Enter The Darkness....

The light rain finally stops pattering against the car's windshield. The dark skies start to open up revealing a golden, orange sunset symbolizing a chance for hope. Yet, there is one portion of the skies that not only stay clouded, they also seem to be getting even darker as we drive closer to them. They seem to mark our destination. A place simply known as The Darkness.

The night blacks out any remaining reminant of sunset or hope as the drive seems to drag. The curve filled, hilly back country road seems to be endless. Through quaint small towns, passing abandoned gas stations we grow ever so closer to The Darkness.

There is an old legend tied to this ungodly place that revolves around a being known as The Angel of Death, a once loving woman who lost everything and vowed revenge. We did not know if this was true or not, but we were evidently going to find out.

We finally reach the location of The Darkness. We park our car and follow the path of torches that light the way to what appears to be a large crypt-like structure. The door is open and we slowly enter. An old hag ushers us in and welcomes us into this plane of existence where the would of the living meets the land of the dead. She points us on our way down the dark, musty stone passageway. Sounds of screams and wails come from the passageway in the direction we are forced to head. There is no other way out.

Upon our travels within The Darkness we saw things and beings that man was not meant to see. The dead roamed freely and thousands of corpses reached out for us to join them in eternal damnation. We finally found our way out of the realms of the dead and we were finally able to breath in the fresh night air. We survived the night in The Darkness, but we are sure that many that have ventured in are still trapped there, perhaps for an eternity.

So we then went out for a beer...

But seriously folks, last night I was able to muster up three of my friends and drag them down to a local haunted attraction known as The Angel of Death's Darkness. A few of us went to this one last year and both years it's been pretty good. It has a very gothic / crypt-like theme. This year they changed some things around to not be too repetitive from last year. It took about 15 minutes to go through. Could have a been a bit longer. The actors and actresses were really into their roles and kept in character throughout our whole visit. The tableaus and sets were pretty much the same as last year, but when you run a pre-made haunt (The Darkness was built and created by hauntrepener, Leonard Pickle, founder and creator of Haunted Attraction magazine. It was then sold to the people who run The Darkness.) it can be very hard to differentiate the look and feel from year to year. There were some darn good scares though! I know I jumped more than once.

The only thing that really bothered me was the whole "pre-show". After you got your ticket, you went into this in-the-round auditorium (the haunt was located on a small fair grounds). In the center was a stage with huge manequin of these very cool demonic creatures. But, they didn't do anything, they just stood there. There was a guy in a doctor's outfit announcing what groups of patrons could move on into the haunt. I don't know why he was in a doctor's outfit and what role he played in the whole Darkness motif, but he more than once told the same lame joke within a 15 minute period. Outside of being very organized in leading people into the wait area and out to the Haunt, I didn't see the point in this character. Now if you had a spooky looking ghoul telling patrons the legend of The Angel of Death and The Darkness, that would make sense!!! Aiding the doctor in "rousing" the crowd was... a vampire? No. A creepy ghoul? No. Something really spooky that would have really made patrons nervous and building up their fear prior to going into the Haunt? No. It was a friggin' clown. And not a creepy one at that. It was one of those annoying "Yuk, Yuk" clowns. She spooked some people, but annoyed most of us. So the whole preshow antics weren't at all creepy or scary (with the exception of the two demonic figures that just stood on the stage doing nothing), but were kind of uncomfortable. It was the kind of discomfort you feel when you watch a stand up comedian bomb live on stage.

All in all, The Darkness was definitely a quality Haunt with a few big scares, but at the same time, may not be able to grow or change that much from year to year. And the preshow / wait was really not in the same vein as the haunt. Even though I made it to only one haunt this year, I'm still glad some friends caved in and came with me.

Looks like the Packers are currently frelling up the field over in Minnesota. The Pack had the lead for most of the game and are now handing it over to the Vikings. Way to go Pack, way to go!

I did get to go hike at that nature preserve I like going to every fall. The colors were beautiful!

Well, I'm done for today. This upcoming week I'll be looking forward to helping my brother-in-law put together a little graveyard tableau for the Trick-or-Treaters. Tonight I'm going to a pumpkin carving party. See ya.

Zangz.