With a new assistant director of Campus Life leading the way, Haunted Cretin went a different direction this year with a new date, Nov. 1, and a new theme.
The theme consisted of rooms connected together by a story threaded by Gimley, a horror movie character, instead of different rooms filled with various Halloween gags such as the electric chair.
“This year, we … planned a consistent theme throughout the event. (It’s) essentially one story that continues in each room of the Cretin basement,” Joseph Anderson, assistant director of Campus and Residence Life, said.
Anderson said he held a dress rehearsal and tested groups before the actual date. Cretin Residence Hall staff and some volunteers came together to brainstorm for the event’s theme.
St. Thomas students were invited into the transformed Cretin Hall Thursday night instead of Halloween because the Haunted Cretin staff did not want it to conflict with any other events on campus that day, namely the Ireland Hall Halloween dance.
In the first room, students viewed a short horror video featuring Cretin Hall and its residents. The main character, Gimley, popped out from inside the cabinet that video was projected on. Gimley followed students and appeared multiple times through the maze-like event.
Although the staff attempted to convey a consistent theme to the visitors, sophomore Brendan Sisombath said he did not realize that he was seeing the same characters and theme throughout.
“The rooms had a separate theme and weren’t connected to each other,” Sisombath said.
The event included strobe lights, moving walls, a loud buzzing TV, inspired from horror movies, and many rooms that are related to one another under a unifying theme.
Volunteers, Cretin Hall and Grace Hall resident advisors, and Anderson prepared since the start of school.
In case students got too scared or felt like they were going to get sick, the staff came up with a safe word, “Nebraska,” which would stop the tour.
Alexandra Stinson can be reached at stin5673@stthomas.edu.
I thought the theme throughout Haunted Cretin was very consistent. There were only two characters throughout the event, the main one being Mr. Gimley, and the other being a grandmother who eerily watched static on an old TV. All the Mr. Gimley’s wore the same outfit which consisted of a blue jump suit covered in red paint to look like blood, black rubber gloves and a white mask similar to the one Michael Myers wore in the movie, Halloween. Of course it was very dark in the basement so it might have been hard to see who and what you were looking at.
The audio that was played during Haunted Cretin was based off the track, “What’s He Building In There?” by musician Tom Waits. Most of the rooms were based off this song although South Campus made it their own by adding their own unique ideas to the rooms.
As a senior who has been to all of the Haunted Cretins throughout my college career here at UST, I believe that this year’s show was the best so far and it will be interesting to see how South Campus makes it better next year.