Yeong Kar YanInstead of staying in the comfort of your homes, indulging in festive food or partying your night away like you’ve been doing every year for Christmas, get yourself locked up in a prison cell and come face to face with evil creatures of the night – werewolves, zombies or even, the devil himself.
The former headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID)at Eu Tong Sen Street (Chinatown), which has held some of Singapore’s most notorious criminals, is now open to public for the first time. The derelict building has been abandoned since 2001 and, as of now, is a haunted house attraction as part of The 13 Cells – X’Mas Nightmare experience for this December.
More than 50 people will be dressed up in grotesque costumes to scare the living daylights out of you coupled with props like dummies or skulls and hair-raising sound effects.
The scare fest is an in-house event organised by Imperial Ministries.
Said the project director, Spencer Ng, 31, “Basically, it’s to provide a place for people to go to have some fun during Christmas time. Christmas in Singapore is quite boring and there are not many places to go to besides going for clubbing and some normal party… people in Singapore do like horror stuff so we decided to have a horror house for Christmas.”
UrbanWire doesn’t want to give too many spoilers but taking the tour means braving through the 13 cells and tackling the many challenges laid out for you… unless you want to remain behind with the residents lingering in the cell. Gamble with the devil or retrieve needed objects to pass on to the next cell.
Doesn’t sound scary enough? The event is also supported by the Singapore Paranormal Investigators (SPI) and UrbanWire had the opportunity to join the team on Dec 17 for part 2 of their investigations.
The team usually goes out once a month to “find out the background of [a] place and whether there is paranormal activity”, said Desmond Wong, 39, who heads SPI.
Watch Part 1 of their investigations here: http://r3load.net/spitv2pt1.html
Watch Part 2 here:
From their first round of investigation, it was already confirmed that the former CID headquarters were haunted. The isolation cell was said to have captured the most paranormal activity – it’s the only padded cell (noise-isolation) on site and once locked in, one is enveloped by pitch-black darkness.
While UrbanWire did not explore the first building, I.Z. Darson, 33, who heads R3LOAD Network and films the SPI’s investigations, revealed to us that the first 2 rooms on the left (view from outside) has offerings placed outside the door.
UrbanWire and SPI members also found equipment detecting temperature drops at “cold spots” or a door slamming suddenly in a toilet on the third level when there was no ventilation.
SPI will be holding 2 seminars everyday at 10pm and 12am so horror fans will need to make their way down to hear about their experiences and mostly, discoveries at the former CID headquarters.
The 13 Cells – X’mas Experience will be open to public till Jan 2.
For more info and ticketing, go to www.the13cells.com