It’s 6:45 on a warm October night, and Mike Impollonia is patiently waiting in line to get his face and arms spray-painted green, orange and black and covered in fake blood. This is the 27-year-old’s third year working at Blood Manor, “New York’s premier haunted attraction,” located at 163 Varick St., running every night this month except Oct. 24.

What’s your costume for tonight?
An evil-looking bouncer that will take the groups through the Vampire’s Lair, which is where the vampire exotic dancers are. This is the first year we’ve had an official male dancer who’ll be in there all season, wearing hot shorts along with the girls.

I’m sure he’ll have a lot of fun. Do the dancers have a “no touching” rule?
All of Blood Manor has a no touching rule! If a customer touches any of the performers in any way, they’re removed by security right away. The rule is that we can’t touch the customers and they can’t touch us. Sure, we’ll get up in their faces and get real close, but we never touch them.

Does that rule get broken a lot?
Usually not, but some people can be out of control. One time, a very, very drunk woman was going from room to room and propositioning every single one of the male performers. Just grabbing them all over. We eventually had to call security on her.

When do the crowds get the most out of control?
Later on into the night and closer to Halloween, or when people come here after they’ve had a few drinks. Drunks are the craziest. They’re usually the ones who get aggressive, jumping around and touching stuff or bumping into things and breaking props.

Breaking props?
Yeah, but that also happens unintentionally. Some people get really terrified and just go nuts, start tearing things apart. One time, a group of teens—people usually walk through in groups of six—got so scared in a room I was working in that one of them ran right into a huge grandfather clock. There was glass everywhere, the kids were screaming and freaking out like crazy. I had to calm them down, call security to clean up the glass and keep new people from coming in. It was a mess.

Is it hard to stay in character throughout the night?
It can be exhausting. But we unwind during our break, when we all just hang out and relax together. The owners are really nice and always give us food, like pizza and hot trays of Chinese or Italian food. They also keep huge fridges stocked with water and juice, along with multivitamins and cough drops, because our throats get pretty sore from roaring and screaming at people all night. I always lose my voice by the end of the season.

That sounds pretty rough! What keeps you coming back to work at Blood Manor every autumn?
It’s an amazing atmosphere, very high energy and fun. Plus, just the ridiculousness of it, that I get paid to do this—otherwise I’d probably be doing this for free.

What surprised you the most about Blood Manor when you first started working here?
Honestly, how well we all get along and how much fun it is. The people are great and we all bond really quickly every year because we’re working so hard and going through all this awesome craziness together. We try to keep in touch throughout the rest of the year until the next Halloween season, and then it’s like seeing your family again. It actually literally is like my family—I met a girl who was working here last year and after talking we realized we were distant cousins.

Which room is your favorite this season?
The last room, which is called Zombie Apocalypse. But I don’t want to give too much away, because it’s this awesome, gruesome, shocking finale. Let’s just say that they put a lot of thought and work into making it really scary, but also fun and interactive.

What costumes have you worn?
Let’s see…Dr. Frankenstein, a crazed, cannibalistic butcher, a werewolf…I actually had an allergic reaction to the werewolf costume, because something about the mask and the makeup that goes along with it really irritated my skin. I loved that costume though! I begged them to let me wear it again, just during the first night, for old time’s sake. But they said absolutely not, because they didn’t want me to get sick from it again.

How do the performers keep their heavy, elaborate costume makeup looking good all night long? It must be ready to melt off after midnight.
Oh yeah, my werewolf makeup used to fall off in chunks toward the end of the night. But we have makeup artists behind the scenes and we can always ask them to do touch-ups during our breaks. That’s really important, because if the latex paint starts peeling off, then the costume gets messed up, and you have a harder time getting into character. And you don’t want that. You want to be as scary and realistic as possible!

Photo courtesy of Remy Melina

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By Leonora Desar

BEST BEAUTIFUL NIGHTMARE
Steampunk Haunted House
“Have I stepped into a dream or a nightmare?” you ask yourself when a hand reaches out and pulls you across the threshold of a life-sized looking glass. Suddenly, you find yourself separated from your group and faced with the ghostly presence of Alice Liddle, who guides you into Third Rail Projects’ ethereally macabre rendering of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. This is not your blood-and-guts haunted house. Instead, your pulse quickens when you find yourself nearly alone and displaced in an image-saturated purgatory that is part immersive theater, part neo-Victorian fashion show. Everyone’s experience is potentially different. You may find yourself led into a lush sitting room where the Red Queen, a shimmering apparition in blood red, pins you down with her gaze. Or perhaps a masked knight will challenge you to a game of chess, the doors shutting tightly behind you. In any case, even as the dream begins to dissolve, you are already wondering what would happen if you returned for a second spill down the rabbit hole.
Through Oct. 31, Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand St. (at Pitt St.), 212-598-0400, www.steampunkhauntedhouse.com; $10–$50.

BEST FAIRY TALE YOUR MOTHER NEVER TOLD YOU
NIGHTMARES: Fairy Tales
You slip a blindfold over your eyes. “No peeking!” Rapunzel admonishes as you grab hold of her coarse rope of hair and tread into a pop-up storybook world. These are not your childhood bedtime stories. Here, the iconic and familiar fairy tales of youth are boiled down to their most climactic moments or, in a few instances, twisted into something nearly unrecognizable. You enter the story but also become a character in it, acting as both witness and complicit accessory. In the absence of relentless stalking by the characters, you can pause to appreciate the aesthetic delights of the world coming to life around you. On the other hand, though, there is also time to register its inauthenticity—the flat, two-dimensionality of the set design, the permanent environment beyond. Suspension of disbelief never fully takes hold, especially after the first half ends and you are ushered back into the well-lit main lobby—and effectively out of the narrative—before embarking on the second half of the experience. But overall Nightmare: Fairy Tales, while not riveting on a visceral, gut level, teases the intellect and engages the senses.
Through Nov. 5, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, 107 Suffolk St. (betw. Delancey & Rivington Sts.), 212-352-3101, www.hauntedhousenyc.com; $30–$100.

BEST HEART ATTACK DOUBLING AS DARK COMEDY
Blood Manor
Suddenly the creature—you don’t know what else to call it—is leaning in for the kill, her breath hot on your neck: “I bet you taste soooo good. Just one little bite? Come back here…NOW!” This is just one example of the relentless torment awaiting you inside the bowels of Blood Manor. There is no time for reflection, from the moment a looming monster lures you inside to your final mad-dash escape through machine-gun fire. The momentum builds quickly with constant sensory overload—a whirling green laser vortex, glow-in-the-dark 3-D zombies—but through it all, you still manage to catch glimpses of dark humor that, while hokey, elicit a chuckle in the midst of all the action. A blur of newspaper clips scream campy headlines, while in another scene vampire strippers of three sexes—male, female and other—slither up and down silver poles in a From Dusk Till Dawn-inspired montage. If Stephen King and Quentin Tarantino had collaborated on a sick joke, they may have very well come up with something like this.
Through Nov. 5, 163 Varick St. (at Charlton St.), 212-290-2825, www.bloodmanor.com; $28.50–$50.

Thursday 10/27
The Pumpkin Pie Show
Under St. Mark’s, 94 St. Mark’s Pl. (betw. 1st Ave. & Ave. A); 8 p.m., $18.
Its name derives from the Southern tradition, when true horror came through storytelling in the fields. Creators Clay McLeod Chapman and Hanna Cheek bring chilling tales of romance gone wrong. Stories include Lovey Dovey, Michelle, Condo Lothario and Ascending the Stairway, four tales that promise to terrify.

The Freakiest and Funniest Food Tour
New York Food Tours, 220 Canal St. (betw. Baxter & Mulberry Sts.); 2:45-5:15 p.m., $55.
Spend the evening walking through Chinatown and sampling some freaky (to those raised on American cuisine) foods, including chicken feet, Durian, and thousand-year-old, or Century, eggs.

Carsten Höller: Experience
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 235 Bowery (nr. Prince Street); $12.
The German artist behind the revolving “hotel room” in the Guggenheim in 2008 is back at it, this time transforming the New Museum into a highbrow and interactive fun house. Just in time for Halloween, the installation includes slides, perforated ceilings, a mirrored carousel, and a sensory deprivation pool called the Psycho Tank.

Friday 10/28
Blood Manor
Blood Manor, 163 Varick St. (betw. Charlton & Vandam Sts.); 7:30 p.m.-2 a.m., $25 advance, $35 at the door.
Take the tour, if you dare, of one of NYC’s best haunted attractions. Blood Manor features 5,000 square feet of themed rooms and a labyrinth of hallways designed to terrify. The tour is not recommended for children under 14.

Gotham City Ghost Tour
For reservations & meeting place info: 212-465-3331; 5:30 p.m., $20.
The walking tour explores the historic, infamous, eerie and macabre of Greenwich Village history. The group will see the spooky cemetery at St. Mark’s; the hanging elm, a 19th-century execution site; the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire; the home of Edgar Allan Poe; and the burial ground at Washington Square, just to name a few.

Candlelight Ghost Tour of “Manhattan’s Most Haunted House”
Merchant’s House Museum, 29 E. 4th St. (betw. Lafayette St. & Bowery); 6-7 p.m., $25; 8-9 p.m., $30; 9:30 p.m., $40.
Tour the Merchant’s House Museum by candlelight and hear about the freaky and spooky occurrences from the people who experienced them.

Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race
Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place (at 1st Place); $12.
Get yourself good and scared with some real-life monsters from our past. This exhibit takes a look at the Nazi regime’s efforts to alter the populations genetic makeup through “racial hygiene,” or eugenics.

Saturday 10/29
Halloween Drinkfest
Chelsea Manor, 138 W. 25th St. (betw. 6th & 7th Aves.); 9 p.m., $15.
Look no further than Chelsea Manor for a good monster bash. Come dressed to impress and ready to dance. A guest DJ will be playing until 4 a.m., so break out your best costume and join the freaks that come out at night.

Halloween Haunted Pier Party
South Street Seaport, 89 South St. (at Pier 17); 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $20.
Dance the night away at this 21 and over costume-mandatory party with music by Hot 97 and Heavy Hitter.

Play Dead
Players Theatre, 115 Macdougal St. (near
Minetta Lane); $40.
Had enough of the run-of-the-mill ‘death-defying’ stunts performed by magicians? Check out Todd Robbins, an illusionist who prefers death-embracing stunts. The fake blood and real amazement flows plentifully at this show directed and written by Teller of Penn &Teller.

Sunday 10/30
From Parlor to Grave: Funeral Reenactmant
Merchant’s House Museum, 29 E. 4th St. (betw. Lafayette & Bowery); 3–5 p.m., $30 ($10 for graveside service and cemetery tour only).
The parlors will be draped in black crepe as the museum recreates the 1865 funeral of Seabury Tredwell. After the service, mourners are invited to follow the coffin to nearby New York City Marble Cemetery—rarely open to the public—for a tour. Nineteenth-century mourning attire encouraged; black crepe armbands will be provided.

Monday 10/31
FREE Village Halloween Parade
Meet at 6th Ave. & Spring St.; 7 p.m.
Every year, NYC’s weirdest crawl, slither and fly down to the Village in their most impressive costumes. Head downtown to march with the freakiest NYC has to offer or just watch the spookery unfold.