Haunted house brings large crowds, laughter, screams
Various students sit at a dining room table, complete with prop food, as a tour group passes by. The performance involved taking an actor who was put into the tour, and tying them down to a chair with them screaming. Photo by George Frey / Bearing News
October 28, 2018
On the evening of Saturday, Oct. 27, RBHS’ Drama Club hosted its fourth annual haunted house. Along with the fall carnival taking place outside the Performing Arts Center (PAC) lobby, the haunted house drew a diverse crowd. From the young to the old, the PAC was teeming with laughter and screams. The haunted house began in October of 2015, and has since become a tradition in the RBHS theater community; led by theater teacher, director and actress Holly Kerns.
The actors played a wide variety of characters, and were able to create their own storyline. Senior Hunter Manes, who is a long time veteran of the project, has been deeply involved in the RBHS drama club as well as the haunted house. Manes played a butler type character with a facial disfigurement, which he achieved using makeup. He became interested in the project and in the holiday of Halloween after a visit to a haunted house when he was younger.
“What got me into Halloween really, was that in fifth grade I went to this place called Halloween City, and when I realized that the props weren’t real, I just kind of got into it,” Manes said. “It got me really interested in the holiday of Halloween, because there is no need to be scared of them [the props and actors] cause they’re all fake, we’re not gonna come after you. My favorite part [of creating the haunted house] is the brainstorming of ideas because people have so much imagination and can think of anything, and if it’s done correctly, it can be awesome.”
The RBHS drama community has a history of being inclusive, and invites anyone to join, even if they aren’t experienced actors. The haunted house project drew new RBHS students such as sophomore Grace Holdiman, who recently moved to Columbia from Pennsylvania.
After the visitor exited the dining room area, one would venture behind the PAC curtains and through twisting hallways. The area seemed to be a sort of construction site and garden, with plants, caution signs and even an evil gardener. The visitors were then taken into room 418, the theater classroom, where students waltzed in a fake ballroom, and taunting guests to ‘come dance with them.’ After that, visitors would be greeted by a disturbing scene in an area which was referred to as the ‘servants quarters,’ where students played maids and butlers who were either crying blood, shot or disfigured. Finally, the visitor would exit out of the haunted house down a dimly lit red hallway, and back into the PAC lobby, with either a newly inherited sense of fear, or excitement from their experience.
“Every year we brainstorm and a lot of people come up with ideas and then we see which ideas we can combine and umbrella together so we can connect themes that we’re thinking about,” Kerns said. “This is just the one that won out of all the ideas that we had to do a haunted mansion. Everybody liked the idea of the way that the different rooms, would have almost a character of their own, you know, a ballroom vs a library vs a garden, the rooms are almost like characters too.”
Karina • Oct 30, 2018 at 12:11 pm
This was an interesting story to read since I have never been to a haunted house and the descriptions filled me in on the happenings Saturday.