Homemade Horror

The Reinhart family has been scaring the neighborhood for over a decade

By Gretchen Drews, Opinion Editor

Agroup of parents, out with trick-ortreaters on Halloween night, breathed a collective sigh of relief as they made a narrow escape down the hallway of senior Evan Reinhart’s haunted house. It was over, or so they thought. That was when Reinhart, dressed as an escaped asylum patient, jumped out from the exit and scared one mom so badly, she fell backwards into the arms of her husband. Reinhart has been scaring the pants off visitors to his family’s terrifyingly fun haunted house, based out of their garage, for over a decade. The Reinhart family started the spooky tradition with Evan, who was 8 years old at the time, his parents, and his older sister. As their project grew, neighbors and even Evan’s grandma began helping in any way they could, whether it be for construction or as extra scare actors. “It started kind of small with just a graveyard out front decorating for Halloween,” Reinhart said. “Then, three or so years after doing that, we started the haunted house.” The Royal Run neighborhood attraction also helps a good cause. Last year, the family collected over 200 canned goods for the Zionsville Food Pantry. “It’s just a thing that’s kind of known now that when you stop by this house, you bring canned goods with you since we don’t charge,” Reinhart said. In early September, Reinhart’s family plans the layout, a tricky task given the limited space. “The 3-D software I use helps me show them what I want to do for the theme,” Reinhart said. “There’s different rooms I can put in, there’s an admission area for the asylum, and then we had a hallway that had different doors to different wards.” While the asylum theme has been going strong for the past few years, the family decided a new theme for this year, “Between the Walls.” “Our theme follows the idea of ‘if these walls could talk, what would they say,’” Reinhart said. The process of making the haunted house not only takes time and dedication to create the foundation, but also a scary atmosphere. “Usually during fall break is the time when I’m off school, and then I help my dad build all the walls and we start putting stuff up”, Reinhart said. “Then we frame the walls, and we paint everything, start adding props and really just start setting the scene.” Part of “setting the scene” is also making sure the family looks spooky when they enter the haunted house as scare actors. Over the years, as the haunted house grew, Reinhart’s extended family and neighbors began to volunteer as actors as well. “We don’t really buy store bought costumes anymore,” Reinhart said. “We make them from Goodwill items, and we distress our clothes with different paints to make it more realistic.” When the haunted house is over, the Reinharts find their own ways to reuse and repurpose supplies. “We usually get everything down in a week, so it goes a lot quicker than it goes up, and everything gets stored in the back of our garage,” Reinhart said. “We also try to reuse as much as possible so all panels we’ll repaint them, but the layout changes each year.” Reinhart said that with such a busy schedule, it is nice to have moments to share with his family when they can all come together to create something fun that they and others can enjoy. “It’s definitely a good bonding experience with both of my parents,” Reinhart said. “There’s definitely times where we’re at a breaking point because we’ve been working on it all day, but it’s a great way to spend time with my family.”

The family dressed as a asylum patients and workers outside their 2020 haunted house.