Phobia!

I went to Phobia tonight, and I must say that I was impressed for several reasons. I like being scared, and this definitely did it for me. They had good jumps and a couple of things that were truthfully unnerving enough for me to be scared. It was quite easy to get trapped in the moment and become frightened. Plus, it was in a huge, empty Linens N Things building. How creepy is that?

There were two 'haunts': Voodoo and Asylum. The way that they were described to me by the ticket lady was as so: "Well, Voodoo is more of the outdoors elements as well as inside, you know, graveyards and that kind of stuff. Asylum is an asylum, it has patients and doctors and clowns." Because, you know, all hospitals have demonic clowns. I must say that while I despise clowns, Voodoo scared me more. It had the advantage of being longer, and it seemed much better coordinated. The first thing you saw upon turning the first corner was a black-shrouded figure walking past you and disappearing into a black wall. The tricks and chills went on. You never knew where to look; at one point some guy started screaming at me, and it took me a second to realize that he was actually squatting above me on a fence. One of the creepier effects involved a blood stained bride walking towards me in a dark hall lit only by a strobe light. She had the perfect evil face, and because of the strobe, it didn't look like she ever moved, she just got closer.

Because I am who I am, though, I did manage to make a couple of the actors break character. My favorite break of character was the cannibal cook. The room was blood splattered and there were body parts all over the table. This equally bloody cook came out clanging a pan and cleaver and screaming. He got right in my face (they like to do this, especially to someone who looks scared) and screamed, "DO YOU WANT SOMETHING TO EAT???" to which I replied, "No thanks. I'm a vegetarian". I don't think that this guy had ever had a response like that, because he paused (stopped clanking around and everything), chuckled a little, and just said, "Really?" Then tried to get back into character. He got me back at the end, though, because I had just come through a dark maze to the exit and he popped up and said, "DARK IN THERE, ISN'T IT?" To which I jumped, because I hadn't seen him appear.

Payback is hell.