An Interview with Delusion Creator, Jon Braver

Phillips Mansion, Pomona, CA

When it comes to immersive and interactive theater during the spooky season, there really isn’t any greater name than Delusion. Jon Braver’s production has been around for a decade now, and though there are lot of attractions these days that weave in audience participation or enveloping environments into an intimate, visceral storyline, very few approach the caliber that the original precedent of immersive and interactive theater has set.

This year, Delusion returns—both in performance and to its horror roots—with a new spectacular, Reaper’s Remorse, which promises to be the biggest, grandest, most interactive, and scariest Delusion yet. The first show to be produced from Braver’s new partnership with 13th Floor Entertainment Group, Reaper’s Remorse also expands the scale and scope of Delusion by introducing a new “Open World” setting outside of the main play itself that supplements the storytelling of the main show, as well as a VIP section titled Her Private Collection that offers a deeper dive into the plot and the mystery.

A few weeks ago, I had a chance to sit down and talk with Jon Braver about his enterprise with 13th Floor Entertainment, the offerings of this year’s Delusion, and the new opportunities beyond Delusion that Braver’s new role as Director of Immersive Entertainment at 13FEG have to offer.

(Image courtesy of Delusion.)

Our conversation happened virtually on a video call, with Jon sitting in front of the site of this year’s Delusion, the Phillips Mansion in Pomona. Well, actually, it was a virtual background, of course, but it was a fitting backdrop for our conversation, which would revolve around this fall’s production. After catching up a bit on how the past year of pandemic life had been, we quickly got into the business of learning more about the latest evolution of Delusion.

My first question naturally gravitated to the origins of this new partnership with 13th Floor Entertainment Group. Their enlistment of acclaimed Knott’s Scary Farm designer, Jon Cooke and his outfit, Plague Productions, a couple years ago was a momentous move for the haunt community. But adding a second haunt-beloved Jon to the fold? That was equally thrilling. I was curious to learn how the parties came together in the first place.

“I’ve known Chris Stafford over at 13th Floor for two and a half… three years now,” Braver began. “He was a Delusional” (referring to the title for repeat fans of the show). “He’d come to the shows, he came to Lies Beneath and His Crimson Queen and The Blue Blade. He’d come every year. We’d always tease every year that we should get together. He was like, ‘we do haunted houses which is like thousands of people a night, so we do things a little bit different.’ But we just became friends over the years. Eventually I told him it’d be nice to get a solid, well-funded company to help produce these things instead of just relying on ticket sales.”

The mutual benefits were clear. Braver could have a solid infrastructure for marketing, legal, and administrative support that would free him to focus more on his creative endeavors, and 13FEG would have support from a brilliant and innovative mind that would help them expand their line-up of offerings.

I couldn’t help think that this echoed the symbiotic partnerships of famous pairings like Disney and Pixar or Disney and Marvel, where the established big name was able to throw their support behind a smaller but quality known name. Braver had a similar Hollywood-minded comparison. “I was telling them, ‘You be the Sony, and we’ll be the Sony Classics,” he mentioned, with a smile.

A scene outside 2018’s The Blue Blade.

The indie comparison is not silly. For various reasons, Delusion has been a regular but not annual production, which has maintained a feeling of exclusivity and rarity. Last year knocked everyone out because of the pandemic, of course, but the last proper Delusion production was Indiana Jones-esque The Blue Blade in 2018, with a small spin-off Alt Delete the following year. The announcement of a return to a more terrifying juncture was met with great excitement in the haunt and immersive theater activity, but I wanted to find out more of the inspiration behind this move.

“I knew that after The Blue Blade I was going to go back to horror,” Braver explained. “I knew that we had to get back to the roots. Because I’m a fan of this too.”

And in looking back into ideas and inspirations for a move back to the macabre, Braver combed back through his past location searches. “I found [the Phillips Mansion] through a location manager a few years ago. I Ioved it but I had some things going on, so it just kind of lingered in my mind.” That proved to be catalyzing for the Delusion’s return to horror after its Blue Blade and Alt Delete sci-fi adventure foray.

As with all Delusion plots, the setting and the history around the building and even some of the real-life historical figures associated with the location greatly influenced the crafting of Reaper’s Remorse.

“This place inspired me. She inspired me. The museum, the exhibit, the look of this place inspired me,” Braver affirmed. Elaborating further: “This story revolves around this house, this solemn collector, these artifacts… this house already has all these unique artifacts from the turn of the century. There was a family there, the Phillips family. Louis Phillips was the main dude, and he was at one time one of the wealthiest people in L.A. His wife, Esther, was on the sidelines like a lot of women at the time, so I wanted to pick up the story of Esther and twist it in my own way.”

Read through the Pomona Historical Society’s description of the Phillips Mansion and even the history of the local community and arrival of Louis Phillips, and it’s clear that there is a trove of storyline stimulation. But the beauty of Delusion is Braver’s ability to pick out authentic tidbits here and there and re-arrange them into a cohesive, chilling, dark tale full of twists and surprises. In pushing Delusion back toward its Gothic origins, Braver had two goals: “make this the scariest Delusion, and strip down the dialogue and make this more action oriented. This one just moves… it keeps moving. It’s a ticking clock… you’re going further and further down the spiral of this one.”

An interaction scene from The Blue Blade.
(Photo courtesy of Delusion.)

And then, as though reading my mind about whether Reaper’s Remorse shared any connections of inspirations from previous Delusion productions, Jon remarked, “This one harkens more to The Blood Rite and Lies Within. It’s got this great energy to it, and it’s more interactive… more interactive than The Blue Blade.”

That said, while the feel of the new show alludes to other Delusions, Braver was quick to clarify that Reaper’s Remorse was a standalone story—one that has a “whole, big, epic vibe to it.”

“There’s a Delusion universe of stories. They’re all loosely connected. They exist in the same world. But you don’t have to see any other ones,” Braver promised. “This one… there’s no direct tie to the other Delusions. But there are little hints in the dialogue. For example, there are little hints of His Crimson Queen in there, peppered in between.”

For fans of the series and guests who have been to previous shows, these little Easter eggs serve as treats and small showings of appreciation for supporters who have come back to Delusion year after year. Especially after the past year and a half of the Coronavirus pandemic, Jon recognized that fans want something tangible and connective to experience again, in real life, to inspire and stir emotions and senses. He grew animated as he painted what he sought to bring out from this year’s edition of Delusion:

“I want the feel of Halloween again, I want the fall, I want the atmosphere, I want to smell the fog. I want everything… like a smorgasborg… like autumn and fall just throwing up all over this house. I want it all to just bleed from this place, the horror, the beauty, the sound design, the smell.”

The Phillips Mansion in Pomona, home of this year’s Delusion.
(Photo courtesy of Delusion.)

Jon and his Delusion and 13th Floor Entertainment Group team will get that with this year’s site. The historic Phillips Mansion in Pomona is a residential house in and of itself, but unlike past year’s residential settings, it’s not actually in a residential neighborhood. Instead, the surrounding zoning is more commercial, providing greater freedom to operate without incurring complaints from neighboring residents or the ever-present threat of being shut down by the city because of said unhappy neighbors. Without having to worry about traffic, parking, or permits being pulled—concerns that “would just hang on me, the previous years,” he confided—Braver could delve deeper into the context and history without fear of investing too much effort into an endeavor that might be prematurely closed.

“This is a dream property,” Braver admitted. “It’s in an industrial complex. Even in the script I wrote, this is a home that’s timeless, that sits as the modern world grows around it.”

And there are little details and opportunities even outside the house itself that offered inspiration and contribution to the story.

“The cool thing is as we got there, there’s a train, a freight train that comes there way way way back. And It runs there like three or four times an hour. And at night, the sound of that train is just super haunting. It’s so dark and eerie, and so I wrote the train into the story. Where the house is… is in the story. Everything about it is so site-specific. This show is probably the most site-specific show I’ve written.”

As much of a relief as the lack of zoning restrictions provided for this year, the site isn’t without its challenges. “The neighbors have giant lights that flood,” Braver revealed, “so we made a deal with them to kill the lights, because it was way too bright there.”

Delusion has had a form of outdoor lounge and waiting area before, but never something that is integrally connected to the story like the Open World will provide as part of Reaper’s Remorse.

Besides the freedom from the bureaucratic complications of setting a complex (and popular) play in a residential neighborhood, the greater surrounding space at the Phillips Mansion will also allow Braver to incorporate what he sees as the next evolution of how immersive theater can grow.

“This space and the grounds around it allows us to do something I’ve always wanted to do for a long time, which is to do the Open World experience mixed with the narrative,” Jon said, referencing the outdoor environment that will be crafted to support the narrative. “This is the first Delusion ever where we want everybody who comes to the show to spend two, three, four hours there. If you have a ticket at 10:00 show, come at 7:00. We have a full bar, full drinks, food. We’re developing 12-15 story threads… each one of them is about 10 minutes long, and they’re all tying into the main narrative. You can go and explore at whim. You can explore parts of the mansion and parts of the grounds and piece together a little scavenger hunt that shapes the story even further. But you do it at your own time. This is a full night.”

The theme park analogy would be supplementing a thrilling ride with an atmospheric themed land around it to further draw guests into the story and enhance the escapism that this whole theatrical spectacle seeks to wring out. For example, Ghostrider is a fantastic enough ride by itself at Knott’s Berry Farm, but having Ghost Town around it deepens the Old West feel even further.

If we want to take that theme park analogy further, this year’s VIP section on the second floor of the Philips Mansion serves as a premium upcharge that provides additional storyline immersion. It’s not a necessary encounter, but rather a bonus treat for the fans.

“There’s a whole other experience up there,” Braver explained. “We’re calling it Her Private Collection, where Esther Phillips’ more personal stuff is up there… more haunting stuff. There’s an extra five story threads in the VIP section as well as the dark arts lounge, private bar, and a very strange and private resident you might come across and an odd game room up there. There are a lot of opportunities for exploration up there.” Braver cited feedback from previous years as the motivation for this enhanced area. “We’ve heard a lot from Delusionals about, ‘I love all this stuff, I want more.’ So this is the year… this is the year we can finally offer a lot more.”

Esther Phillips harbors many dark, chilling secrets in the artifacts she collects.
(Photo courtesy of Delusion.)

All of this adds up to a grander and more sprawling immersive theater experience. To go with the theme park comparisons again, think of Ghost Town Alive!—but certainly spookier and seemingly more supernatural. That would certainly be pretty exciting, and Jon’s tone grew more enthusiastic as he painted a sample experience a more committed guest might take themselves through:

“While we’re waiting on our play, we can go off on our own. Now we’re roaming, now we’re exploring all the story threads. These things are very mysterious and tie into the main narrative in some loose way. The deeper you let yourself go, the more you’ll get out of this. So you go through as many of these Open World story threads as you can, then you go to the narrative play, and then you’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, I can tie in things I’ve learned in the exploration,’ and then you come out of the play and you go back and finish some of those story threads and things make even more sense. This is the format, this is the experience, and this is what we believe is the future of immersive storytelling.”

All of this ambitious storytelling, exploration, and interactive performance art isn’t possible without the added infrastructure and support of 13th Floor Entertainment.

“The reason we’re able to do everything we just spoke about is because of 13th Floor’s involvement to enhance the entire experience,” Braver pointed out. “When we first started off, they were like, ‘how could we give people more of what they want? So lets take certain things that we haven’t been able to take capitalize on as much in the past, such as food and beverage, merch, the apparatus and infrastructure to support for all those things and let you focus on the creative.’ Because I’ve had to produce those things in the past too, and I don’t really like to do that. I like to stick to my job of writing and directing. So they’ve been able to help out with all the things we just spoke about.

Fortunately, 13FEG seems to also be taking a hands-off approach similar to how Disney allows Pixar to run relatively autonomously. A lot of Jon’s Delusion collaborators will be back, including production designer Kevin Williams, lighting designer Ian Momii, and sound designer Victor Mathews.

We can expect more stellar scenery, set decoration, lighting, and sound integration like this example from The Blue Blade in this fall’s Delusion!
(Photo courtesy of Delusion.)

Looking forward, there’s more on Braver’s plate than just continuing to progress Delusion. His partnership with 13th Floor is affording opportunities in projects across the country and even around the world.

“This is our first project together, Delusion, but we’re going to try to take some of their haunts like in Chicago and in other places and add experiences to those that are more Delusion-like, more intimate,” Braver revealed. “So instead of just a haunted house, there would be a couple other experiences.”

Even locally, Braver has been looking at additional endeavors. “There’s a place out here in Hollywood that we’re looking at to be sort of a year-round experience.”

Long term, there are even grander visions at overseas locations that would present more than just a singular attraction. “There’s this castle in France that I have access to that I would love to create a three or four day experience,” Jon hinted. And while it was clear in our chat that this is most definitely in a “blue sky” planning stage at the most right now, the implications of such an experience—something that might create a form of “immersive theater tourism”—are clearly intriguing.

For now, though, the focus is on Reaper’s Remorse and getting that ready for its September 16th debut. And although there is plenty of work to do, and undoubtedly, the final weeks leading up will be filled with activity and stress, Braver seems cautiously at ease with how things have developed thusfar, with the 13th Floor support and involvement.

“I don’t want to jinx this, but this is the most relaxed [I’ve been prior to any Delusion]…” he confided. But then again, that’s part of the point of this partnership. “This is what Chris told me, ‘This is how it’s supposed to be. We’ll let you do your job, and let them do their job.’”

In any case, like Delusion’s previous productions, this one is sure to be a smash success. The fact that 85% of ticket sales were made during the one-day presale a few weeks ago proves that fans can’t wait for the latest installment, and Braver shares their giddiness.

“I’m more excited about this Delusion than any one I’ve done except for like the first one, or the first or second one,” he declared, eyes sparkling in the process. “This is the story I want to see, this is the experience I want to be in, this is the adventure I want to take, and I know everybody else is going to want to do that too.”

Reaper’s Remorse will run select nights from Thursday September 16 through Sunday, November 21st (generally Thursdays through Sundays, with Wednesday, October 20 and 27 as well). There will be 20 plays a night, cycling groups of up to 11 people through the Phillips Mansion every 15 minutes. The play itself will be a little over an hour long—the usual time for a Delusion production. Although the event is nearly sold out, some isolated single tickets do remain available. More information is available at Delusion’s web site at https://enterdelusion.com/.

As we closed our interview, Jon told me that for those unable to obtain tickets, there have been some internal discussions of potentially opening up the Open World area to non-ticket holders. But until anything official is announced, assume that a ticket must be purchased to enjoy any aspect of Reaper’s Remorse.

“There’s some big awesome surprises that you’re going to see,” he added. “It’s going to be awesome!”