers more of the latter). In terms of production value, Terror Vault rivals Delusion Interactive Theatre, with its impressive settings, makeup, and effects. In terms of quality, it ranks comfortably alongside the best that Los Angeles has to offer.
The Terror Vault experience includes a pre-show at the Fang Bang Bar. Before embarking on the play, guests can imbibe themed cocktails and watch cabaret-style entertainment performed by vampires on a small stage. It is a great alternative to making audiences wait in line for the main show, helping to set the mood for what follows and giving people a chance to decompress after descending into the Vault.
To learn more about the history of Terror Vault in general and The Initiation: Revival in particular, we conducted an interview with Into the Dark’s masterminds, David Mazochi (who produces under the name David Flower) and Joshua Grannell (who performs drag shows under the stage name Peaches Christ). Below the interview, you can check out our review of the show.
The Initiation: Revival – Interview with David Flower & Joshua Grannell
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
HOLLYWOOD GOTHIQUE: How did you decide to resurrect a Halloween show like The Initiation off season?
JOSHUA GRANNELL: We work all year long building a show, and then we have this finite window to squeeze as many people in as possible. This past year, The Initiation was so well received that we ended up turning a lot more people away than we’re used to; we also had a hard deadline as far as when we had to wrap, because the building where we do the show had other things booked. So this was really the time for us to experiment: if we bring back a show in early 2024 – before we start tearing it all apart and starting over – would people check it out who didn’t get the chance to see it in October, or would people maybe even want to see it again?
HOLLYWOOD GOTHIQUE: How eager are people to see a Halloween show like The Initiation: Revival in February and March?
JOSHUA GRANNELL: The thing that we didn’t anticipate is it’s very hard to get the word out about this when your usual means of promotion involve the the excitement around the Halloween season, which means media journalists. All of that is basically non-existent right now. Despite that, we have sold a chunk of tickets, so it’s nice to know that there are people who are interested. For us it’s almost like the heavy lifting is already done: the actors are rehearsed; the costumes are made; the sets are built. So for us even, if we don’t sell out all four nights the way we would in October, it’s still worth it because we love doing it, and it gets a few more eyes on this baby we’ve given birth to.
HOLLYWOOD GOTHIQUE: Is The Initiation: Revival the same show seen in October? Or is it like Delusion: The Blue Blade, which ran during Halloween and then came back the following Spring as The Blue Blade: The Director’s Cut. In other words, is this The Initiation: The Director’s Cut?
JOSHUA GRANNELL: It is The Initiation on steroids. Because we’ve had a few months to tweak things, we’ve actually moved some of the sets. The other thing about The Initiation: Revival is that even if you came in October, you would probably have a different experience. For example, with some of the characters there’s an actor who’s in three scenes consecutively with you. That means there’s two more groups coming behind you with different actors playing the same part, and each actor did it differently, so even though you’re getting the same story, the feel of it is very different depending on which actor your group experiences.
HOLLYWOOD GOTHIQUE: If I could bring David into the conversation, what would you say to people who have done some immersive theater but might not be familiar with the Terror Vault. How would you describe its level of interactivity?
DAVID FLOWER: On a scale of one to five for being an interactive piece, I would say this falls in the middle or slightly toward the beginner side. We’re doing so many different things that this project is not focused entirely on interactivity. Also, we know our market, and we’re really the introduction to that for a lot of folks up here, so we keep that in mind. When Joshua and I are writing the show, we try to create a narrative that’s very easy to follow, and the interactive pieces are easy to execute. If we ask you to do something, we don’t make it that hard. So people can really follow and understand the storyline, and it doesn’t get too convoluted. We have had the experience in the past where, if there’s too much going on, it’s just overload. People are like, “I don’t know what’s going on,” and they maybe miss an important part of the story that you were hoping they would catch.
HOLLYWOOD GOTHIQUE:Â I want to go back in time and talk about how the Terror Vault began. What was the inspiration, and how did you get your first show going?
DAVID FLOWER: Joshua and I are pretty new friends and business partners; we operated in two very similar spheres but never really overlapped. When I got introduced to him, we immediately hit it off. He said, “I would love to do a haunted attraction,” and I was like, “Good luck! I tried!” But he was like, “Well, I’m Peaches Christ, and I’ll get it done.” Then he went to San Francisco, and in 2017 he calls and says, “I have a friend who’s got an in at the San Francisco mint. Would you be willing to come and maybe we can do this?” I really had zero faith that this was going to happen, but I went. Our meeting went really well, and they immediately said, “We want to do this.” So that was the launch of Into the Dark and Terror Vault.
JOSHUA GRANNELL: When I met David and saw his work, especially as a production manager for the haunted attractions he was doing in Provincetown, it was so beautiful and so creative – the sets were so immersive – and that’s not my skill set. I tend to enjoy more of the storytelling, marketing, and directing. So we really complemented each other as far as what our interests and our strengths were. Of course, with any creative partnership or business partnership, it’s always a concern: “How am I going to work with this person?” Luckily for David and me, while our crew will say that we fight a lot, what’s true about our fighting is that it’s never personal; it’s never ego driven; and it’s not really fighting – it’s arguing for the best possible solution, the best possible story, the best possible everything. What’s lovely is that at one point one of us will go, “Oh, you’re right.” So it’s been a dream partnership. As cheesy as it sounds, we were able to achieve something that we really wouldn’t have been able to achieve on our own.
HOLLYWOOD GOTHIQUE: One thing David mentioned was that part of your pitch to him was “I’m Peach’s Christ,” so for the benefit of anyone who doesn’t know, that is your stage name – a sort of brand name that helped bring in the audience to the first season of Terror Vault, so they would have a little bit of an idea of what to expect.
JOSHUA GRANNELL: First, I would like to clarify I have no memory of exclaiming, “I’m Peach’s Christ, and I will get this done!” Both David and I had tried to get independent haunted attractions going in San Francisco, so both of us felt a little bit defeated – including approaching the San Francisco Mint when it was under different management ten years earlier. So I don’t know that I was as confident as he makes me out to be; however, I do think that the name Peaches Christ did help us get a foot in the door, and it certainly has helped us as far as marketing goes, because I’ve been working publicly in San Francisco for so long. I’ve made a horror movie; I do cult movie events, so I’m sort of seen as the Queen of Halloween.
There’s also ways that it backfires, because, believe it or not, I don’t like it when people say, “It’s the Peaches Christ Haunted Attraction.” It’s not; it is a collaboration. There’s 150 people that work on this show, and as far as my part in it goes, I can only take half the credit as far as being a leader with David. However, we’re not dumb. We’re hustlers; we’re going to do whatever it takes to sell as many tickets as possible. We know that putting my name on it and trotting me out in a wig [will get] a news interview. I think the first year we were really confused about it. We tried a dual approach to marketing the show. One was sort of a traditional approach to let the Bay Area know that this was a haunted attraction, and we maybe unintentionally took some of the camp out of that. Then we also had the more queer approach, which was, “Oh my God, Peach’s Christ is doing a haunted house!” What we’ve learned over the years is that we can be all of those things at once, but the first year was trial and error. We didn’t know how it would work, and we didn’t really know who our audience was.
HOLLYWOOD GOTHIQUE: That’s interesting, because your particular vision of interactive theater involves a little boundary crossing. In The Summoning, someone in the audience was asked to drink cream that was supposed to be semen. I’m assuming, by this time, you know how far you can push without alienating your audience.
JOSHUA GRANNELL: Part of pushing people’s boundaries – and what we realized with The Summoning especially – is that if you offer too much comedic relief, it just takes a lot of the tension away. I think with a lot of that stuff in The Summoning, where we had nudity or semen being rubbed on people’s faces and all that craziness, we leaned too far into that. David and I love horror; we love tension; we love stress; we love letting people release these anxieties in a show that’s surrounded by horror. So with The Initiation our goal was that there was less of that boundary pushing, and the boundary pushing was more about the entire group crawling through this air duct that is pitch black to get to the other side of this room and hide behind a wall. We were tickled that we created this Die Hard moment and built an air duct that would support groups of ten people crawling through it. So every year we learn, and we switch gears.
HOLLYWOOD GOTHIQUE: Have you ever pushed so far that people object or walk out?
JOSHUA GRANNELL: In our first year we had extractions every night, and what I mean is not people willingly leaving but us having to remove people. In The Initiation, where we sold thousands and thousands of tickets, I can count on one hand the number of extractions we had, and that’s because we’ve really been able to cultivate our audience. They understand they’re coming to theater; they understand this isn’t the haunted maze they grew up going to; they understand that they don’t want to do it drunk, because there’s a lot of stairs and darkness. So that’s really changed.
DAVID FLOWER: It’s a testament to how the San Francisco audience is up for just about anything – they don’t really bail. The only time they bailed in The Initiation was because of the claustrophobia parts of the show. There was one in particular right at the beginning, and after that it gets easier.
JOSHUA GRANNELL: This past year we changed a major part of the show after the opening weekend. There is a section where someone gets taken up to the attic of the Mint building, and it is the real attic – you can still see all the char on the walls from where the 1906 earthquake caused a fire. Because it’s a little bit precarious, we only send one person up per group with one actor. Originally, that person was then deposited in the group behind them, never to return to their group. People hated that. There were people coming out of the show screaming at our vampire actors in the bar, saying “I’ve lost my wife!” David and I thought it was awesome, but we got so much negative feedback, and when one woman had a full-on panic attack, it was sort of a wakeup moment, like maybe we’ve gone too far. So we actually did alter it: someone is still taken up to the attic, but they are they are redeposited in their original group.
HOLLYWOOD GOTHIQUE: One interesting aspect of interactive shows is a lot of first timers wonder, “What do I do?” In The Summoning, I was always clear on what I was supposed to do and where I was supposed to go and what was supposed to happen. It wasn’t like my experience at one immersive show, where a character asked, “Can you help me?” and I really didn’t know whether I had the power to change her fate. Following along with this idea, there are different levels of interactivity in immersive shows, and it seems you have this level where people may be required to do certain things, but they don’t get to wander off on their own or make decisions about which door to go through.
JOSHUA GRANNELL: The Summoning didn’t have any of that, but The Initiation is very different. In The Initiation, the audience is really the ones who have to save the day. So they have to remember information; they have to communicate with one another; they have to unlock boxes and get codes. There’s a lot more of a an escape room element to it. Also, the way it’s set up is really simple to understand: you’re joining a cult, and you go through a series of modules, but while doing that, you’re realizing that you’re also trying to take down the cult with a group of rebels. So we were able to up the sense of agency. For example, there’s a scene at the end that we built in the biggest room we have access to at the Mint, which normally we fill with mazes and walls. Instead, we designed a completely random obstacle course that was wide open and terrifying. There’s no one telling them where to go, and of course we fill it with haze and monsters and security guards with guns shooting at you. It’s still a linear show, and we have a way to push you through, but we like giving you moments where you’re kind of free-roaming.
DAVID FLOWER: It’s like being on a straight line – it’s a linear story – but it’s a dotted line. It’s a little bit broken along the way, and can you can veer off, but you always get back on.
HOLLYWOOD GOTHIQUE: Does this come with the cost? When people are left free roaming, I imagine the majority get involved with the opportunity to go wherever they want, but do you end up with a few people crossing their arms and going, “Something better happen now.”
JOSHUA GRANNELL: Not really. By that point in the show, they’re engaged, and they know what their mission is. In The Initiation, the guests are pushed into being part of the show from the earliest part; they have to wear costumes when they join the cult. So by the time they get to the free-roaming thing, most of them are moving pretty aggressively through it. Their mission is to find the missing co-founder of this cult – very much inspired by Scientology – and she’s chained to a chair in this massive basement. One actor told me – this is a guy wearing ghoul makeup, dressed as an army guy with a gun – and this old lady walked up to him and said, “I’m not leaving here without Nancy – where the fuck is Nancy?” Sometimes the guests become bigger hams than than our actors.
DAVID FLOWER: I’d also say to that it’s literally like three and a half minutes of of a 58 minute show. It’s such a tiny piece that people just went with whatever was going on at that point.
HOLLYWOOD GOTHIQUE: You’ve already mentioned working at San Francisco Mint, but I’d like to follow up about working in an established space, where you can’t knock out walls or build whatever you want inside a large warehouse – it’s it’s got to work in the available hallways, corridors, and stairs. Is that limitation helpful or unhelpful?
DAVID FLOWER: It’s both helpful and not helpful. I think the result is a testament to Joshua and me rising to the challenge of working around what we need to work around. Having those limitations can guide the process for us, truth be told. In the Mint, there’s a bunch of public facing rooms that our business partners use for corporate events, and then there’s a bunch of rooms that are kind of derelict in the back of the building. Ultimately, those are the rooms that we want to use, because it’s like free production value: “That room look like it’s crumbling – that’s perfect for our story.” So taking those rooms that nobody else would want is a benefit for us. Those rooms that are fancy and nice out the front hold very little appeal for us; we want the ones that are a mess.
HOLLYWOOD GOTHIQUE: Any last words for people debating whether to visit The Initiation: Revival?
JOSHUA GRANNELL: Just that, unlike other shows that David and I have done over the years, we can’t easily pack this show up and then trot it back out again. So if you want to see The Initiation, you’ve got four more chances. After that, it will go away forever, because we are getting ready for our next event this spring, when we’re doing a Buffy The Vampire Slayer immersive prom-themed show at the Mint. Then we’ll be back in the Fall with our new horror show. David and I love changing things up. So the show that we do this Halloween is going to be radically different than The Initiation – with a completely different theme and storyline. Which is really bad for business, let me tell you, but it’s great for artists. David and I, especially as older artists, maybe don’t make the best business decisions, because we’re really driven by our creative satisfaction more than our financial bottom line. Which is honestly not smart, but it’s great for the guests. They get a new, beautiful show every year.
Note: This article originally posted on February 19. It has been updated to include additional photographs and a review, based on our trip to the Terror Vault on February 24.
The Initiation: Revival (Review)
Rating Scale
1 – Avoid
2 – Not All Bad
3 – Recommended
4 – Highly Recommended
5 – Must See
The Initiation Revival Review: Introduction
Dispensing with the supernatural horrors of 2022’s The Summoning, Into the Dark recruits its audience on a mission to infiltrate a cult in this winter 2024 restaging of their 2023 Halloween production, The Initiation. Since it is less of a spook show than previous installments in the Terror Vault franchise, The Initiation: Revival makes a smooth transition to the off-season: the frights are more realistic, with briefly glimpsed “monsters” (crazed/deformed humans) lending a hallucinatory vibe to the chills. Thanks to its relentless forward momentum, the Initiation: Revival‘s immersive experience feels like being swept up in a fast-paced thriller leading deeper and deeper into some very grim and occasionally gruesome secrets, which should keep fans of interactive theatre fully engaged from start to finish.
The Initiation Revival Review: Indoctrination
The experience begins as soon as you enter the San Francisco Mint. Lighting sets the mood at the check-in table, and photo ops provide background information about the INsight Institute – and about failed initiates, whose heads are on display on a rack (there is an empty slot for you to take a selfie). In the Fang Bang bar upstairs, cult members eagerly welcome you into the fold while you wait to be called for your turn to take The Initiation.
Once inside, the action begins almost immediately. While an introductory video about INsight plays, a rebel interrupts the screening to tell you that the cult’s co-founder, Nancy, has gone missing since she turned against INsight’s leader. It is up to you to find and save her; however, to avoid suspicion, you must maintain the pretense of being willing initiates.
From this point on, you go through a series of scenes, indoctrinating you into the cult, beginning with a small closet where you are enclosed in total darkness while loud banging and occasional shrieks assault your senses. Along the way, other rebels offer tidbits of information, which you must pass on in order to save Nancy and prevent a planned massacre timed for later in the evening.
The narrative of The Initiation: Revival is tight, with few of the set-pieces-for-their-own-sake that marked The Summoning. Each scene feels as if it leads directly to the next, with clues and information carefully parsed out to keep participants engaged without being overwhelmed. You seldom find yourself unsure what to do next. Really the only mild confusion comes from deciding when to drop the ruse of being an eager initiate: Should you answer honestly when questioned by INsight officials, or should you risk lying in order to protect the rebels? And how do you know that each new rebel you meet is not a plant hoping to fool you into revealing yourself?
Fortunately, this is not a major part of The Initiation: Revival. Most often, you will be enjoying chills and thrills while crawling through air ducts, spying from behind walls, and searching for Nancy. You may even be singled out for special attention – but only if you want to be.
The Initiation Revival Review: Interactivity
Interactivity in The Initiation: Revival is verbal – mostly a matter of remembering information – with a few exceptions. Audience members who opt in by wearing glow-stick necklaces will be touched and personally addressed by the characters. Some will be assigned special actions. In one case, a participant is ordered to flip a switch that will execute a captured rebel. At another point, an audience member is separated from the group to go upstairs to the attic, where a voice from an old radio, garbled by static, divulges information about Nancy’s location and about the planned massacre.
Whether speaking to individuals or the group as a whole, the cast manages to be amusingly emphatic about drilling objectives into participants’ memories. Consequently, it is easy to throw yourself into the required task with little concern about forgetting details, and even the seemingly intimidating bits of action wind up being more fun than uncomfortable. Crawling through the air duct is a thrill, not a chore, so we recommend doing it even though a bypass is available. Even the solitary ascent to the attic is no great challenge, despite a steep staircase. (Mrs. Hollywood Gothique, who was singled out for this experience, gives it an enthusiastic thumbs up.)
The only disappointment in terms of interactivity took place in the basement, where Nancy is supposed to be hidden. Though told we would have three minutes to search for her, we were quickly herded through in virtually a straight line, with no opportunity to explore the area, and Nancy seemed to be just waiting for us at the end. With armed guards lurking in the near-total darkness, the scene was certainly tense enough, but it was not the free-roaming experience that was promised.
Also worth noting: The interactivity in The Initiation: Revival has little of the gender-bending boundary pushing of The Summoning. Angry characters might get in your face with aggressive questioning; even as a joke, however, you are never challenged to do something revolting. You may be asked to eat a wafer you suspect is poisoned, but it will not be a foul-smelling concoction that makes you retch. Instead, the interactivity immerses you deeper into the story, which is what generates the real tension and suspense.
The Initiation Revival Review: Fang Bang Bar
An enjoyable bonus feature of the Terror Vault is the Fang Bang Bar, which serves as a sort of prologue to the main event. A montage of footage from cult movies – some fictional, some documentary – screens above the mobile bar while songs set the mood (including tracks from the 1973 classic, The Wicker Man). In keeping with the storyline of The Initiation: Revival, the Fang Bang’s usual gaggle of vampires were nowhere to be seen on the night we attended, replaced by enthusiastic acolytes of the INsight Institute. You can question them about what to expect, but their answers are just cryptic enough to be intriguing without giving anything away.
As usual, cocktails are themed to the show, so for The Initiation: Revival you can enjoy True Consciousness, Helter Skelter, Brainwash, Fangria, and Peaches Inlightmint (the latter two are wine-based and non-alcoholic, respectively, so we ignored them). The Helter Skelter (mezcal, elderflower, lemon and lime juices topped with ginger beer) is good, but the smokey flavor may be a bit much for drinkers who are not fans of mescal. Brainwash (bourbon with lemon, orange, pineapple, fresh blackberry and bitters) is good for whiskey drinkers, and the fruity flavors may even attract non-fans (though it is not as sweet as the ingredients might lead you to expect). Best of the bunch is probably True Consciousness (vodka with liquer, lemon juice, simply syrup and bitters), which strikes a good balance of ingredients, not too sweet nor too bitter.
The Fang Bang is one of a few elements slightly adjusted for The Initiation: Revival‘s brief run in February and March. Now located on an upper floor, there is no stage area for cabaret-style performers, nor is snack food available. Therefore, unless you eat before arriving, you will be drinking on an empty stomach before embarking on a frequently dark journey up and down stairs and through narrow passageways.
The Initiation Revival Review: Conclusion
As long-time readers probably know, we prefer our immersive horror to be of the supernatural variety, which is why The Summoning seemed artisanal-crafted specifically for us. The Initiation: Revival, on the other hand, is a different concoction: it is sinister rather than spooky, and the few apparitions appear to be brainwash-induced hallucinations. And yet its reality-based terror works so well that it easily overcomes our reservations; in fact, it is a better exploration of the cult theme than Delusion Interactive Theatre‘s somewhat similar 2022 effort, Valley of Hollows.
Whether playing brainwashed acolytes or desperate rebels, the entire cast excels. Costumes and makeup are convincing, though most of the more “monstrous” characters (including a demon behind a drop panel) are glimpsed only briefly. Special effects are nicely handled, especially the electrocution (though there is nothing as spectacular as the giant dragon head in The Summoning). Aided by the actual architecture of the San Francisco Mint, the sets create a convincing immersive experience. Our favorite was the space behind the wall, from which we viewed a key scene featuring the cult leader and his right-hand woman, a ruthless dominatrix type. The gaps in the wall were big enough to view the action – maybe too big, since it felt at any minute as if we might be discovered.
As mentioned above, we find crazed cult members less fascinating than vampires, so The Initiation: Revival is not exactly our favorite subject matter for a horror show. Though it offers a few gruesome deaths and jump scares, it is seldom terrifying in the manner of a haunted house attraction. Instead, it is a suspenseful, exciting thrill ride that is, above all else, energetic fun. To paraphrase Joe Bob Briggs: “One sliced throat, one plucked eyeball, one electrocuted naked body, and half a dozen deaths by poison gas – Hollywood Gothique says, check it out!”
Note on our Rating: We are knocking half a point off because we did not get the full interactive experience in the basement; otherwise, this is a must-see event.
The Initiation: Revival concludes on March 2, with one-hour performances starting at 15-minute intervals from 6pm to 9pm (Note: The show was originally scheduled to run on February 23-24 and March 1-2, but March 1 date has been cancelled). For these performances, the entrance to the show is on the ground floor through a door on the right side of The San Francisco Mint, not atop the stairs facing the sidewalk. The address is at 88 5th Street in San Francisco, a few minutes from the Golden Gate Bridge. Tickets are $70. Arrive early and enjoy a cocktail at the Fang Bang bar before your show starts. Get more information at intothedarksf.com.
The Initiation: Revival – Photograph Gallery
