Scary Resurrection
Published 6:44 pm Wednesday, October 13, 2010
WESSON – They call her the Bride.
Clothed in a flowing white dress and covered with a thin veilthat cascades down from her black hair and whitened face, she isperfectly motionless – seemingly floating just a few feet off theground.
The screams of terror and unwanted excitement from otherfrightful chambers echo through the damp corridors. But in thisnarrow room, with this figure, there’s almost a sense of peaceemanating from her perfect stillness.
Is she alive? Is she even real? One has to move in for a closerlook to learn the truth.
Suddenly, the Bride moves. People step backwards, alarmed.That’s when someone in a goblin mask, hiding in the shadows thewhole time, springs into action with a terrible scream.
The tour comes unraveled with dread and runs out of the room, onto the maze’s next location to be shocked by another dark figure inthe basement of Wesson’s old school.
Tip Prasertsith – the Bride – adjusts her harness with a grinand reassumes her unmoving state, ready to draw in the next grouptaking a preview tour of the Old School Resurrection haunted house,located on Eighth Street.
“It’s fun, and it’s scary. People are going to be scared todeath,” said Tip, 16, a Wesson Attendance Center exchange studentfrom Thailand.
Old School Resurrection is the Wesson Chamber of Commerce’sfirst attempt at hosting a haunted house for Halloween, butorganizers are expecting enterprise to make up forinexperience.
The great scare is composed of an approximately 20-minute tourof 18 rooms where more than 50 local volunteers, hidden in devilishcostumes and moist with the blood of their temporary victims, actout some type of horror or nightmare.
Old School Resurrection will be open to the public during thelast two weekends of October, starting Oct. 21, 22 and 23 andculminating on Oct. 28, 29 and 30. Admission is $5. The hauntedhouse operates from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday nights and from 6p.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.
The last night, Oct. 30, will see the attraction run from 6 p.m.until “we scare the last victim,” said chamber clerk JudyDelaney.
“It is spooky,” she said. “We’re asking for kids 14 and under tohave an adult with them. It’s going to be that spooky and thatgory.”
Delaney reservedly gave Old School Resurrection a 7-out-of-10score, but the chamber’s expectations show organizers have muchmore faith in their creation than that. The chamber is hoping toraise around $25,000 from the haunted house, a mark that wouldrequire 5,000 visitors to hit.
Old School Resurrection couldn’t be hosted in a better location,spread across the black, musty basement level of the 100-year-oldold Wesson school, a long-dormant citadel of a building known forhaunts of its own.
Apparently, those haunts responded when volunteers moved in tobegin setting up their attraction. Wesson firefighter Lee Bradfordsaid he and his crew heard whispers and voices echoing through theschool when they were the only people there.
“We even heard the piano playing,” he said. “The place has itsown character.”
Chamber volunteer Mark Hamilton remembers Boy Scout meetings inthe old school years ago, and even then “you could hear all kindsof weird noises” there. But the school’s ghost stories just add toOld Resurrection, which he believes will be highly successful.
“Expect to be frightened in every way,” Hamilton said. “Getready to run and scream.”