Philanthropy features chain saws, severed appendages

By Gwen Daniels

Published Oct. 30, 2007

Hanging meat and severed appendages, a man in an electric chair, and a surgeon with a saw instead of a scalpel haunt the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

The Sigma Alpha Epsilon Haunted House on the Hill promises to frighten visitors.

The haunted house, which opened Friday, Oct. 26, will continue tonight and Wednesday.

All proceeds from the haunted house benefit the Children's Miracle Network, an alliance of children's hospitals across the United States and Canada.

The MU Children's Hospital on campus belongs to the network.

Although the event takes place at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house, the ghosts and goblins haunt the woods and trail outside.

"It's more like a haunted trail than a haunted house," Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity member Alex Apter said.

The trail connects freestanding theme rooms, built from scratch by the fraternity members.

The house "starts out with a bang" in the maze room, where a costumed character with a chain saw chases visitors through a twisting maze, Sigma Alpha Epsilon vice president Tony Adams said.

From there, guests explore rooms such as the butcher shop, dungeon, graveyard, hospital, mask room and clown room.

Adams said he avoids the clown room.

"Everybody hates clowns," he said. "It's really, really creepy."

The haunted house ends in the chain saw room, where a man with a chain saw sends visitors running "all the way down to Taco Bell," Adams said.

Special effects add to the fear factor.

"We use a lot of fog lights, strobe lights and fog machines. A lot of fog machines," recruitment chairman Alex Ettinger said. "A lot of the rooms are closed in with tarps, and we use smoke machines. It gets really cloudy, and you can barely see anything. It's pretty crazy."

The legends surrounding the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house gave rise to the haunted house philanthropy, Ettinger said.

"Rumor is that our frat house is haunted," Ettinger said. "It's an old Civil War hospital; you can tell that the basement used to be a crematory or something like that. There are tons of ghost stories about it."

The fraternity starts preparing the haunted house at the beginning of October, Apter said.

"All the brothers get together and work on it every day all month long," Apter said. "Every day you're on the trail, probably three to four hours a day. It definitely takes a lot of time."

Ettinger said the freshman pledge class creates many of the plans.

"They're the guys that put it on," Ettinger said. "The older brothers help a lot, but the pledges basically help design the whole thing."

Members of the fraternity also run the haunted house. Some brothers scare visitors inside the rooms or on the trail, Apter said.

Others act as tour guides or run the ticket booth.

Apter said college students and community members alike visit the haunted house, which has been a tradition in Columbia for more than 20 years.

Apter said this past year, when he was setting up the haunted house, "I had 10-year-old kids coming up and asking me when it was going to be open."

Still, Apter said some visitors call the haunted house even scarier than professional haunted houses.

"We definitely hear a lot of screams," he said. "You hear girls screaming constantly."

About 200 people toured the house during the weekend, Apter said.

He said he anticipates at least 300 guests on Halloween.

Tickets cost $5 and can be purchased at the house.