Heretic – Midnight Killer 3

It’s Thanksgiving evening precisely 9:28pm. I’m sitting in my car somewhere in the San Pedro area in a residential neighborhood that overlooks the ocean. It’s a windy evening, a chilly 66 degrees with the temperature dropping quickly. I’m 12 minutes away from experiencing my first Heretic show: Midnight Killer 3.

Midnight Killer is a series of shows run by Heretic that tell the story of a knife, and the murderers that pass through its hands. Traditionally, the knife has been always wielded by men. Tonight, I learned that’s no longer true.

I reach the house, and a car awaits me. I climb into it and find that I’m not alone. A beautiful dark haired woman sits beside me and Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” is playing to set the ambiance. She introduces me to her friend, which she proceeds to reveal is a massive knife. The woman mentions the knife has claimed many lives, and that I will become more acquainted with it by the end of the night. Suddenly, she instructs a silent passenger in the backseat that “it’s time.” Tape wraps violently around my head and mouth as an object is placed in my hand. I’m being electrocuted.

From here, the scenes move quickly. At one point I am led to believe I’m assisting in a mass murder, the next I am voyeuristically spying on a half naked girl as she lathers herself. Ultimately, I’m dragged forcibly onto a pool deck occupied by several women. I realize, quickly and utterly, that I am nothing more than a party favor to a group of other women.

They bring me to the pool. I find myself before a naked, masked woman who commands me to take off my clothes.  She draws up, inches to my face, and asks a question: “Have you ever fucked a woman?” My answer makes her laugh. I’m stripped down to my bra and panties, and instructed to remove them as well. I’m freezing, naked, and exposed to the women surrounding me. I’m made to enter a hot tub, and the temperature change is shocking.  The masked girl joins me. Pressed against the edge of the tub, she enters my space and asks, over and over, about how many guys I’ve slept with. The answers don’t seem to satisfy either her or the other women, and my head is dunked into the hot water and held under. Even under the water, I can hear the masked woman asking if I’m enjoying myself. This continues for several rounds, until eventually I’m told to get out of the tub. Standing at the edge of the pool, I’m asked if I know how to swim- I can- and then thrown into the freezing pool. The masked woman orders me to hold my breath for as long as possible if I want to get out. The cold is overbearing, and I’m shaking. I struggle underneath the freezing water for as long as I can, and it’s torture.

I survive the pool, and in the next moment my wrists are tied together. I glimpse a display of sex toys… the women are discussing how they’d like to kill me, and which part of my body to start with. I’m made to kneel in front of a blood bucket, and a target is spray painted upon the back of my head. However, before the woman can finish their plan, the masked woman pulls me to my feet. She tells me that I am going to die, but she has a plan. She gives me her mask, and opens a door telling me to run to safety.

Midnight Killer 3 was a powerful exercise in degradation and expectation. By reversing the clichéd role of women as victims in horror, Midnight Killer created a space that was both refreshing and empowering while being unforgivingly brutal. Female serial killers are not the norm. Heretic has taken women and placed them at the top of the hierarchy. They are anything but victims in Midnight Killer 3. I was verbally assaulted and chastised throughout the experience. I was ridden like a pony by a half-naked girl while spanked by a second. My own ponytail was used as a leash. A gun shoved into my mouth and I was teased if I could “take it deeper.” And it was videotaped.

Heretic also challenged me psychologically. I’m not entirely comfortable standing naked in front of someone much less several women surrounding me, verbally acknowledging my body, asking candid questions about my sexuality, and instructing me to present myself to them with my arms stretched above my head. This was a test of my own psychological strength. My limits were pushed to the extreme. By the end of the show, still naked, I was bent over the hood of a car being spanked while another participant watched from inside.

Midnight Killer 3 seduced me into the S&M world of female serial killers. I was degraded, stripped naked, spanked, and covered in blood. I found rope marks on my wrists and scratches down my back. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect ending to Thanksgiving.

Check out Heretic at Heretic Horror House for more information on upcoming shows.