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UAE: Have you been to this ghost house in Sharjah?

Sharjah - Traditional palm frond house is ‘inhabited’ with 'ghosts and spirits'.

A ‘traditional ghost house’ in Sharjah is beckoning visitors to enter, if they dare.

Listen to this story and more on 8@8 with David Light

The spooky traditional palm frond house is ‘inhabited’ with ghosts and spirits from the old myths and folklore of the UAE.

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Set up at the ongoing Sharjah Heritage Days (SHD), the Horror House is filled with characters that were once popular among the older generation.

In an effort to “keep them alive and entertain the new generation”, Talal Al Balushi and his team have set up a hair-raising walk-through experience.

Visitors enter the house through a black curtained doorway and step into narrow and winding corridors. Inside, they encounter djinns, demonic creatures and corpses.

“We devised this experience as a game for children and families as a way to relieve the old stories of Emirati folklore we grew up hearing, and to let people experience them in a theatrical way,” says Al Balushi, who is dressed in a scary costume himself.

With the air-conditioning turned down to the extreme, it sure is a chilly experience. Visitors can say hello to characters like Umm Al Duwais, a beautiful female djinn surrounded in a haze of sweet perfume; Baba Daryah, a male ghost who haunted fishermen out at sea at night; Abu Salasel, a red-skinned creature covered in metal chains, and many more.