Scare me here, there and everywhere

As I waited in line at Dimensions of Darkness, a man dressed as a morbid clown approached me and guided a metal fork into his nasal cavity. He moved down to my neck, almost touching my face, and then released his breath across my throat.

This haunted house was packed with excellent actors who were well-prepared to scare their audience. An actor, missing half his face and wearing a straitjacket, jumped into my space and began poking his eyeball with a plastic knife.

A woman, covered in dirt and blood, took us into the first room where a short horror film in the style of a Rob Zombie flick was playing.

A zombie, accompanying her husband with a burned head, greeted us and sat us in chairs. About three minutes into the film, our seats and the floor began vibrating in tune with the images, a variation on the classic cinematic technique called "Percepto!"

Those who created this attraction made excellent use of the space. The attraction seemed much larger than what the building seemed to be able to hold.

The walk through the dark, narrow halls was claustrophobic and completely creepy, particularly when screaming actors jumped out of doors hidden in the hallways.

The décor of the rooms included impressive animatronics with actors hidden among them to scare those walking by, causing paranoia because I often could not distinguish a mannequin from an actor.

There was also a hallway with garden hoses and wire casings hanging from the ceiling. Although this may seem cheesy, I found it humbling. It made me remember simple, inexpensive decorations and props can be used affectively.

There were plenty of zombies and others scattered throughout the attraction, leaving little time for the customer to compose themselves.

Although some of the rooms were fairly typical of haunted attractions — labs, medical slabs and gravesites — the actors brought the experience to a whole other level.

Their performances were persistent and convincing and the makeup was well done; it made their characters more realistic than most haunted houses.

One of my favorite moments was in the room reminiscent of the last scene in the movie "FeardotCom." There were computer monitors set up with horrific images playing and a corpse laid out on what looked like a dentist chair.

There was an actor inside a caged area, and when we were leaving the room, he scraped something across a gate and it burst with sparks. It was a startling effect I have yet to see anywhere else.

As we exited the building, our friend the clown popped out of nowhere with a modified chainsaw and chased the people in front of us down the sidewalk.

This haunted attraction was thoroughly enjoyable and definitely worth the price.

From the very beginning to the end, Dimensions of Darkness provided frequent and creative scares. Just when you think you'll get a break, you receive the scare of your life.