What’s worse than a room full of dolls? The fear of being turned into one.
“We have a butcher and he’s a single dad and he lost his daughter in a traumatic accident and his daughter loved dolls so as a way to remember her, he’s killing people and turning them into dolls,” said Juan Barraza, Psi Chi National Honor Society president, as we entered the small elevator adorned with photos of a little girl and bloody body parts.
Psychology Student Association and Psi Chi National Honor Society began their annual haunted house fundraiser Wednesday night at 6 p.m. in the basement of the psychology building. The courtyard features a Halloween-themed photo booth for students to have some fun using props and signs before going into the scary event.
The theme for this year’s haunted descent is a haunted doll house, with a more disturbed twist to fit the Halloween theme.
“Everybody is like ‘oh dolls are scary’ but we wanted to make it twisted and creepier,” Barraza said about this year’s haunted house. He thought of the theme with the PSA President, Michelle Kim.
After stepping off the elevator, I walked into an industrial-looking basement littered with spider webs, while eerie music filled the halls. One woman was sitting tied up to a chair, warning our group to turn back or we’d be turned into dolls.
Throughout the basement, I was greeted by multiple victims suffering from brutal and gruesome transformations, going from human to doll at the hands of the demented father. A girl lie screaming in a bloody bed as a woman in a doll mask hovered over her with a knife; a man begged for help, trying in vain to pull his doll mask off.
Walking through the dark basement, it was easy to appreciate the amount of effort put into the overall theme of the haunted house. Bloody doll masks were pinned to every wall, Barbies and other toys were given creepy makeovers, hung from the ceilings and scattered around the rooms. There was a shrine with what looked like pictures of a family decorated with candles and a little girl’s toys.
Second year psychology major Alondra Perez worked in the event as a scare actor and talked about the preparation that went into the haunted house.
“[Psi Chi students] were here yesterday until 1 or 2 in the morning, so they were working pretty hard on this,” Perez said. “I was originally just wanting to set up, I didn’t actually want to scare but so far I’m having fun.”
Just when I could see the light coming in from the outside, the disturbed father emerged from the dark dressed in a bloody apron, shaking the fence he hid behind in an attempt to try to get to our group.
The Psi Chi haunted house will run Thursday night from 6 – 10 p.m. in the psychology building’s basement. Tickets are $3 with all proceeds going towards the Psi Chi National Honor Society.