Prepared to be scared at Staffordshire's Screamfest

A full moon shone above the fields in Burton where five huge "scare attractions" teemed with over 130 live actors dressed to kill, or thrill.

It is the biggest Screamfest yet at the National Forest Adventure Farm, near Burton, and locals as well as a few "not-from-round-heres" like my girlfriend and I turned to up to be frightened on a Friday night.

There were scarecrows, half-headed beasts, evil spirits and men in dresses wandering around and then jumping out at visitors as they queued for beers, coffees and burgers to the themes from Halloween and Lost Boys.

A live stage full of singing hillbillies had all sorts going on from candles being poured onto naked flesh to fire-eating Hillbillies smashing nails into audience member's heads, it looked great fun.

But I wanted to get to the "scares".

The first we tried was Hillbilly Joe’s Zombie Zoo, as there was not a queue to get in.

Inside there were all types of live hillbillies, this is the best thing about these attractions, its not a balloon with a painted face falling out a creaking door it is a real, life, smelling, shouting, bending, bruised human being which is jumping out at you.

I bravely took the lead, allowing my girlfriend, who weirdly enough I am normally terrified of, to safely follow behind.

There was gore, human remains and foul smells all attacking the senses. We followed the directions and met gnarled, snarling hillbillies who seemed to enjoy tormenting one another. You never knew what was coming next, and I laughed all the way round.

Next up was the most intriguing - Love Hurts Last Orders. We would be getting involved in some sort of zombie speed dating at The Diced Heart pub. For this "scare" the queue really was long, but the atmosphere was good with people swapping stories like they had just finished a tour of Vietnam. It took about 35 minutes to gain entrance to the "Diced Heart".

Scary speed dating? Nothing could be as scary as the real thing as a single man in Sutton Coldfield in 2005, I still have nightmares of my card tricks going wrong under the pressure.

My girlfriend and I stuck together and were herded into a toilet which made the one in Trainspotting look Presidential, the poop stains looked real and the whiff smelt real too.

And then we were off, wandering round the Diced Heart waiting for our speed date, we were expecting to be sat down and a conveyor belt of bonk-eyed beauty-less partners would chat to us, but that never happened, perhaps we took the description a bit too literally. There was thrills and spills but it felt a little bit of a let down after the queue.

This is when we realised if we wanted to experience every "scare" then we would have to get a move on because we had not factored in queuing time. We had got there at 8.30pm and it had started at 7pm, but every motorist knows the A38 can quickly turn into your worst nightmare.

So we hurried to Creed Farm, from which we had seen visitors run for their lives chased by a chain saw wielding lunatic, one chase ended with a telling off for one visitor. It was getting hard to work out what was real and not real. Had the student broke the rule by touching one of the actors or was the chainsaw dude an incredible actor.

As we waited our turn a voice came from behind the fence, and then we noticed the eyeball staring: "What have we here, then, fresh meat?"

At the start of each "scare" a staff member would run down the do's and don'ts, no touching, no photos, videos, drone flying, drinking, smoking, eating? Eating? who would eat whilst being chased around a zombie maze. Each to their own, I suppose.

The big guy who the eyeball belonged to was great value, really funny, sizing us up as steaks and sausages as he directed us to the start of the maze.

And then everything was pitch black. Total darkness, no moonlight just blackness, I'd led my girlfriend through the darkness, by using the only sense which worked, touch, and chills began to build up as we expecting something to happen, but it didn't, we could hear other screams, perhaps I had taken us the wrong way and was heading for the rubbish dump?

But then suddenly there were other visitors again, and then a young man again began measuring us up as portion sizes, however, upon seeing us two said: "Oh you two will be ok for a while we don't like the old wrinkly ones in this bit".

Which made me roar with laughter, these actors all have senses of humour and that hit my funny bone. Then we were in a chop house where a big butcher fella was hacking apart bodies, there are 300 individually crafted prosthetics, 15 litres of blood in Screamfest and this flesh kitchen had its fair share.

The well groomed couple behind us were greeted with: "What's his name?" "Torquil" replied the visitor's clipped accent.

Centimetres from Torquil's ruddy cheeked face the butcher screamed: "GET OVER THERE TORQUIL, WHAT KIND OF NAME IS THAT!"

Torquil visibly shuddered, I could tell he was shocked, he'd obviously not been spoken to like that since his boarding school master bawled at him for forgetting his homework ten years ago, how would he react?

He shot his girlfriend a confused look and did what he was told. He would have known what the butcher had for breakfast he so close to the fellow's bellow, which, for some, is not the idea of a good night out. Being screamed at, belittled and mocked is not for the faint hearted, which makes it so much fun.

That's the funniest thing about events like Screamfest its watching everyone else's reaction, I once saw a relationship end in Philadelphia's Terror Behind The Walls in East State Penitentiary after a laid back dude was not quick enough to stop zombie grabbing his girlfriend.

Staffordshire Screamfest stops short of allowing the actors touching visitors, in Terror Behind the Walls visitors could sign a form allowing "intentional touching". However, it was no surprise to find out the brothers behind Screamfest have visited America for ideas.

We only had time for one last "scare" due to our enjoying the stage show and drinks earlier in the evening, the scares ended at 11pm.

We got into Insomnia, this was laid out like a house, like a living nightmare. Here the actors earned their corn. The girls in bed argued with their mothers about the man in the wardrobe, this was different than the other scares, this was a little unnerving. A bit weird, like a bad dream. A bad dream where young blonde girls were getting abused by Marilyn Manson lookalikes.

I was gutted we missed getting into The Freakhouse by five minutes, but perhaps we'd had enough scares for one night.

And it prepared for some really horrible sights, a night on the town in Burton afterwards.

Screamfest runs until October 31, visit www.screamfest.co.uk for more information.