Zombie Joe's Urban Death Trail of Torment: 2021 Review

Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre, North Hollywood, CA

This past year has been tough for theater folks. Shuttered because of the Coronavirus pandemic and unable to operate due to their high risk designations, the performing arts have had to subsist on scrappings of online shows, unique pop-up acts, or just plain endurance and resilience. This has been the case for the biggest Broadway productions, and it’s been the case for small outfits like one of our favorites, Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre.

Although Zombie and his crew were able to manage a couple of experiences last year, including an intimate, peek-in style, literal black box performance last fall for Halloween and an entertainingly eerie Christmas-themed web-based interaction, the Southern California theater and haunt scene has generally been without ZJU’s experimental and avant garde brand of Grand Guignol, Butoh, and Theatre of Cruelty for over a year. But this weekend marks another sign of return to normalcy with Zombie Joe’s latest iteration of its longtime favorite, Urban Death.

This year, though, the popular vignettes of horror don’t appear as a regular theater show. Instead, Urban Death: Trail of Torment blends elements of a haunted maze walk-through with a series of visceral, voyeuristic vignettes—placing guests uncomfortably close to witness the ghastly, grotesque, and gripping scenes. The result is an experience that blurs the boundaries of theater. And somehow, despite the challenges of a still-active pandemic, Urban Death’s 8th year manages to churn out its greatest manifestation yet!

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

Coincidentally, it was right before the 2020 run of Urban Death was due to begin that the country went into lockdown. As a result, this Zombie Joe tradition never even ran a single night last year. When Halloween rolled around, a modified production was considered, but ultimately, the risk of people in close quarters, indoors, and during a time before vaccinations had begun meant that Urban Death just couldn’t be rendered in anything that would have done its format justice. This year, with conditions markedly improved, the thought of having some sort of indoor experience was more palatable. But with crowds still discouraged, Zombie Joe and his team had to explore other formats for communicating their twisted visions.

The solution, as it turned out, was not too different from formats that ZJU had already began experimenting with in the year before the pandemic. At the start of 2019, Zombie Joe presented a departure from its customary black box theater shows with Dark Dark Ride Ride, a chilling yet coldly comedic imagining of a tracked amusement park attraction gone dementedly wrong. Groups of two people would board a cart that would literally be pushed around by unknown forces, piloting guests from scene to scene—indulging a rambling series of hellish episodes fueled by fever nightmares.

Later in the year, ZJU presented Beasts from the Sea!, an oceanic-inspired stroll of maritime horror through the depraved depths of the watery abyss. With no carriage this time, guests were left to follow a sea trail on foot, pulled along by the tide of terror mixed with an energetic zest of absurdity. Moving through the ZJU lobby space into the main theater black box and then into backstage areas, Beasts from the Sea! built upon the dynamic mode of moving between scenes that Dark Dark Ride Ride! had introduced.

It’s within the same sort of construct that Urban Death: Trail of Torment operates. Groups of up to four people are shepherded through the portal of Zombie’s Underground Theatre and left to follow a meandering path dimly marked by iridescent blue dots that string this trail together. From time to time, guests come upon a line of red markings, faintly glowing in the murk, which triggers carefully positioned show lights to illuminate the episode and commence with the riveting unpleasantries.

Like the regular full show and the Halloween “Tour of Terror” version, Urban Death: Trail of Torment follows no particular storyline or connective plot. The scenes are disjointed from each other, sharing only a common trait of provocative shock and dread and sensationalism. A soulless Stepford Wife whips up a deliciously cannibalistic rotisserie for dinner. A nun hides a lasciviously deformed secret between moaning incantations. A clown fellates a balloon figure, then transforms the prop to represent a tool to treat his personal, secret suffering. A sensuous figure in a hazmat suit slowly removes hand… and face… and body coverings, to expose the “beauty” of a ghastly infectious disfiguration.

Urban Death: Trail of Torment alternates between moments of creeping terror and jabs of sardonic humor. The mannerisms of the actors casually performing scandalously revolting acts are flippant and backhandedly hysterical—a twisted commentary on the thin, slicing wire that separates tragedy and comedy. That’s been a consistent trend in these horror vignettes that Zombie Joe has produced. The luridly serious and jarring scenes are chased with spritzes of frosty facetiousness. This helps whip up an emotional journey that keeps guests guessing.

The show also highlights the continued improvements in set-making that has increasingly become more elaborate and immersive across the most recent Zombie Joe shows. Taking advantage of the set stations along the trail, this year’s Urban Death envelopes guests into each scene, and sometimes even beneath the backdrop. Some settings are gritty—a back alley trash heap for example. Others are exotic—one scene appears to transport guests to some ancient Latin American jungle ruin. One of the highlights was an innocent nursery room, with a spinning projecting night light casting marine creatures, a rocking horse, a crib, and other infant accessories. But gradually, in a slow burn, evidence of the supernatural begins to manifest. And the malevolent mass provides a discomforting contrast to the otherwise placid and innocent setting of a sleeping child’s room

In all, Urban Death: Trail of Torment runs about 15-20 minutes, across seven scenes, with pacing that never lingers. The entire experience is indoors, and guests are required to remain masked the entire time. The walkthrough is contactless—no actors touch any guests—and of course, the opposite is strictly prohibited. And although the actors mostly do not have face coverings, all of them have been fully vaccinated from COVID-19. And so, especially our group who were all vaccinated as well, the entire experience felt comfortable and safe, allowing us to sink ourselves into the debauched depths of the show and experience itself.

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

As is usual for a Zombie Joe production, this edition of Urban Death is for adults only. When visiting ZJU Theatre, one should always be prepared for the sight of boobs, peen, and/or vag. And this time around, even the rare pooter makes a cameo, so this experience is certainly not for children. But for the grown-ups looking for a disconcertingly delightful alternative in the horror scene, and especially for longtime fans of Zombie Joe’s, Urban Death: Trail of Torment is an excellent, raucous, wrenching experience that proves a year off has hardly wrought any rust to this veteran crew. Although this 2020 and early 2021 have been a pain to all of us in so many different and sometimes serious ways, the ability to take in controlled horror once again in an ultimately safe (if not degenerate) setting does succeed in bringing pleasure.

Zombie Joe’s Urban Death: Trail of Torment runs Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, this weekend through June 12th. Tickets are $35 for two people (the price is the same for one person), and note that there is a possibility that two groups of two who do not know each other may be combined into one group of four to venture through the depths of ZJU together. For those who want to experience the show but may feel a little uncomfortable spending 15-20 intimate minutes with strangers, an option can be to purchase a pair of tickets for the same time slot to effective reserve off that zone. Or drag some other friends along for the ride!

For more information, visit http://zombiejoes.com/. And consider this a form of support for the arts! The perverse, horrific, ghoulishly macabre arts!