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The Bram Stoker Festival is coming to your home this year with a series of events designed for the whole family.
Sadly, we can’t celebrate Halloween as normal this year. Trick or treating is off the cards, as are parties with friends dressed up in our scariest costumes.
However, you can still enjoy a spooky weekend, as the Bram Stoker Festival has planned a series of events that can be enjoyed from home, for both adults and kids. Running from October 30 to November 2, there’s plenty to leave you feeling a little spooked.
Eternal
For those that love a good scare, ETERNAL is a chilling at-home experience strictly for grown-ups. A 20 minute immersive audio experience designed for one person to experience lying down alone in their bed, it uses binaural sound to play with your mind and get under your skin.
It explores the quandary of eternal life, and the price you would pay to gain it. Tickets are €5 + €1 booking fee, and there are slots at 5-9pm each day of the festival, if you’re brave enough.
DracuHa!
The festival has asked writers and artists to view Dublin through the prism of horror and the result is DracuHa!, a series of uniquely humourous, suspenseful and haunting tales which will bring you into the beating heart of the city from the comfort of your home.
Stories include Old Kin by Seámas O’Reilly read by Phelim Drew, and Welcome to The Witching Hour in which Michael Séance (nee Fry) helps another lost soul find their way to the afterlife.
DracuHa! will be available to listen to via this website from Friday 30 October at 10am.
Film and music fans won’t want to miss the Irish premiere of this radical reimagining of the cult horror film Night of the Living Dead. A new work of horror by Andrea Mastrovito, I am NOT legend investigates concepts of identity and the existential threat of zombies, with a new pulsing soundtrack from Irish composers Matthew Nolan and Stephen Shannon.
The film will be screened online at 9pm each night of the festival, and tickets are €5 + €1 booking fee.
Warmbloods
A darkly comedic tour from two lady-like members of Dublin’s vampire community, Anne and Winifred, who will escort you around the National Gallery of Ireland on this audio and visual tour.
Your guides promise to whisper in your ear and lead you astray in visions of exposed flesh, murder, darkened rooms, storms and a cruel-to-be-kind dissection of your ‘warmblood’ mortal nonsense and obsession with immortality.
A special edition of an ongoing series of comedy tours in the National Gallery, Warmbloods is written and performed by Underthings (Debbie Cheevers and Denny MacDermott), an improv/sketch duo from Dublin. The tour will be available through the National Gallery website throughout the festival.
Curse Hunters
An interactive adventure game you can play at home on a phone or tablet, Curse Hunters allows kids aged 6-11 to complete a mind-bending series of interactive tasks, puzzles, and creative challenges to save the universe from an ancient curse.
It requires supervision from an adult, and will be available to play throughout the festival through the Actionbound app. You can download the Curse Hunter Pack beforehand so you know what to expect, and to prepare your team of Curse Hunters.
Macnas
The festival has partnered with Macnas to bring their magic into your home. In a series of online videos released during the October Mid-Term, families nationwide will be guided through the creation of their own Macnas at home experience.
From imagining your story, to mask making, movement and sound and drumming, you’ll follow step-by-step as Macnas teach you how to build and stage your own Halloween spectacle at home.
Dracula’s Disco
On Sunday, November 1, Dracula’s own DJ will be taking to the decks for a spooky online disco that you can dance along to at home. In partnership with The Ark, DJ Will Softly will be playing all your favourite Halloween hits, so put on your costumes for a party you can enjoy at home.
This event is free, but requires advance booking, which can be done on The Ark’s website.
For a full list of events, go to bramstokerfestival.com.
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