Outside the atmosphere was tense as a jumpsuit clad clown armed with a chainsaw slipped out of a side entrance to terrorise the gathering crowds.
Excitement filled the air as more anxious guests arrived ready to experience a pants-wetting night of zombie horror.
Event City was playing host to an evening or terror for the first night of Scream Park UK, but as we waited apprehensively outside would it be the scarefest that was promised.
It was time to find out.
Once past the entrance point, the crowd was herded into a gated area to await zombie screening.
If you passed, you were free to enter the action zone.
The fog and dim lights created an unnerving atmosphere, which was only made more unsettling by the ‘military’ barking orders to separate the queue into men and women.
Things were going to get exciting.
SCREAM QUEEN: MM’s own Rachel Howarth experienced the ups and downs of the night
The nervous participants were hurried through the medical checks, where officials in protective masks and boiler suits shone a torch into the eyes of the masses to make sure they weren’t infected.
And now the fun would really begin.
Once inside, everyone was on edge, waiting to see when the alarms would go off and the zombie invasion would begin.
But it soon became all too apparent that the zombies had already escaped and were dragging their lifeless bodies around at a pace that was more Shaun of the Dead than 28 Days Later.
Occasionally one would take you by surprise, sneaking up from the darkness to moan and wail for a while before wandering off and preying on someone slightly smaller, with a weaker disposition.
Throughout the venue there were a number of attractions and refreshment stalls, with an outside section filled with amusement park rides.
Deciding to sample the ghost train, the most Halloween themed ride on offer, it was with disappointment that the zombies hadn’t made it over to that part of the park.
The ride presented the standard, plastic skeleton on a wire, routine that you would expect from most carnival ghost trains.
After around an hour of wandering around amidst the undead, there was a huge bang followed by gunshots.
Military personnel screamed at the crowd to ‘get back from the decontamination zone’.
NIGHTMARE: The evening was more Shaun of the Dead than 28 Days Later
Surely now the apocalypse would reach full flow, but after just a brief few moments of commotion the atmosphere returned to the flat noise of people chatting, with the odd zombie disturbance.
The adverts promised ‘the biggest challenge of your life’, but the only challenge was to try and understand why no one had had to change their trousers yet.
One of the guests, Dom Stephenson, 25, assistant first director at Coronation Street who had joined with a number of his colleagues for a cast night out, said: “We are just a bit confused. We thought we would spend the night being chased by zombies, but instead it all feels a bit flat.”
For those who are expecting to be chased through a bewildering maze of terror by a gaggle of flesh eating zombies, the experience may fall short of those expectations.
The concept of the night overall was fantastic, a horror fans dream, but it appears that the execution resulted in an atmospheric amusement park that was unfortunately all bark and no bite.
Image courtesy of Rodolpho Reis, with thanks
