4D Horror Play «Con Quỷ Rối» (The Puppet Demon)

   The «4D» in this theatre's horror line has nothing to do with glasses or shaking seats: the effects come from sound, light and things happening a couple of metres from where you sit. In a small room on Nguyen Van Troi, a jump scare is much harder to dodge than it is in a cinema.

   «Con Quỷ Rối» — roughly «The Puppet Demon» — is written and directed by Quốc Thảo, who runs the stage. The cast includes Vương Kiệt, Pha Đế, Lâm Thanh Tiệp, Tuyết Thanh, Bảo Thy, Nhựt Quốc, Thụy Lam, Hoàng Phương Mai, Hương Mi, Khương Hưng, Hoàng Thái Bảo, Kim Quốc Nhân and Vương Thanh Tâm.

   Seats are sold in three grades — bronze, silver and gold — plus a separate student tier at 100,000 VND, which requires a student card at the door. That is about as cheap as central Saigon theatre gets, and it is usually the first tier to sell out.

   If you enjoy horror that keeps stopping to make you laugh, and you would rather try a stage than another cinema screening, the ticket price makes the experiment almost free. The play is performed in Vietnamese, though the scares are staged visually and land regardless of language. Tickets are sold through Ticketbox.