News

Haunted house benefits canned food drive

The haunted basement of New Hall North attracted an audience of approximately 250 Tech students and residents of Cookeville last Thursday, Oct. 27.

The New Hall North resident assistant staff, residence hall association and Treehouse village council sought to make this year’s haunted house event scarier and more successful than last year’s, which was the residence hall’s first and drew about 180 individuals according to Caitlin McCowan, assistant coordinator of the Treehouse.

McCowan said that volunteers for the event spent about 75 hours on the project.

The event started at 7 p.m. and by 8:30 p.m., a line extended from the basement stairwell into the lobby of New Hall North.

Outside the hall, a headless horseman beckoned more students to try their luck at surviving the haunted maze.

Visitors earned choice of candy and entry to the haunted house by paying one dollar or bringing one canned food item.

Food collected will be contributed to the Homecoming canned food drive.

The haunted house featured a dark, winding maze, flickering lights and a host of startling characters, including a mad doctor who laughed hysterically while operating on her unfortunate, moaning victim.

“It was a little short, but it was really dark so that kind of made the creepiness like beyond creepy,” Morgan Banker, freshman web design major, said. “I hope they do it next year.”

Several masks identical to that worn by the infamous murderer in the movie “Friday the 13th” covered the black walls of one room visitors entered. They had to exit the house through a tunnel on hands and knees.

According to many visitors, this was the scariest room in the haunted house, as it seemed to come to life when a few of the masks unexpectedly left the walls to follow and surround passersby.