Summary:

Scream Scene is a local community haunt held in a park district building, and usually they do a pretty good job. There are numerous scenes, including a psychiatric ward, a doll room, a barber shop, bedroom, clown area and more.

Most of the scenes are standard haunt fare, and the actors, while younger, are usually good, although of the "jump out and say 'Boo!'" variety. Set design is decent, with minimal props, and some loud noises and compressed air thrown in.

Normally Scream Scene is a good experience, but this time around there was definitely something missing. Many of the actors seemed disinterested and not really into what they were doing, which is unusual. There was only one actor (a barber) that was really memorable. The rest seemed to simply be going through the motions.

Also, although the haunt has been expanded and is now almost 15 minutes long, a large part of it consisted of walking through read and white striped vinyl "doors" in a carnival section. This part has always been a staple of Scream Scene, although it seemed much longer this time, and it got boring after a while.

The final section, which was in a psychiatric hospital, was also somewhat muted and not overly interesting.

Perhaps it was just the night or the time that I went through that affected the quality of the haunt, as normally Scream Scene is pretty good for a community haunt, and one that would be worth taking the family to, especially if you have smaller kids. This time, however, it simply wasn't very interesting, which made for a rather long 15 minutes inside.

To find out more about this event, visit:

http://www.screamscene.org