2:22 A Ghost Story has all the ingredients for a nerve-rattling night out—a supposedly haunted house, eerie noises from a baby monitor, a motion-sensitive backyard light that might reveal something sinister, and a ticking clock—but that doesn’t necessarily make it scary.
Playwright Danny Robins and director Matthew Dunster (with sound designer Ian Dickinson for Autograph) reach for the volume knob instead of building dread and atmosphere. Shrill, screeching fox calls (vulpine mating calls, per the script) stop being unsettling and start feeling like a reset button for cheap jump scares. Other theatrical conventions feel just as blunt: a sudden noise, a blackout, a lurking person in the shadowy backyard. Soon enough, the audience can hear the machinery working.
It wants better content.
A dinner party with a deadline
The central game of belief versus skepticism has potential: Jenny (Jasmine Cephas Jones) believes her new home is haunted; her husband Sam (Finn Jones), an insufferable, posh physics professor, is skeptical. At a housewarming dinner with Sam’s old friend Lauren (a winsome Anna Camp, playing an annoyingly drunk American psychotherapist) and her new partner, working-class Ben (Martin Marquez), they debate ghosts. Then they all stay awake until 2:22 to find out (4:20 might have been more fun). As the night wears on, personal secrets complicate what’s happening in the house.
Horror fans will clock the twist a few scenes early, and the familiar tropes along the way never turn fresh or frightening. That’s especially noticeable beside Paranormal Activity, currently playing on Broadway, which gives its scares more psychological room to creep under your skin. The cast does its best with thin material, but neither the script nor the production gives the actors much to work with.
For the record, mating foxes really do scream like banshees. At the Lucille Lortel, they turn out to be the most convincing thing haunting the house, and they never pipe down long enough for anyone else to get a word in. By 2:22, the scariest thing left is the next sound cue.
Is ‘2:22 A Ghost Story’ worth seeing?
For a play about listening for ghosts, 2:22 A Ghost Story never trusts silence long enough for anything to haunt you.
- Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street, New York City
- Notable performers: Anna Camp, Finn Jones, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Martin Marquez
- Running time: 2 hours, including intermission
- Performances through January 17, 2027
