HARCO House of Horrors: scaring adults to help the children

BY SHAWN DIGITY (twitter@DIGITYnodoubt)

It’s that time of year again. October is ushering in Halloween, and with it, the HARCO House of Horrors is ready to open its doors. Held in the old Jewett-Scio Elementary School, the former education building has now been reappropriated and decorated with spider webs, skeletons, and spooky antiques.

Some rooms were off-limits, but many have been completely reinvented as the hallowed grounds of a haunted tour. The old lockers that expanded the hallways have been marked with graffiti, and in the darkness, they shined eerily with a fluorescent orange hue. Classic Halloween props were a familiar sight: skeletons, clowns, ghouls, and even a giant gorilla were all propped up waiting for their next horror victim. Nearly everything was in full-blown Halloween mode.

Last week, as supervisor Tammy Dray and organizer Trisha May put together some of the finishing touches, they showed off bits and pieces of the experience. Some areas stayed under wraps to maintain as much surprise as possible, but many regions were nearly ready for visitors. As May called it, the school is now “three and a half floors of terror.” When tours officially kick off, tourgoers will be led along through the first floor, second floor, and parts of the basement in their journey to get a good Halloween fright.

That’s what May is hoping for, too. The veteran organizer has been doing the haunted house for around half a decade, and she has no qualms that she loves trying to scare the school’s visitors. In fact, she wears it as a badge of honor and has made it her mission to get people to scream — especially men. May took great pride in her admission of liking to scare the male visitors. She also had no shame in admitting that she tries to play off common fears and phobias when constructing her area. Clowns and claustrophobia became two of the introductory concepts she played on, but spiders, snakes, bats, rats, ghosts, and darkness all got a fair share, too. Dray added that she doesn’t like going through other haunted houses of her own accord, but she enjoys being the one hiding in the shadows, ready to pounce. It’s something that both organizers love about hosting a haunted house. One of the challenges, however, is not getting stale with the displays. May and Dray both always keep thinking about the next year or how to keep things fresh and scary.

The old school building was taken over 10 years ago in 2011, and the first version of the HARCO House of Horrors was introduced in 2012. The event usually kicks off on the first weekend of October. Maybe not a big surprise, but the haunted house is a popular attraction during October, and proceeds from it go to a good cause.

Dray and May explained that the haunted house is a fundraiser of sorts. The earnings typically go to Biddy Basketball, but the organizers don’t rule out other causes, like Wendy’s Walk. The House of Horrors likes to scare the adults as often and dramatically as possible, but they do it to create scholarships for children who grew up in Biddy Basketball, played all four years in high school, and are getting ready to move onto college.

The House of Horrors’s doors open at 6:30 p.m., and tours start at 7:30. The horror house can be found at 117 West Main Street in Jewett, and it’s $10 to get in. There’s no set time for closing up shop, either. It’s all dependent on the crowds. If there’s a half-hour window where no one shows up, then the organizers close up for the night. But sometimes there are enough people to keep everyone burning the midnight oil till 12 or 1 a.m.

The HARCO House of Horrors team includes about 10 seasoned scarers: Tammy and Danny Dray, Trisha and Eric May, Kaci and Chris Edwards, Russell Byers, Lou Dyer, and Theron Spapler. Along with the House of Horrors, there’s also a corn maze experience. The maze is more kid-friendly and can be visited at 89170 Hauber Road. It’s an $8 entry for adults and $5 for children 12 and younger. They’ll be open on Fridays and Saturdays 6-10 p.m. and Sundays 2-6 p.m for the season. Signs will be posted near the site to lead the way.