You know who I hate? I hate whichever scholar came up with the pointy-headed academic's definition of fear: “Fear … is the unknown.”

I'd like to carve up that guy with a chain saw.

Everyone knows fear is a man turning into a wolf when the autumn moon is bright, or a monster stitched together from various body parts and jolted to life with electricity. Or zombies or vampires or Jason Voorhees … or when six frat boys get seated next to you at a nice restaurant.

At Dark Manor, located in Versailles just north of Norwich (perhaps the finest haunted house in all of Connecticut), let me assure you that the only thing unknown is which of the demons are fake and which are flesh and blood. Either way, they're going to scare the hell out of you.

You may not know what's coming or when, but this place is a great, cobwebbed haunted house with the aforementioned and time-honored fright elements blasting at you like tracer bullets in a fire fight. It's like being stuffed in a sardine can of terror.

You wonder: who would invest the time and money to build a haunted house? How long does it take and why do they do it?

¦ Two Long Island best pals, Craig and Rick - no last names, please - are lifelong Halloween addicts well versed in all phases of the construction business. They built their first haunted house on Long Island and, several years ago, after Rick's son moved into our area, they found the empty building that became Dark Manor. A former schoolhouse with an imposing façade, it was the perfect structure.

These are two guys for whom every day is literally Halloween. They get each other spook masks for Christmas. Any found object on the side of the road or in a Salvation Army store can be transformed into a Dark Manor prop. The two conceptualize about the possibilities of new themes and horrors continually - and each year, in late August, it's time to start their weekend trips to Versailles to start renovating Dark Manor for a new season.

¦ Building and maintaining a haunted house is fun but labor intensive. Indeed, a scant 30 hours till Opening Night, there are entire rooms and partitioned sections of the surrounding grounds that still exist only in Craig's and Rick's imaginations - the secrets of which are stacked in piles of scrap boards, electrical wire, hydraulic lifts and a ballpark's-worth of masks, fake skeletons, rubber severed body parts and gravestones…

Somehow, though, by the next night, it is transformed into a haunted house both Dante and Boris Karloff could be proud of.

¦ The actors at Dark Manor really like their jobs. Maybe too much. Maybe that they do this is good and preventive therapy. But when I question their fervor, it is decided that I will become a Dark Manor corpse.

To scare the hell out of someone … you know what? It's pretty wonderful. I like it. Maybe too much …

It does beg the question, though: what sort of folks pay good money to be scared?

Well, fear is relative. No one wants to be horrified in a real world situation. But to experience fear in a controlled environment - as to voluntarily buy tickets to the latest “Friday the 13th” film or, well, a haunted house - is sort of like dealing with fear on your terms. You get all the thrills with the comfort of knowing you're going to walk out safely.

Or … will you?

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