WEST HAVEN–Cookies and goodies and screams, oh my! Walking to Bartels on Halloween night brought a sense of excitement with the only explanation being SCOPE’s haunted house.
Remembering years past, my roommate and I decided to get to the Echlin Dining Hall extremely early so we were the first ones ready to be scared. Although there seemed to have been some last minute running around, the music, cookies, and candy were soon set up and ready to be enjoyed. The twists put on the cookies and the candy were great. The cookies could be decorated with orange frosting and black sprinkles and students could put their favorite candy in little containers to make it more festive. Students could also decorate masks with just about anything imaginable. The music set the mood of creepiness, but also lightened things up a little with music from Rocky Horror Picture Show, which got students dancing and laughing. Then it was time to enter the haunted house.
We were lead outside and into Bartels through a side entrance. I must admit, this first room scared me the most. Completely dark with things glowing throughout the room, our guide left us to wander throughout the room and try to figure out how to escape it. It was about a minute later when we noticed at least one person walking through the room. We tried to follow the glowing footprints on the floor, but they lead in circles and into the walls. The entire sojourn in the darkness lasted only about three minutes (at maximum), but it was nonetheless disconcerting to have no idea where we were.
The next room was straight out of Gotham City. For my roommate, who amazingly hasn’t seen The Dark Knight, this room was the scariest. Quite appropriately, the Joker chose her to pick on. This room was very well done and whoever it was who played the Joker should be commended. He knew liked from the movie and his voice was very convincing. Way to go!
Next came the graveyard. This room lacked the luster of the first two, but the decorations were still great. I can only imagine how difficult it is to fill a room as large as the Alumni Lounge with things to scare students the whole way through. It was a good concept.
Many people are afraid of clowns so it was appropriate to have them within the next room. I must admit that I was so distracted by the decorations in this room that I didn’t even see where the clowns came from. It was a little obnoxious to have clowns laughing in my face, but the creepiness came when one of the clowns stopped laughing and just stared. That’s when I wanted to leave the room.
We were then lead outside once again, up a stairwell draped with spider webs, thankfully not as low as last year, and up into the Student Activities wing of Bartels. The Upper Student Lounge housed the insane asylum. The two volunteers in this room were great. They looked great and their mannerisms were great. I allowed myself to be lead away from the group to a table containing was what described to me as the remnants of the younger brother of one of the insane.
There were also things throughout the hallway meant to scare those going through it.
I must say that it was nice to not be chased by someone with a face chainsaw for the third year in a row, though I was still expecting something to happen.
This year’s haunted house was a great success and for those of you who didn’t go, boo to you!
Way to go SCOPE! Here’s hoping that next year is better than ever!
