Ghost Tour & Screening of 'IT Chapter 2' | AD*

Not your ordinary tour of old Portsmouth, we encountered characters created by Dark Encounters. This made the historic tour all the more entertaining and light hearted. 

Outside Vue Portsmouth, Gunwharf Quays

Through the lovely local Pompey Bloggers group I came across the opportunity to pop along to a ghost tour and screening of 'IT Chapter 2' at Vue in Portsmouth. I'm not usually one to jump at the chance of scary things, as I am very much a scaredy cat! I spook so easy. The first 'IT' I watched mostly through my fingers, of which my boyfriend will not let me live down. I am also the person who had to temporarily leave The Woman in Black screening because there were so many jump scares I thought I were going to be sick!

Outside The Square Tower, Old Portsmouth

I went to this experience with an open mind and tried to stay as calm as possible throughout and hope that I wouldn't need to make an exit at any point!

We met with a character outside Square Tower in Old Portsmouth, he was pacing up and down in a costume suited to the old landscape of the area. It was clear this was not going to be some ordinary tour I thought it was going to be. Our extravagant guide informed us of the evenings task; to become his agents to find out about any shipments and odd goings on. As he was leading us around we would be interrupted by two more characters; one being an older gentleman being a "Hampshire Agent". This guy was hilarious, he would tell us historical stories about buildings in the area but he added elements of humour to his part of the tour which had us all giggling. The second; being from "The Family" a pick pocketer and a right wrong'un. Dressed in shabby clothes and fingerless gloves, he moved around our group making us feel unsettled telling us his plans. He needed a "Ladybird", someone to source prostitutes (yes, ladies or gentlemen of the night), or find people that they could sell and make some good money. This got a lot of funny awkward looks, and unfortunately one of the ladies in the group made a bit of an impression on said pick pocketer; Mr Horley and he chose her as the Ladybird to find within the group decent bodies to sell.

It's safe to say I was not expecting audience participation in this tour, I wasn't expecting a lot and I was happily surprised with the mixture of historic and comedic elements. As we were a relatively small group it felt like we were going through this together, and we all had no clue what was going to happen.

When the tour and our quest had finished we ended up at the pedestrian entrance of Gunwharf Quays and made our way to Vue. The thing I've always loved about Vue Portsmouth is how BIG it is! It has 14 screens with a total of 3,100 seats. Vue offers stadium seating and VIP seats alongside a range of content, in addition to highly anticipated blockbusters. As I've always been a somewhat local to Portsmouth, I've had so many memories in this cinema. From mine and my other half's (sort of) first date, and watching old school James Bond films with my dad scoffing down ice cream hand picked from the sweets corner of the foyer. I love that the pick n mix and ice cream counter is separate from the popcorn, hot dog and drinks cashiers, especially if you decide in the middle of the trailers that you fancy a mean Ben and Jerry's. This evening we opted for a large combo with Diet Coke and sweet and salted popcorn; our personal favourite.

As we went the day of IT Chapter 2's release there were HUGE queues just to get into the screens. I honestly hadn't seen that before! It was so nice to see so many people passionate about watching films eager to get in. We were in such a big screen for the film, which made me a bit worried to see all of the gore and jump scares up close! There's plenty of foot room and space to wiggle in your seat. The screen itself and the sound quality were amazing, I felt fully immersed in the film. I actually watched maybe 97% of the film with no hands in front of my face! I did squirm at bit at some parts which were gross but also let out some terrified giggles! All in all I was so proud that I sat and watched the scary parts and nothing bad happened to me. I really enjoyed the film, I love that the forefront of the story is the Losers getting together and the coming of age feel (even if they are all grown up now), and the horror and gore is in the background with relaxed comedic elements throughout.

The view by the Square Tower

In summary, I had a lovely evening taking part in a thoroughly interesting and entertaining ghost tour of Old Portsmouth before a screening of IT Chapter 2 at Vue. It was also so nice to see fellow blogger Mike at the event, another friendly face! I definitely wasn’t expecting a fully immersive experience with characters showing us around. The whole evening was amazing and Vue Portsmouth made the experience very enjoyable with great seats, amazing sound quality and fantastic service. Thank you Vue for organising such a great evening. Also a thank you to the three chaps with Dark Encounters for helping make it such an entertaining evening!

*This opportunity was gifted through Vue Portsmouth, although this is a sponsored post all words and views are my own.