Rhythm of the Night: Scream Park Manila's Dancing Zombies

- April 4, 2014, Friday.

- Jessica invited my other friends and me to go to Manila's "Scream Park," as a celebration of the commencement of our summer breaks - at least for us in med or graduate studies. At first I was reluctant to go, since I really REALLY don't like haunted houses, and I've never been in one. I've always had an active imagination, more so when I was a child, so things like those would haunt me for nights and make me paranoid for more than a week. I know that these things do not bother me as much now that I'm a "big boy," but I still don't like the idea of being startled. However, since I was going with friends, and I've heard so much about this Scream Park even before it opened, I thought I'd check it out.

- Jessica, Bernadette, and I rode the MOA shuttle from Lucky Chinatown at around 5:30 in the afternoon. That by itself was an experience. The three of us rode on an empty van, and thinking it would take around 15 more minutes for the van to fill up, we were suddenly "invaded" by six Africans and another middle-aged Filipina. I overheard the Africans speak Portuguese, so I thought that they must be from Angola. (I remember Miss Angola from Miss Universe 2011, answering her question in Portuguese; Angola is a former Portuguese colony by the way.) The Angolans did not see the driver, so I talked with one of them. "Quarenta pesos cada pessoa," I told him. The Angolan became wide-eyed as he gave me his money. I soon asked, and confirmed that they were Angolans, and he asked me a bit about how I learned (basic) Portuguese. Throughout the shuttle ride, three of us were a bit silent, since we enjoyed listening to the Angolan-Portuguese accent.

- We had to say goodbye to our Angolan friends after we had to get off at Blue Wave. We crossed the street to Hot Star at Blue Bay, and had dinner while we waited for Bless. Hot Star is a Taiwanese fastfood chain serves huge chicken slices. Strangely and interestingly, more than half of its customers were mainland Chinese-Filipinos - some of them I even knew. Apart from chicken, Hot Star has its trademark almond-flavored, gulaman-flavored, or combination slush. They also have them in ice-cream form.

-  Bless arrived later on, and kept stalling so we wouldn't have to go to Scream Park Manila. Her choices included watching Captain America, swimming, more dinner, or going home, just to name a few. In the end, she had "no choice" but to go with us to Scream Park.

-  We bought tickets after arriving, and thanks to their student discount promo, Jes, Berna, and I were able to have discounted tickets. We gloated about this while waiting for Nathalie to arrive.

Me!!

- Later on, one of the ushers informed us that the zombies would do their dance performance at the bar, and that we will be allowed to fetch our friend at the gate when she arrives. Since we didn't want to miss the zombies' dance, we watched. The dance was a typical modern dance medley; those zombies could really groove. My only thought was that the zombies acted like normal people with zombie make-up during the dance, and watching the dance before going to the scaring areas made me less scared of the zombies.

Look at them dance!!

The nun was apparently a guy. HAHA.

The good who's doing the backbend is the scary butcher.

Lady Gaga, is that you??

The guy hung himself.

- Nathalie arrived right after the show ended.The zombies had to retouch after the dance, so we had some time to take some photos before entering the first phase. Since I went to the fabric market in the afternoon, I had some fabric in my bag, enough to turn Nathalie into a white lady. It was her punishment for arriving late, and she was wearing white; I realized afterwards that the fabric I had was more than enough to cover Nathalie, so regardless of what color she wore, I would've been able to turn her into a white lady anyway.

Facade of the Calle Crisologo phase.

Gooding around before entering.

Nathalie the white lady.

Pretending to be scared.

- The ushers let in people in small groups at a time to avoid crowding, and to make the scaring more effective; the usually allow 5-6 people max per entry. The first phase of the scream park was the zombified Calle Crisologo Street (the famous heritage street from Vigan.) It was not as scary there since the area was open. Towards the end of the street, there was a bag counter where people had to leave their things and gadgets. The park is strict about their no-photo-no-video policy inside the haunted houses, so people would still come to the park for the experience. After all, with all the running and the scaring, dim lights too, I doubt there will be opportunities for photos.

- The first haunted house maze was the mansion. Upon entering, the pitch black living room welcomed us, and with around four zombies coming up to us. Since I was extremely hyper and "happy," I trolled the zombies. Take this for instance:

*Enters house with friends, the haunted mansion's living room was pitch black, and some zombies approached us.*

Gilbert: OMG KUYA HELLO GOOD EVENING!!!! It's like so dark naman here in your house I can't see a thing!!!!

Zombie: Bleurrrrgughgghgghghhh.

Gilbert: Saan ang daan kuya?? It's so dark kasi I can't see the floor oh!!

Zombie: Blerrrrrugghghghghgh saaa kaaaaanaannnn poooooo.

Gilbert: Oh that's great!! Please guide us because like, you know, this is like, um, youre house and we're just here to visit, diba??

Zombie: Bleeeeeerrrrrrughghghghghghggghgh hindi ka na makakalabas sa bahay na ito nang buhaaayyyy!!

Gilbert: OMG kuya, that's why you're supposed to guide us kasi nga it's super darrrrrrk here!! Para makalabas kami!!

Zombie: Bleeeeeeerrrrughghghghghgh huling araw mo na sa mundong ito!!

Gilbert: Kuya naman, that's so scary!! I don't want to die yet!!!! Your house is still very dark o, we can't see our way!!!! You're supposed to be our guides in your, like, wonderful and dark mansion, isn't itttttttttt??

Zombie: Bleeeeerrrrghghghghghghh tumahimik kaaa, tumahimik kaaaa!!!! TUMAHIMIK KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

** Note: I don't talk this way normally, as most people may know. I had to use my extremely konyo accent to, um, add more character to the ditziness.**

- As we went along the haunted maze, things got a bit creepier. One of the memorable characters inside was a big butcher guy who supposedly chopped up humans instead of beef or pork parts. He chased me a bit (with a big meat cleaving knife on one hand,) and did a weird snicker. He was one of the more effective characters for me; he really disturbed me, and scared me.

- The second maze was a small chapel and a cemetery. The chapel was my favorite part. We heard a recording of a wailing woman as we were about to enter the chapel. Upon stepping inside, it had the scene of a wake, with many women seated on the pews - the catch was, only one of them was real, and all the others were just dummy women. The real one would pounce on scared passers by, and startle everyone. That was my favorite scare of the night. (Wow, that's a sentence I never thought I'd say.)

- The cemetery was not too scary, because it was an open area, and there were too many distractions, like the big bright Sofitel, or the ferris wheel from Star City, and the booming music from the Scream Park bar. The zombies were a bit predictable too, except for a few who really hid well.

- Berna and Nathalie went in for a second round, while Bless, Jessica, and I stayed outside to take photos with the other walking/limping zombies. We sat on the steps in front of the soon-to-open "asylum" (and I would probably experience more interesting scares too, that is if I ever decide to go back to Scream Park Manila.) I also took photos in one of the dummy coffins. I know some might find it scandalous, but I've always been curious about what it felt like being inside a coffin (and NO I absolutely do not want to die yet.)

My "scandalous" photo.

Thurillllurrrrr!!

The Spice Girls - Scary Spice in the middle.

- After Berna and Nathalie finished their second round inside the mansion, thankfully without Berna punching anyone inside (she admitted to having punching tendencies when startled,) we went home. During the car ride, we didn't dare look at the sampaguita vendors who approached the car, because our Scream Park hangover programmed us to believe that those sampaguita vendors were zombies too. However, we did have a good laugh about everything, and for the record, I haven't had nightmares about the zombies.