House of Horrors

As I’m sure many of you have heard, the latest movie craze sweeping the nation is “Paranormal Activity,” which by some genius marketing ploy, is raking in millions of dollars even though the entire movie apparently cost 50 cents to make (and that’s only because the director wanted a pack of bubble gum). Supposedly this is the scariest movie ever made and is solely responsible for wet beds and sleep trouble around the nation.

Now I hate scary movies, so when I heard this, I was perfectly content to listen to the film critics and just assume it was scary, never see it, and live my life in peace. But anybody who knows how my life works and the people I hang out with of course know that this was never going to happen. About a week ago, Will and the Mosher’s decided they wanted to go see the movie. At the moment, I was enjoying the start of the weekend and drinking at 4:30, so I politely suggested that maybe they go and leave me in my happy place. Needless to say, an hour later I found myself sitting in the theater silently wondering to myself if anybody would notice if I closed my eyes the entire movie.

Once the movie started however I realized the only reason I would have to close my eyes is because I was going to fall asleep from boredom. This was maybe the least scary horror movie I have ever seen. The “Jonas Brother’s 3-D Concert Movie” was scarier than this movie (just don’t ask why I’ve watched a Jonas Brothers movie). The only thing that will be keeping me up at night is knowing I spent money to see this movie.

So of course, unsatisfied by that experience and still looking for a good scare, we decided to go to a haunted house this weekend (once again, by “we” I mean “not me”; I was perfectly content with not being scared). We went to a haunted house last year, but it wasn’t all that scary. The scariest part of that night was sitting in the front seat of a car while an Asian woman was driving. But this year we went to the 13^th Floor Haunted House, which is supposedly the scariest haunted house in the state. So we proceeded to pack a Ford Focus with about ten people and rumbled down the highway listening to some song called “Stop, Stay Away From My Sister.” Seriously, listen to it. It may be the worst song I’ve ever heard, and let me remind you once again I watched “The Jonas Brothers 3-D Concert.” I’m pretty sure I’m now listed on the sex-offender registry just for listening to it.

Anyway, we finally got to the haunted house, and saw what may have been the scariest sight I have seen in my life: a huge ass line. Seriously, we stood in that line for two hours in the cold (and as it turns out it was the line to use the bathroom). Now, let me tell you a few things about going to haunted houses with women. You should always bring some, because even if the house is not scary, you will get some entertainment out of watching them freak out. Something will scare one, which will cause it to scream. This in turn will cause all the others to scream, which creates a sound that to this day is causing my ears to bleed. So it wasn’t a good sign when one of the women (cough, Maddie, cough), was scared by one of the cast members before we even got into the house. One second she’s standing there, the next she did some sort of football spin move and was fifty yards away. Needless to say, this did not bode well for the actual house.

Now I’ve been to several haunted houses, and this was a pretty scary one. The first thing we see is a large waiver sign. Now, I wanted to drink beforehand, but the rest of the group wouldn’t let me because there were supposedly empty elevator shafts, and for those of you who have seen me drunk, falling into holes and ditches is a recurring theme. Also, due to my walking speed, I’m normally last in the group. This means several things. For one, it means I can creep up behind other people in the group and scare them. Two, the actors always jump out at the people in front of me, so by the time I get to them we just sort of state at each other in a really awkward silence so it’s hard to get scared. Third, there is always some creepy lady in a costume trying to get me to hurry up in a creepy yet authoritative voice at which point I tell her I would hurry up if the women up front weren’t curled up in the fetal position on the ground. So normally going last isn’t too bad.

This time however me being last had some negative consequences: I got lost. Yep, at one point I became completely separated from the group, which meant for about ten minutes I was wandering through the haunted house alone. Now, you would think this is when the actors would really try and mess with you, but for some reason they didn’t. In fact, they looked more confused than me when they saw me wandering with my hands out in front of me asking props for directions. Then again, if I saw some guy going through a haunted house by himself, I would assume he has no friends and is probably really weird and might shoot me, so I probably wouldn’t scare him. Besides, I think they were too busy laughing at me because I was tripping over everything I possibly could and bumping into walls. You know how in horror movies we always mock the people because they always trip on something which allows the zombies to catch up with them and eat their brains? Well I will never do that again, because if I were in that horror movie I did everything that leads to people dying: I went last, I got lost, I tripped on things, and I’m a minority.

Anyway somehow I managed to catch up with my group (I’m assuming once again it had something to do with women in the fetal position on the floor) in time for the last room, which of course was a guy with a chainsaw (which was sort of anti-climactic seeing as we could hear the chainsaw from four rooms away). But overall it was a memorable experience that will stick with us for awhile. Mainly because we all got sick. Yeah, yesterday I wake up sick and later I find out the women who went all had the same symptoms as me. So if nothing else, the haunted house gave me an excuse to miss class. So in the end, I guess it was worth it.