It's one of the most thrilling scenes from "Jurassic Park."

Tim and Lex Murphy, the two grandchildren of wealthy entrepreneur John Hammond, are fighting over a flashlight in their stalled Ford Explorer.

Paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant watches in horror as a ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex escapes its enclosure and bounds toward the two terrified kids.

It's that fear — that total scare factor — that has made dinosaurs so fascinating to generations of humans who never have to worry about running into a Velociraptor at the supermarket.

"They're really big and, in some cases, really scary things that can never hurt you," said Mike Shanahan, director of education, exhibits and Planetarium at Bishop Museum, which is unveiling a new traveling exhibit on dinosaurs this weekend. "If you're afraid of ghosts, well, a ghost might come and haunt you. But dinosaurs won't come back. People like to be a little scared."

"Dinosaurs Unearthed," a new — and not scary — interactive exhibit boasting animatronic dinosaurs, a collection of skeletons and a slew of fossils, opens today and runs to January at the museum's Castle Memorial Building.

This is the first time in three years the museum has brought in a traveling dinosaur exhibit, and Shanahan expects it will be just as popular as previous shows.

"There's really no large dinosaur exhibit in the state," said Shanahan, who grew up in Massachusetts fascinated, like many kids, by dinosaurs. "You can't see giant fossils or moving, roaring dinosaurs. If you have a 4-year-old hooked on dinosaurs, this is the only option you have."

The exhibit is produced by a Vancouver-based dinosaur exhibition company and features about a dozen different dinosaurs, including a full-size Stegosaurus, a sharp-clawed Deinonychus, a mini Allosaurus and the skeleton of a Gasosaurus (incidentally, named for the gasoline company that found the fossil quarry in China).

There's even a feathered juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex, reflecting recent theories that some dinosaurs were feathered.

But the biggest draw — and likely the most memorable part of the exhibit — is the menacing 27-foot-tall T-Rex standing guard outside the Castle Memorial Building. It doesn't help that this famously ferocious predator — with bone-crunching teeth and powerful legs taller than most humans — actually moves and roars, too.

"In my opinion, the T-Rex is a big draw, probably because that's one dinosaur that is easy to remember," said Donalyn Dela Cruz, government affairs and community relations manager at the museum. "But I think visitors will enjoy seeing and learning about other dinosaur species. Still, there is no comparison to the size of the T-Rex. I also admit, it's a little scary. The dinosaurs look and sound very real."

This exhibit isn't quite like the safari tour in "Jurassic Park," but it's close enough.

Once you get past the roaring carnivore and a 10-foot-tall Triceratops outside, you'll walk into a sensory overload. Full-size dinosaur skeletons, moving herbivores, even a life-size head of a T-Rex roaring from behind a mountain.

It's intense. And Shanahan hopes it's enough to convince families to skip the beach this weekend and walk through the world more than 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

The beach will always be there. Dinosaurs, only until Jan. 2.