Until now, my biggest fear had been large dogs. Now, thanks to Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson, I know how juvenile that was.

The two came together for Pointergeist at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater as a stop on their Twins of Evil tour, striking the fear of all that is bad into the decidedly sparse crowd.

I said I would never pay to go to a concert like this and, in a twist of fate that only Manson himself could have dreamt up, my friend won tickets and there was no backing out.

As a fan of bands like fun., The Head & The Heart and The Civil Wars, Marilyn Manson is about as far from my spectrum of enjoyable music as possible. Yet, there I was, in a crowd of cloak-clad individuals sporting red, light-up devil horns. My jaw dropped in awe at what transpired on stage.

Following more than a mildly inappropriate verbose speech for the benefit of seeing the sign language interpreters translate, Manson began singing, the heads of his faithful crowd flailing up and down in an effort to catch a tune, an admirable effort.

Manson, streaked in blood red paint and an indefinable black leather ensemble, displayed his sense of irony in full: white snow confetti shot from cannons to counteract the silhouetted face that appeared behind him near the end of his set. As the confetti fell, the half portrait of Manson in his terrible glory was highlighted with flashing colors, strobe lights echoing around.

If you’ve ever bopped along to “Sweet Dreams” from the Eurythmics in your car, Manson was happy to ruin that for you. Replace the 1980s style electronica with deafening guitar and the monotone harmonies with a guttural growl, and you have Manson’s terrifying rendition, followed by a clear crowd favorite of “Beautiful People.”

After what seemed like years, Rob Zombie entered. As he did, a King Kong backdrop raised and then immediately dropped, seemingly without purpose. After Zombie acknowledged his underperforming flames and the potential that had to completely ruin the show, he went on to scream indeterminable lyrics into a skeleton microphone, the only clue to what he was singing flashing across the screen behind him in one word increments.

As the director of the “Halloween” movies, Zombie’s Davy Jones-dreadlocks should not have been surprising, but they were. His bandmates’ elaborate skeletal, zombie makeup was somehow equally as shocking. The whole set was full of all that could ever be perceived as “scary.” Giant robots floated across the stage, and the faces of serial killers were shown on the screen.

Surely, the emotional scarring will fade … one day.