Lincoln scares up
haunted houses,
hayrack rides
Editor’s note: This is thefirst in a series of five stories
that look at artistic and entertaining aspects of
Halloween.
BY TONY MOSES
As with most years, there is more to fear in Lincoln
than masses of trick-or-treaters pounding the streets
in search of candy.
Mad scientists and talking corpses have taken
over Nightmare on 16th Street, while screaming
brides and dead rock stars have made their home in
the Acreage Zoo in the ghost town of Old Jamaica.
The two “haunted” businesses take different
approaches to try to spook Lincoln residents with var
ious ghoulish beings.
The Jamaica Haunted Forest Hayrack Ride, on the
southern edge of Wilderness Park at 2601 Saltillo
Road, offers tours of the town of terror for $5.
The name may be a bit deceiv
1ing because the ride is no trip to
tropical paradise.
Jamaica Haunt6d Instead, groups are seated in a
Enrocf Uourank trailer filled with hay and pulled
rUICdl nayiauiv through the haunted grounds by a
R ifflo tractor.
mug _d The ri(je |tse|f js frightening
K1 ■■■■■ enough as the tractor pulls the trail
Where: er over steep hills and around sharp
K> ■■ ■ curves on a narrow, dimly lit path.
When: When the trailer first departs,
the distant city lights of Lincoln
provide an orange glow to outline
dead trees, vacant buildings and
/■ 1 abandoned cars.
—lCost: As the ride progresses, the trail
_ er passes scenes of terror, including
of 4 stars flesh-eating brides and gutted rock
.. . stars.
The monsters often find time to
follow the trailer, offering riders a chance to sample
some flesh or trying to take a rider’s appendage back
to their haunted lair.
When the monsters are not bargaining for flesh
with the riders, they sometimes create a diversion so
other maniacs can appear from the woods and jolt
riders with screams and chain saws.
At one point in the ride, the trailer enters a dark
tunnel, where riders are locked in and left as bait for
whatever monsters find them.
The ride was not the only place where monsters
lurked
A headless horseman and witch
prowled the grounds, while riders
waited for their trailer of terror to
Nightmare on 1 arrive
4 fifth Oft * I For an adventurer looking for a
I Dill bireei I fun time, the Jamaica Haunted
^ Forest Hayrack Ride is well worth
-( Where: the drive.
^ At the Nightmare on 16th Street,
—more conventional ghouls restlessly
* ' IMiHliH wait for the next squeamish victim
ii ^ t0 enter their haunted domain.
Nightmare, 126 N. 16th St.,
offers visitors an about five-minute
tour through a maze of haunted
rooms.
of 4 stars The price for the tour is $8.
“ As with most haunted houses,
each room depicts a scene of horror, ranging from a
spring-loaded corpse to a liver-crazed surgeon.
A silent guide maneuvers groups through the
rooms by rhythmically pounding her death stick on
the floor.
Along the way, unsuspecting visitors will be star
tled by a slew of ghouls sneaking around comers and
seemingly appearing from the walls at some points.
Nightmare includes some dizzying effects that
temporarily disorient most adventurers until the
ghouls have a chance to pounce on their next victim.
The pouncing ghosts seemed to take special
interest in the especially squeamish acts.
They could quickly distinguish the most fright
ened members of the group and harass them until
they fled down the front steps of Nightmare.
Most often, however, the ghouls would tend to
chase female adventurers, while neglecting to spook
male adventures.
Though it lacks innovative or extraordinary spe
cial effects, adventurers looking for a standard haunt
ed house won’t be disappointed.
However, some survivors leaving Nightmare said
not much has changed since last year; the only thing
they found frightening was the price.
Jake Gillespie/DN
Plot twists tie 'Pay it Forward' acting in knots
BY SAMUEL MCKEWON
“Pay It Forward,” thanks to its performances, can
be forgiven for quite a lot, until the end, which serves
as a manipulative slap in the face to an audience that
deserves better.
That final act of the director, Mimi Leder, is an
accumulation of errors made from the very opening
scene (the wrong one), through a subplot that does
little more than divert from those three major per
formances.
' They come from, in order of descending impres
siveness, Kevin Spacey Haley loel Osment and Helen
Hunt. Osment is the 11-year-old boy, Trevor, who
devises the most eloquent answer to his teacher’s -
Mr. Simonet’s (Spacey) - assignment for the year:
Find one way to change the world and put it into
action.
It’s a pyramid scam, whose name mirrors the
movie’s title, which is to pay three "huge” favors to
anybody, and they must pay three forward to some
one else. Like most such scams, the thought of not
paying it forward brings bad luck or, in this case, the
onus of privately knowing you're a nasty citizen.
Favor No. 2 involves Hevor’s boozy mom, Arlene
(Hunt), and her lack of romance with men who aren’t
equally drunk or up for a round of physical abuse.
Trevor figures Mr. Simonet, a victim of severe bums
on his face and body, is eloquent and wordy enough
to clean her up.
Hunt’s performance ranks below Spacey, who
once again gets to embody easy intelligence. His per
formance borders in one scene, where his fragile
order of life is threatened by the opportunity to love
someone else.
The movie’s not dumb enough to assume such
goodness, whether in charity or romance, definitive
ly shines through in constant, though the subplot
that follows a reporter (Jay Mohr) toward the origins
of the movement reveals a criminal saving the life of
asthmatic girl.
How this subplot unfolds, however, interrupts the
narrative structure of the rest of the movie, specifical
ly the chemistry that Spacey and Hunt gurgle up.
The time frame gets mixed up a few times.
Instead of longer, extended scenes with Arlene and
Mr. Simonet, we're treated to Mohr threatening sena
tors with sex scandals on golf courses. The sentimen
talities oddly contrast.
It seems "Pay It Forward” is decidedly trying to
make good on the Oscar buzz that preceded it with a
balanced treatment that eschews the hokey, feel
good aura that "Remember the Titans” oozes from its
pores. It’s admirable, but it only works when the three
leads occupy the screen.
Osment continues to perform beyond his years;
he holds his own in scenes with Spacey and out-acts
Hunt. There are a few supporting roles that feel flat;
Jay Mohr is merely adequate as the reporter, while
Angie Dickinson hides in bum’s clothes.
When the two narratives tie up at the end, there’s
satisfaction in the conclusion, and “Pay It Forward”
only has one “Karate Kid”-like hurdle to clear. It takes
a surprising veer in the opposite direction; the kind
that, when you think about the action that has pre
ceded it, makes no sense.
I kept wondering why certain people would be at
a school on their day off or, even better, why Trevor
arrived at the school on a bike when he just as easily
could have been driven. It’s these little hiccups that
can be overlooked without that twist; they become
glaring in the face of it.
It also changes the very nature of the film’s mes
sage - a tone of promise turns to something else not
easy to put a finger on. Sacrifice, I guess. “Pay It
Forward" leaves so little time for this emotion to sink
in that a final shot - which made me think of the final
shot of “Field of Dreams” for some odd reason - does
not hit with the
permanence
suppose,,could j^gy |{ p0rWartj
And yet the S. 3 4
movie is valu- (Director:
able, and would -
be an Oscar —(Stars:
contender in
more adequate
hands. Leder _
has dealt specif- —(Rating:
ically in big
budget disaster
movies - “The -
Peacemaker” of 4 stars
and "Deep
Impact” - a
genre that asks, pleads really, for so much to be going
on at once that the frames simply drip with action. It
shows, as Leder steps into some fine acting with
unnecessary extra plot development.
“Pay It Forward” needed one more spit and polish
to adequately prepare its final five minutes. As it is,
the movie can’t seem to get out of the way of the per
formances that make it worth seeing.
c