Students do not have to venture far to get more than their share of frights this Halloween season, as an A&M fraternity hosts its 20th annual “haunted trail.”
Kappa Sigma turns its backyard into the “Wicked Woods” every October and has used the same themed scenes which include “scares” — tricks meant to elicit fear in participants — since the event’s inception 20 years ago.
Justin Ashcraft, senior administrative officer of Wicked Woods, said the scenes still in use today have been established since he was a freshman and he does not know what the process for selecting the original themes entailed.
“However, I did stumble upon an old binder that had some info in it from when they were brainstorming new scenes,” Ashcraft said. “The team basically just brainstormed any kind of fear that they could think of, and then they would try to turn that into real life.”
Mark Turner, Kappa Sigma scene leader, said this year there are eight unique scenes throughout the woods, which aim to scare people in a unique way.
“Each ‘scene’ has its own theme and is made up of differently designed hallways, rooms and props,” Turner said. “Within each scene, we have lots of scares we do … but to know what and where they are, you’ll have to come out and see for yourself.”
Ashcraft said he worked with Turner and the rest of the woods team to design the eighth and newest scene to mark the wood’s 20th anniversary — a hospital in which the doctors and nurses kill and mutilate people.
“We have built a new scene to keep our patrons on their toes,” Turner said. “I am the ‘scene leader’ for it, which is just a fancy title for the guy who makes sure everything runs smoothly and stays in contact with our head operations guys if anyone needs anything.”
Ashcraft said the scariest part of the Wicked Woods depends on the individual as he has seen big reactions from all of the scenes.
“On one hand I’ve seen our funhouse — clown scene — result in multiple groups being too scared to even finish the trail,” Ashcraft said. “On the other hand I’ve seen groups literally fall on the ground trying to get away from our chainsaw guys. I think the scarier one really depends on the person, but those are by far our two most consistently scary scenes.”
After years of helping out with Wicked Woods, Ashcraft said he still doesn’t understand the appeal of getting scared.
“I personally don’t really get it, but ‘scaring’ is a huge industry and for whatever reason people love it,” Ashcraft said. “My guess would be people love the adrenaline rush when they get scared. You also have the guys that bring girls out so they can be the hero and not be scared. Those are my favorite guys to scare.”