Ridenbaugh Hall will transform into haunted house for charity.
The practice rooms in Ridenbaugh Hall will become torture chambers and jailhouses in a movie-themed haunted house for charity Saturday night.
Amanda Zohar is in her second year of participating on the committee that plans the Ridenbaugh haunted house.
Shayne Seubert, another committee member, said there will be a clown room and a Grudge-themed room among other things.
“It was like, ‘Oh, hey, these are all sort of movie themed,'” Seubert said.
Zohar said admission to the haunted house is one can of food or a $1 donation.
“Everything we get goes to the Moscow Food Bank,” Zohar said.
Between 6-7 p.m., the haunted house will be child friendly. This will include a cakewalk, games and a kids’ lounge. Children will also go through the haunted house.
“We’ve toned everything down vastly,” Seubert said.
In an attempt to make it less frightening, Zohar said the floor captains during that hour will be dressed as princes and princesses to come to the rescue if children get too scared, or if something goes wrong.
After the children’s hour, the ghosts will come out and fully haunt Ridenbaugh Hall.
“Seven to 11:30 is the scary time,” Rachel Lewis, another committee member, said.
Most of the haunting come from actors and costumes because Lewis said the building is scary enough it doesn’t need a lot of dressing up.
“That building scares me at night. Every night,” Zohar said.
Ridenbaugh was opened in 1902 as a women’s dormitory.
There are a couple of rules about haunted houses. Seubert said there is absolutely no touching. Lewis said this year there is to be no drinking before or during the haunted house, and bouncers have been hired to enforce the rules. Every floor has two floor captains per floor to make sure the actors stay in their rooms and nothing else goes wrong.
“Everyone has to be safe,” Zohar said.
Between 40 and 60 people are volunteering for the haunted house. Lewis said the goal is to have every member of each organization involved do something.
The host organizations are Sigma Alpha Iota and Phi Mu Alpha, both philanthropic music organizations.
This year, Vandal Entertainment has teamed up with the two organizations to help promote the haunted house and to pay some of the cost of the event.
Zohar said it cost them $98, and for the most part, they have materials from previous years.
With Vandal Entertainment footing the bill, the Sigma Alpha Iota and Phi Mu Alpha were allowed to make a direct contribution to the food bank, Seubert said.
Lewis said she enjoyed seeing the whole thing come together from the inception to the payoff — seeing how many donations they get.
Zohar said she likes seeing how the actors get excited to play their parts.
Seubert said he enjoys seeing people get scared.
“Ridenbaugh is pretty scary once you turn the lights off, anyway,” Seubert said.
Kasen Christensen can be reached at [email protected]