by Heather Brown and Courtney Faber
As per its yearly tradition, SCOPE pulled together its haunted house, which spread throughout the upper rooms of Bartels late into the night on Halloween.
The festivities started on the second floor of Kaplan where students could participate in crafts while they waited for their tour through the haunted house. Crafts included pumpkin painting, stuffing Halloween themed bears, and painting fall themed ceramic figures. The different rooms were nice and a great way for everyone to mingle while waiting for their turn to head through the haunted house. Most students went right for the stuff-a-bear room, however. Students were greeted by an extremely enthusiastic Beetlejuice, but the creepy music was missing. The missing Halloween music was unfortunate as it traditionally set the mood.
As soon as the tour guides were ready, the groups were taken into the haunted house and the terror began. The Haunted House contained a number of rooms that provided the guests with thrills and chills. The tour began with the groups entering into an elevator where Jeeves the headless butler greeted them. The costume itself was amazing, but the person inside it didn’t seem to know what to do or say. The tour guides tried to interact with him, but he just said that he didn’t know the answer and continued to sit there.
Next guests were led into a blacked out room with a dead geisha. The tour guides stepped to the side and told us to find the exit on our own. We were expecting the geisha to do something, but she continued to stare at us and wave her fan. Conveniently, the exit was located under a sign that said “exit” and we continued through the haunted house.
The next room brought us face to face with a chain saw-wielding maniac and a wheel chair-bound “surgery” patient. The scarers in this room did an excellent job of making us feel uncomfortable by invading our personal space and laughing maniacally.
The remaining rooms were very much like the haunted houses of years past. The rooms featured a graveyard complete with zombies and a very convincing scarecrow and rooms containing themes from popular horror movies like The Ring and Saw. The tour was sent into the Bates Motel complete with the crazy grandma from the movie Psycho and was frightened by Edward Scissor Hands and a ghoul popping out of nowhere. Guests were led into the hallway where a giant spider fell down and gave many people quite a fright!
The downsides to this year’s haunted house were painfully apparent. Where last year rooms were filled with scarers, this year there was only one or two per room. Many of the scarers seemed new and unfamiliar with what it takes to scare groups of college students. This also held true for the tour guides. They always glanced at where someone was hiding so it often gave things away.
However, for those that were new to the Haunted House, or those that were there to enjoy themselves: it was spectacularly spooky.
Unfortunately, the lack of participation from the UNH community led to the entire thing being brought to a sub-par level. Many students were complaining about the haunted house after having gone through it. SCOPE sponsors many amazing events and it is sad that they do not receive the support they need to host the event that we, the students, want.
To all of the students who complained that this event did not live up to their expectations, volunteer! Every job is important and essential. When SCOPE asks for help it is always important and vital to the execution of the event. As always, thank you to SCOPE for planning this amazing event and for keeping the tradition going.
