Dark Dark Ride Ride: Holiday Nightmare 2019 Review

Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre, North Hollywood, CA

Everyone celebrates the holidays a little differently. Some lather on tradition and infuse their festivities with sentimental nostalgia and favorite activities. Others inject a modern twist into old fashioned principles and add new flair to their Christmas season. And then… there's Zombie Joe's. We already know that Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre is home to some of the most perverse, shocking, sinisterly comedic performances around. But what happens when December rolls on in, and it's time to take on some seasonal cheer?

Well, this year, the answer lies in Dark Dark Ride Ride: Holiday Nightmare, a Christmas-themed overlay of their cult hit from earlier this year. You might recall our review of the original version back in February. Even though we didn't get a chance to experience it until its last weekend (after two show extensions) we just had to write about it and share the absurd horror that envelopes the entire experience—all in hopes that Zombie and his merry band of fiendish performing miscreants would bring back this combination of immersive theater / Grand Guignol / twisted carnival ride. Nine months later, as a naughty holiday treat, Zombie Joe’s has indeed resurrected their frivolously frightening moving attraction, with a dark dark holiday tinge!

(Image courtesy of Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre.)

Much like the original version, guests board whimsically and wickedly designed Christmas buggies that are then whipped around within the dark, dingy dirth of the lobby and black box theater spaces of Zombie Joe’s establishment, before disembarking and braving an intertwined mass of tortured, rambling souls swirling through sin and sacrilege backstage. The holiday version brings a doubling of capacity, as two carts actually navigate the space in a delicate waltz around each other, the hidden sets, and the performers. Each cart can accommodate one or two passengers and is pushed by an unseen but wise-cracking ghoul who doubles as sarcastic, pun-dispensing commentator giving a witty punchline after almost each juncture.

The experience begins simply enough, as guests are lead from the street off Lankershim Boulevard and through the doors of ZJU, their eyes covered during the entry. Instructed to count down from ten, they open their eyes at zero and find… nothing but the void of cacophony, and two ride vehicles before them. What follows is a whirlwind of disjointed but provocative scenes that touch upon horror, sex, immorality, shock, and distress. A sultry ringmaster sets up the premise initially. It’s a “winter wonderhell,” and all sorts of freaks and prostitutes and drug dealers and back alley delinquents have gathered to ring in the holiday season in all the perverse ways they know how. And riders are here to bear witness to the exotic and sometimes erotic horror.

Imagine the types of scenes in Urban Death or Blood Alley—sometimes disturbing, sometimes freaky, sometimes hilarious—transformed into little show vignettes along the twisting and sometimes rocking ride. A feast’s fowl and its forager create a clattering union in one segment. A tortured siren evokes a haunting reminiscent of A Christmas Carol in another. Genders swap traditional roles in a hedonistic deliverance of a hillbilly hummer. A lady showcases her tenderly cannibalistic holiday feast, all while hidden spirits proclaim “nom nom” to sprinkle ridicule into the dismay. And there’s even a dirty encounter with Santa Claus himself—who can’t help but display his glowing “Crotchmas Tree” to behold.

(Photo courtesy of Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre.)

There are moments of fright as well, including a few startle scare moments to mix up the scenes of shock. A machete maniac gives chase. A suicidal damsel writhes in holiday agony. A contorted woman nearly becomes victim to a brutal collision. But as each scene pulses by, guests hardly have time to catch their breath or make sense of one moment before another mental punch comes hurtling forward.

Then, there is the third act, when guests disembark and are shown the glowing image of the holidays (a lovely Christmas tree) before given a pitch of the local McDonald’s specials by a saxophone-tooting nightwalker perched high above. This doesn’t really connect to anything. It’s simply distraction before the final scenes… moments when the guests become members of, rather than simply bear witness to the orgy of immorality, blasphemy, and disorder. It all ends with a discordant menage of squirming, moaning, clutching degenerates bombarding guests with all sorts of questions and propositions and nonsense, before shoving them outside.

(Photo courtesy of Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre.)

What shines most brightly in Dark Dark Ride Ride: Holiday Nightmare is the depraved gibberish that rolls through over and over again on this deranged sleight ride from hell. The attraction is 18+ for a reason. Sensuality, partial nudity, strong language, and sexually charged situations are in ample supply, and in typical Zombie Joe’s fashion, the actors do not hold anything back. Lasciviously visceral and corruptly expressive, they focus their performances directly at the passengers, condensing the energy normally directed to an audience of several dozen down to an audience of four. Or two. Or even one.

Ultimately, Dark Dark Ride Ride: Holiday Nightmare is an absurdly bizarre, erotically unhinged, disturbingly chaotic, occasionally sacrilegious whirlwind that takes guests through that blustery winter wonderhell and celebrates the screamings of the season. It’s the type of experience that grabs people by the ugly sweater, shakes them up through fifteen minutes of meandering but intensive sensory overload, and leaves them outside a literal back alley wondering what exactly happened… and when can they go on again? One of the season’s most unorthodox and innovative attractions, this is part Christmas ride, part haunt, and mostly insanity, and it’s not to be missed. So as the revelers proclaim in this twisted domain: Merry Chrysler, and Happy Honda Days! Come witness a gloriously naughty noel, and to all, a good fright!

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Dark Dark Ride Ride: Holiday Nightmare runs Wednesday through Saturday nights, from 8:00pm through midnight (last ride departing at 11:45pm), from now through December 21st. Admission is $35, which is good for one cart and is the same price for one or two riders. Guests must sign a waiver that consents to light touching during the attraction (nothing rough or inappropriate). Because this is a legitimately moving vehicle attraction, there may be some amount of roughness or motion sickness from the whirling and spinning motions. Tickets can be purchased on site or in advance. Go check it out tonight!