In the tent erected in the parking lot of the Coral Ridge Mall, a chainsaw roared, nurses covered in bloodied bandages dragged swords behind them and an unsmiling clown passed by, cracking his bat on the floor.
The traveling Paranormal Cirque came to Coralville Oct. 19 and stayed until Oct. 22. Its novel combination of horror and humor mixed with world-class acrobatics horrified and mesmerized audiences who dared to enter.
To enter the Paranormal Cirque, audience members had to brave a hallway filled with monsters of every kind. At every step, a new monster was ready to taunt them with weapons, jump out from the shadows, and grab hold of them.
“They definitely know how to scare people,” audience member Matt Uhrin said.
Uhrin, a Halloween enthusiast from Cedar Rapids, said that he doesn’t scare easily and goes to haunted houses to see who is able to get a good scare out of him. Intrigued by an ad for Paranormal Cirque, he did not attend the performance with set expectations.
“Scared and entertained, that’s the whole point of it,” Uhrin said.
As the show began, zombies swung around each other in the air with perfect timing, a banshee dangled from terrible heights, and performers pushed the limits of the human body.
In one performance, performer Argentina Portugal laid on a bed and was quickly pulled into the air. Her long white gown flowed around her, making her look like a vengeful spirit. The audience was amazed and horrified to see her hung by only her hair. She swung low, sometimes sweeping down to reach out to audience members and snatch their popcorn.
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“The skills that the performers have are incredible,” audience member Danielle Witt said.
Witt, who seeks out horror, had been to plenty of cirque shows before, but never a paranormal production. They brought their girlfriend, Jess Peterson, along.
Peterson, a self-proclaimed “scaredy cat,” still loves all things spooky. When asked by The Daily Iowan why she likes to seek out things that scare her, she said, “It gets your blood pumping and adrenaline. It’s kind of like a high almost.”
There is a vital element of humor added to the Paranormal Cirque. Performer Mouhamed Diop asked the audience for a volunteer to throw knives at. From the crowd, he picked out unwilling volunteers and sized them up; not too big and not too small. Finally, he picked out Joe Lobb from the crowd.
He plucked Lobb from the stage — as well as someone’s cotton candy, of which he gave Lobb a bite — and strapped him to a plank of wood, blindfolding him. Diop lifted his knife to throw with a mighty cry while a guard popped a balloon. The audience cheered as if Diop had thrown a carefully aimed blade.
“I was kind of worried that I was going to get stabbed, but I knew I was going to be fine,” Lobb later said.
The thrill seekers who come to performances like Paranormal Cirque are looking for an experience that will make their heart pound, but in a way that cannot be replicated at home or in a movie theater.
Performer Ben Holland said the shared experience of live performance is something that people need.
“It’s something that you can’t let die. The circus is not dying, people need real stuff like this,” Holland said.
The Paranormal Cirque performances featured elements of horror-supporting acts of acrobatic excellence. The performers’ relationship with the audience is what created such a unique experience. Paranormal Cirque was not the scariest performance, but it was funny, hypnotic, bewitching, and, at times, downright terrifying.