The Darkness Haunted House 

Unfortunately on the night of the tour, Mother Nature played a trick on us with some unexpected stormy weather. To make matters worse, the haunted house didn’t open on schedule. By the time they opened up the doors, everyone with 7pm tickets had been standing outside in the rain for nearly an hour and a half. While the evening got off to a rocky start, once inside, the rest of the tour went off without a hitch.   

What can I say about the Darkness? There's only one way to describe it.  Detail, detail and more detail. From the moment you walked in the door, seemingly every square inch of the building was themed. Most of the scenes throughout the attraction were literally jam-packed with props. There was so much to see, a person could probably go through multiple times and see something new each time through.   

Inside the Darkness, there was an interesting mix of themes, including an Egyptian tomb, haunted manor, swamp and other themed areas.  Most of the scenes were well-constructed; however, there were a couple of places where props weren't consistent with the theme.  Throughout the attraction, there was an abundance of high-end animatronic props.  In various rooms there were also CGI screens, with ghostly animations.  You can tell that they definitely spared no expense when putting this haunted house together. 

Acting is where they fell short, though.  Most of the actors were performing pop-out scares and some of them seemed to be unsure of their roles.  Also, since there was so much eye-candy, a long conga line formed fairly quickly.  In this type of situation, it is nearly impossible for actors to be effective, when patrons can see all of the scare spots ahead of time.     

After exiting the Darkness, patrons got in a queue line for a 3D attraction called Terror Visions.  With the 3D glasses on, the bold & colorful artwork seemed to pop off the walls.  I'm not a huge fan of 3D houses, but there was definitely some stunning artwork in this attraction.  Some of the themes included evil clowns, side show freaks and some great flame artwork.  

Overall, it was a fun time and I'm glad I got the opportunity to see the Darkness in action.  Kudos to Larry Kirchner for opening up his attraction during the convention!