On October 22, the Campus Activities Board sponsored a haunted house and psychic readings in the Wisconsin Room of the Union. I attended with a group of other people, and didn’t really have too high of expectations. To say the least, I wasn’t let down, but I wasn’t too impressed either.
We got there around 7:30-7:45 or so, and waited in line until around 8:05. There was a decent amount of people in front of us, and it’s typical of haunted houses to have a longer wait. The event was scheduled to start at 7, however the first group did not go through the haunted house until after we got there and were waiting for about 10 minutes. They took groups of four, and each group only took about 5 minutes or so to go through the “house.” The first few groups came out yelling things like “don’t go last it’s so much worse than being the first person” and all these things, and some people just flat out ran out of there screaming.
(Now, it is to be noted that I don’t really get scared of haunted houses in the first place. I never really have, but I still find them enjoyable.) We walked through the doors, and a person in a mask was leading our group to the beginning of the “house”. It was pitch black, so none of us had a clue where we were going. The walls of the house were some inflatable maze sort of thing, and honestly I was more scared of tripping over the tarp on the floor than the people who were supposedly scaring us. They all were wearing masks and dressed up, which was done well. They could have had some eerie music playing or something to add to the effect, but aside from the little comments made in my group and the scaring attempts made by the volunteers, the room was silent.
One of the other people in my group definitely was scared, yelling along the way. Towards the end, there was a clown, which surely aligns with the recent news of violent clowns being out and about. Once we got out, I know I was laughing more than anything else. Who knows, maybe it’s because I’m not fazed by haunted houses in general, but I know I was expecting to at least have had some sort of jump, scare, or an aspect that freaked me out a bit. I feel the CAB made a great effort in the haunted house, especially considering the amount of space they had in The Wisconsin Room, but it wasn’t as frightening as it could have been.
I did not attend the psychic reading portion of the event, however there was a lot of interest shown by others who were waiting in line.
Did you go? Comment your experience below!