January 30, 2025 • 11 mins
If you're a fan of the Insidious horror movie series, you might have been excited to hear they launched a stage show and a national tour. People who bought tickets were promised '90 minutes of immersive horror' but they got one of the worst stage shows of all time. Here's how it all went wrong.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I wanted to bring up something that I had seen
and I thought was kind of interesting. My history with
this is kind of a strange one because it goes
back to Sabrina doing.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
The live read on the show promoting.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
It was one of my very first endorsements. I was excited.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It was a long time ago, we were pretty fresh
into this time slot, and it was a movie called Insidious.
It was the second one, chapter two, and when Sabrina
did the live read on the show, she accidentally said Insidious,
chapter two.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
And then it's one of those things where you go, oh, yeah, yeah,
it's out there.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
I did it, and guess what, I didn't get an
endorsement for again the other chapters of Insidios unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
However, I remember that.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And then Corny was going through this whole thing where
she wanted to watch every horror movie under the sun,
and we remembered, oh, what about those Insidious movies? And
we watched all of them, and I'll tell you they're good.
I love them. I thought that whole world was cool
and an interesting place to explore, and there's been haunted
houses at Halloween horror Nights.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
From it just on, like, wasn't Annabelle, and.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
It's in the same universe they have, like this universe
where all these horror movies take place. And yes, and
they share a lot of the same actors even that
are in most of these movies. Anyhow, I like it
and I think it's cool. And I had seen they
were launching this huge nationwide tour. Now, we do shows,
we do performances, we do events. And when I thought
(01:31):
about the idea that they were going to take this
to the stage with Insidious the Further You Fear, I thought,
that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I've never heard of a.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Scary show on Broadway on stage, a production where the
goal isn't to like sing along and stuff, but the
goal is to be spooky.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I like that.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
I mean, the only thing I can relate it to
is sleep No More. That wasn't really as scary as
it was. I wasn't doing it right. That it was
an escape room. Well that's a story for another day.
But I had not heard of this, and this is
something I absolutely would have bought tickets for.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, it was even coming to the Doctor Phillips Center,
was going all over the country. It opened in Lafayette
and that was on January eighteenth, They promised an immersive
horror experience in eighty minutes of Terror, and then it
was premiering in Detroit, and when it premiered to Detroit,
it went so poorly that they canceled the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
They said, Oh.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
No, you know what's scary is the idea that we
have to do these performances all over the country. So
not a lot of people got to go see this.
But I think we have Jill Hamilton cross Sicky a
crossic on the line, probably butchering her last name, Jillie.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
There, yeah, I'm here all right.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
First of all, am I screwing up you last name?
Let me try one more time. Jill Hamilton Crossick perfect.
Oh beautiful, I did something right today.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
It's close enough.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
When did you When did you first hear about this
Insidious live tour that ended up going horribly wrong?
Speaker 5 (03:13):
Well, it popped up on one of my social media's
probably a few months ago, maybe four months ago or something,
and immediately, like the minute I saw it, I bought
tickets because I'm a huge fan of the Insidious franchise
and James Jaan, and you know, I'm just a horror
(03:35):
movie h fan, and my sister in law and I.
We went because we watched horror movies together.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
We went, and yeah, what was it like?
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Because I haven't for you know, I imagine there's a
lot of people like me that are listening that did
not even know about it until Sean brought up that
you were going to be on the show today. So
how did they explain it on the post? And then
what did you walk into? How quickly did you know
this was not going the way that you thought it would.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
Well? Pretty much when we walked into this year, we
were like, maybe this isn't going to be so good. Wow,
because because there was no set. There was no set
on the stage. There was there was nothing on the stage.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
That's a whole lot.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
They're going to do this whole production in sidious, this
big stage show.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Get ready to be scared. It's eighty minutes of terror.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
I mean that's scared to walk into a play with
nothing on set.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
There's there's no background, there's no stage set.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
No, it was just an empty stage. And we sat
down and we're like, well, this doesn't bode well, but
you know, we're good sports and everything, and we were
excited to see it. And you know it I.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
Can't say credit for this this review, but I did
see somebody posted on on Facebook or something that I
expected Insidious, and I Scooby Doo.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Oh god.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Oh so there were like these the two guys Specs
and Tucker from the movies, the ghost hunting guys, and
there were two guys playing them.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
You know.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
Eventually they did bring on some like rolling cards of
ghosts hunting equipment. They did have lots of smoke. They
had a screen which came down and was showing kind
of clips from the movie and you know, kind of
(05:35):
live backstage shots. Yeah, and uh and some two lights
on either side that came Oh.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
God, hold on, hold on. We missed one key thing.
How much did the tickets cost?
Speaker 5 (05:49):
So we sat in the mezzanine and our tickets were
seventy dollars each, so yeah, not not not not tear
you know, but.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
You know, I just paid a little less to watch
fourteen cats do acrobatics.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So seventy five dollars a pop.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
This is nocal like franchise.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is this is a legit thing
behind Insidious. And they said it's gonna be immersive, it's
gonna be eighty minutes of terror. It's gonna knock your
socks off. It was so bad that they've canceled the
entire thing across the country. I love your attitude about this,
which is kind of, hey, we're already here, let's make
the most of this. But did you hear the audience
(06:33):
start to kind of groan and react?
Speaker 5 (06:37):
Well, So it wasn't very immersive. They had like, I
think it was like five people or so that were
plants in the audience that you know, came up, so
it was kind of like, oh, we have people from
the audience participating, but they weren't really the audience. And
at one point they did have one of the characters
(06:58):
told everybody in the theater to stand up and do
this thing with their fingers, and it was a power
of suggestion type thing. But I was cracking up because
as soon as he said everybody stand up, there was
like this collective groan. I don't want to stand up.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Your fingers?
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, the wheels are falling up.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
Yeah, it was the power of suggestion thing. And I
look over at my sister in law and she goes,
it's not working.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I think they bought some other fingers up.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I imagine were you were you at any point scared
because they promised eighty minutes of horror?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Here, were you scared at all?
Speaker 5 (07:40):
No?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Okay, somebody's bringing up the comparison.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Reef Break on YouTube says, this sounds like another Willy
Wonka thing. It sounds like the stage version of that
Willy Wonka experience that happened in Scotland, I believe. But
they're doing this on stage and it sounds kind of
cobbled together.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
To be honest with.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
You, Yeah, yeah, it's you know, I it's kind of
like and you know, I go to community theater a
lot and there's some really, really really good productions, but
this was like bad community theater.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Did you hear people afterwards saying like they wanted refunds
and stuff?
Speaker 6 (08:23):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Yeah, Yeah. There was a lot of when we were
walking out of the theater, a lot of grumbling, A
lot of people were mad people. There were some people
that got up and left in the middle of the show.
There was people that got up and left as soon
as as soon as they caught before they even came
out and took their boughs. But you know, I feel
(08:45):
really bad for the cast and the crew because I
know that, like they really tried their hardest, and you know,
and they were good. It's just a little thing. Wasn't
what it was advertised. If it was, you know, advertised
as come to a comedy version of Insidious, and you know,
I probably wouldn't have gotten my money worse. But yeah,
(09:05):
and you know, I.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Love this about your experience here, Jill. I love that
you say, like I think, probably am I putting words
in your mouth? You you probably don't even regret going because
you got to see the thing before it all blew up.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
It's kind of fun.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Yeah yeah, And before the show, both my sister in
law and I bought the tote bag and a magnet.
And I'm not even like upset that I spent money
on merch. I think it's gonna be a.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Collector's Yeah, yeah, you might. You were one of the
few we got to see this, so okay, well.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Now I kind of want to see it.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yes, that it is, now they could use this buzz
and fire up the tour once again, and now people
will be interested in seeing it for a very different
reason then yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you watched like the trailer
for the commercial for it, you know it had people
like screaming and jumping out of their re seat.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
And that was some b roll they paid for.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
Yeah, but people were just getting out of their seats and.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Leaving hold on the Further You Fear. I'm trying to
see if I could find the like.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
They're really far from We are in New York City,
sing for Insidious the Further You Fear.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
The rehearsal process is amazing.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
We've been having a lot of fun taking the script
that Carl wrote and just bringing it to life.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
It looks like a big production.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
They've got all, you know, the stuff that you would
think in this video. It looks like this where the
money in their pockets? Yeah, this is where all the
money went. They went into this promo video and not
the event. All right, Well, thank you so much for
sharing your story.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Jill, fun a fun chat.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
If you ever decided to do a bad Show again,
we have to call you back and get your review
Jill's review of Bad Joe, So for sure, all right, Jill.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
Thank you so much for reaching out.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Jill Hamilton crossed six. She went to go see the
show that nobody else we'll.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Get to see.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
It's all shut down now, Unfortunately for the insidious fans
who wanted to take a peek
Right now.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I wanted to bring up something that I had seen
and I thought was kind of interesting. My history with
this is kind of a strange one because it goes
back to Sabrina doing.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
The live read on the show promoting.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
It was one of my very first endorsements. I was excited.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It was a long time ago, we were pretty fresh
into this time slot, and it was a movie called Insidious.
It was the second one, chapter two, and when Sabrina
did the live read on the show, she accidentally said Insidious,
chapter two.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
And then it's one of those things where you go, oh, yeah, yeah,
it's out there.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
I did it, and guess what, I didn't get an
endorsement for again the other chapters of Insidios unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
However, I remember that.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And then Corny was going through this whole thing where
she wanted to watch every horror movie under the sun,
and we remembered, oh, what about those Insidious movies? And
we watched all of them, and I'll tell you they're good.
I love them. I thought that whole world was cool
and an interesting place to explore, and there's been haunted
houses at Halloween horror Nights.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
From it just on, like, wasn't Annabelle, and.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
It's in the same universe they have, like this universe
where all these horror movies take place. And yes, and
they share a lot of the same actors even that
are in most of these movies. Anyhow, I like it
and I think it's cool. And I had seen they
were launching this huge nationwide tour. Now, we do shows,
we do performances, we do events. And when I thought
(01:31):
about the idea that they were going to take this
to the stage with Insidious the Further You Fear, I thought,
that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I've never heard of a.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Scary show on Broadway on stage, a production where the
goal isn't to like sing along and stuff, but the
goal is to be spooky.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I like that.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
I mean, the only thing I can relate it to
is sleep No More. That wasn't really as scary as
it was. I wasn't doing it right. That it was
an escape room. Well that's a story for another day.
But I had not heard of this, and this is
something I absolutely would have bought tickets for.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, it was even coming to the Doctor Phillips Center,
was going all over the country. It opened in Lafayette
and that was on January eighteenth, They promised an immersive
horror experience in eighty minutes of Terror, and then it
was premiering in Detroit, and when it premiered to Detroit,
it went so poorly that they canceled the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
They said, Oh.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
No, you know what's scary is the idea that we
have to do these performances all over the country. So
not a lot of people got to go see this.
But I think we have Jill Hamilton cross Sicky a
crossic on the line, probably butchering her last name, Jillie.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
There, yeah, I'm here all right.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
First of all, am I screwing up you last name?
Let me try one more time. Jill Hamilton Crossick perfect.
Oh beautiful, I did something right today.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
It's close enough.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
When did you When did you first hear about this
Insidious live tour that ended up going horribly wrong?
Speaker 5 (03:13):
Well, it popped up on one of my social media's
probably a few months ago, maybe four months ago or something,
and immediately, like the minute I saw it, I bought
tickets because I'm a huge fan of the Insidious franchise
and James Jaan, and you know, I'm just a horror
(03:35):
movie h fan, and my sister in law and I.
We went because we watched horror movies together.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
We went, and yeah, what was it like?
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Because I haven't for you know, I imagine there's a
lot of people like me that are listening that did
not even know about it until Sean brought up that
you were going to be on the show today. So
how did they explain it on the post? And then
what did you walk into? How quickly did you know
this was not going the way that you thought it would.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
Well? Pretty much when we walked into this year, we
were like, maybe this isn't going to be so good. Wow,
because because there was no set. There was no set
on the stage. There was there was nothing on the stage.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
That's a whole lot.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
They're going to do this whole production in sidious, this
big stage show.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Get ready to be scared. It's eighty minutes of terror.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
I mean that's scared to walk into a play with
nothing on set.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
There's there's no background, there's no stage set.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
No, it was just an empty stage. And we sat
down and we're like, well, this doesn't bode well, but
you know, we're good sports and everything, and we were
excited to see it. And you know it I.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
Can't say credit for this this review, but I did
see somebody posted on on Facebook or something that I
expected Insidious, and I Scooby Doo.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Oh god.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Oh so there were like these the two guys Specs
and Tucker from the movies, the ghost hunting guys, and
there were two guys playing them.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
You know.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
Eventually they did bring on some like rolling cards of
ghosts hunting equipment. They did have lots of smoke. They
had a screen which came down and was showing kind
of clips from the movie and you know, kind of
(05:35):
live backstage shots. Yeah, and uh and some two lights
on either side that came Oh.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
God, hold on, hold on. We missed one key thing.
How much did the tickets cost?
Speaker 5 (05:49):
So we sat in the mezzanine and our tickets were
seventy dollars each, so yeah, not not not not tear
you know, but.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
You know, I just paid a little less to watch
fourteen cats do acrobatics.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So seventy five dollars a pop.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
This is nocal like franchise.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is this is a legit thing
behind Insidious. And they said it's gonna be immersive, it's
gonna be eighty minutes of terror. It's gonna knock your
socks off. It was so bad that they've canceled the
entire thing across the country. I love your attitude about this,
which is kind of, hey, we're already here, let's make
the most of this. But did you hear the audience
(06:33):
start to kind of groan and react?
Speaker 5 (06:37):
Well, So it wasn't very immersive. They had like, I
think it was like five people or so that were
plants in the audience that you know, came up, so
it was kind of like, oh, we have people from
the audience participating, but they weren't really the audience. And
at one point they did have one of the characters
(06:58):
told everybody in the theater to stand up and do
this thing with their fingers, and it was a power
of suggestion type thing. But I was cracking up because
as soon as he said everybody stand up, there was
like this collective groan. I don't want to stand up.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Your fingers?
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, the wheels are falling up.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
Yeah, it was the power of suggestion thing. And I
look over at my sister in law and she goes,
it's not working.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I think they bought some other fingers up.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I imagine were you were you at any point scared
because they promised eighty minutes of horror?
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Here, were you scared at all?
Speaker 5 (07:40):
No?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Okay, somebody's bringing up the comparison.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Reef Break on YouTube says, this sounds like another Willy
Wonka thing. It sounds like the stage version of that
Willy Wonka experience that happened in Scotland, I believe. But
they're doing this on stage and it sounds kind of
cobbled together.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
To be honest with.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
You, Yeah, yeah, it's you know, I it's kind of
like and you know, I go to community theater a
lot and there's some really, really really good productions, but
this was like bad community theater.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Did you hear people afterwards saying like they wanted refunds
and stuff?
Speaker 6 (08:23):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Yeah, Yeah. There was a lot of when we were
walking out of the theater, a lot of grumbling, A
lot of people were mad people. There were some people
that got up and left in the middle of the show.
There was people that got up and left as soon
as as soon as they caught before they even came
out and took their boughs. But you know, I feel
(08:45):
really bad for the cast and the crew because I
know that, like they really tried their hardest, and you know,
and they were good. It's just a little thing. Wasn't
what it was advertised. If it was, you know, advertised
as come to a comedy version of Insidious, and you know,
I probably wouldn't have gotten my money worse. But yeah,
(09:05):
and you know, I.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Love this about your experience here, Jill. I love that
you say, like I think, probably am I putting words
in your mouth? You you probably don't even regret going because
you got to see the thing before it all blew up.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
It's kind of fun.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Yeah yeah, And before the show, both my sister in
law and I bought the tote bag and a magnet.
And I'm not even like upset that I spent money
on merch. I think it's gonna be a.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Collector's Yeah, yeah, you might. You were one of the
few we got to see this, so okay, well.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Now I kind of want to see it.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yes, that it is, now they could use this buzz
and fire up the tour once again, and now people
will be interested in seeing it for a very different
reason then yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you watched like the trailer
for the commercial for it, you know it had people
like screaming and jumping out of their re seat.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
And that was some b roll they paid for.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
Yeah, but people were just getting out of their seats and.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Leaving hold on the Further You Fear. I'm trying to
see if I could find the like.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
They're really far from We are in New York City,
sing for Insidious the Further You Fear.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
The rehearsal process is amazing.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
We've been having a lot of fun taking the script
that Carl wrote and just bringing it to life.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
It looks like a big production.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
They've got all, you know, the stuff that you would
think in this video. It looks like this where the
money in their pockets? Yeah, this is where all the
money went. They went into this promo video and not
the event. All right, Well, thank you so much for
sharing your story.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Jill, fun a fun chat.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
If you ever decided to do a bad Show again,
we have to call you back and get your review
Jill's review of Bad Joe, So for sure, all right, Jill.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
Thank you so much for reaching out.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Jill Hamilton crossed six. She went to go see the
show that nobody else we'll.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Get to see.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
It's all shut down now, Unfortunately for the insidious fans
who wanted to take a peek
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