Sentosa Spooktacular 2013 – Date night with the husband.

I was super thrilled to receive the invitation for Sentosa Spooktacular this year. I am always game for an adventure or thrills but as a mum of 2 boys, i barely have much time for myself lest do anything remotely near like attending a spooky halloween event.

but receiving the media invitation just gave me the perfect excuse to have a perfect date night with the husband and inject some thrills in our lives. or love.

i know what you are thinking. how “romantic” right? at a scary, spooky setting?! Well, it definitely was.. cos the husband was holding my hands the entire time! (joking!!)

our “couple bands” for the sentosa spooktacular media invite. matchy matchy!This year marks the fifth edition and also the inaugural collaboration between Sentosa and renowned Thai movie production studios, GMM Tai Hub Co. Ltd (GTH) to jointly produce Sentosa Spooktacular 2013. Some of us would be familiar with the movies produced by GTH – Shutter, Coming Soon, Dorm etc.

We all know how thai horror stories are the scariest and most ‘happening’ of them all right? i remembered Shutter was one movie that i couldn’t get out of my mind for the longest time after i watched it.

This year, Sentosa Spooktacular is incorporating some of GTH’s most popular titles into the horror trails!

There are 5 horror trails in total;
– Coming Soon
– Shutter
– Dorm
– Pee Mak
– Body

Well, since it was media night that i attended, there were loads of overseas guests and artistes, as well as GTH’s movie director and producer Yongyoot Thongkongtoon.

David Goh, Senior Divisional Director, Sentosa Leisure Management together with Yongyoot Thongkongtoon, Seniro Director of International Business Department, GTH & movie direcotr and producer of GTH’s films.
the 4 artistes in Pee Mak – Bomb (Kantapat Permpoonpatchcharasuk), Puak (Pongsatorn Jongwilas), Shane (Attharut Jongrasri) and Freud (Nuttapong Chartpong).
man, thai names are so long to spell in english!!

all set for the grand opening of Sentosa Spooktacular!

And, the offical opening starts with a confetti shower! Man, a ghost popped out and freaked everyone here! (image courtesy of Sentosa Spooktacular)

All i can say is, the first vibes i get from entering the place – SPOOKY! The husband did hold my hands a little tighter (though i’m not sure if he was trying to give me more assurance that he is around or that he is a little freaked out himself!)

a hanging corpse hanging by the lamp post.We started our first trail with Body. This remains Der’s favourite of them all. The story is about a Chon, a medical student who performed countless autopsies, was increasingly perturbed by nightmares filled with a corpse he recently studied, belonging to Dararai who was gruesomely butchered and places a curse on the medical faculty.

me screaming when i realised i was presented with a heart taken out from the corpse.
dead, rotting corpse spilling all over the area together with walking corpse or scary gruesome looking ghouls.

navigating through the maze of butchered body parts. this picture looks pretty bright, but that’s because of my camera flashlight. it was stuffy, filled with acrid smoke and in darkness. I kept having something hit my head. -_-”

am not going to show all the pictures and be a spoiler, so *ahem*, moving on to the next trail – Shutter.

The movie Shutter is about photographer Tun noticing mysterious white shadows in his shots and develops severe neck pains which no doctor has answers to. His ex-girlfriend was being violated and he had witnessed and taken photos of the incident. The ex was driven to suicide from blackmail and is back to seek revenge. I do find shutter is the scariest movie of all time personally.

This is my favourite trail, because it was freaking scary in total darkness that i couldn’t at all SEE WHERE I WAS GOING AT ALL. i was just blindly following der’s voice commands and i felt the place was decked very aptly to the movie with the grounds all scattered with photographs.

Derrick taking a picture with a ghost popping out of a photo frame.
pretty, little ghost that was hiding at some corner.. waiting to scare the shit of out you. ok. maybe not that pretty after all. (image courtesy of Sentosa Spooktacular)

We quickly moved on to the next trail – Pee Mak. The story revolves around Mak who invited his 4 friends to his home post-war and introduced them to his beautiful wife, “Nak” and newborn baby. Rumours had it that “Nak” died giving birth to her stillborn baby and the 4 friends set out to seek the truth and convey to Mak that the living and dead shouldn’t coexist together. it’s a comedy horror so i did find this trail quite hilarious instead of scary.

Ghosts doing the Pee Mak dance. (image courtesy of Sentosa Spooktacular)the Pee Mak dance is super cool to look at and everyone loved it. i also like how the ghosts were all moving in various directions in slow, dead manner amongst the crowd and then suddenly spring into life dancing when the music played. loads of entertainment value for the crowd who were stuck in queues.

We completed the Coming soon trail last and didnt managed to go for Dorm because the queues were freaking long (even though my media pass = fast pass) so we gave up and headed home to the kids because it was already very late and way past the kids’ bedtime. a real pity, really. wish i had more time to complete everything.

What i really like about the Spooktacular event is that while most Halloween events scare the shit out of you, you could easily get out by RUNNING AWAY. here, you are STUCK in the trails unless u perform the required tasks or challenges to let yourselves out. Man, it does feels very daunting and pressurizing under those conditions.

I definitely recommend you checking it out if you love the thai scary movies, specifically the 5 that the trails are modelled after. the other key highlight is that there are loads of larger than life props that are worth checking out.

Sentosa Spooktacular is an annual signature Halloween event held on the island of Sentosa, and will take place on 7 nights in Oct and November at Fort Siloso – 19, 20, 25, 26 Oct & 1, 2 Nov, from 7pm to 11pm.

The tickets are fast selling out and some days are completed sold out even before the event opens. Imagine how hot the tickets are. So, if you are really keen, there are still 2 more days to check it out – 31 Oct & 1 Nov. 2 Nov is completely sold out at the time of this entry.

The standard spooktacular tickets are priced at $66.60, and fast pass is available at $26.60 if you want to beat the queues and have sufficient time to do all 5 trails. If you are too chicken to check out the trails, you can grab the ‘Kia Gui’ (scared of ghost) pass at $16.60 that admits you into fort siloso and soak yourself in the eerie atmosphere but excludes admission to the haunted trials. For more information, check out spooktacular.com.sg or check out their fb at www.fb.com/sentosa.spooktacular.

P.s. the minimum age is 13 years old. i think the ghosts will freak out if you are under 13.

Happy Halloween! Eat pumpkins and make merry! You might want to bring some candles and joss sticks to offer to the ghosts though i’m not sure if that will work. They aint chinese, after all.

Disclaimer: I was invited to the event and all thoughts and opinions are my own.