Mount hosts post-apocalyptic haunted house

Mount Saint Vincent University was a spooky place on Saturday, as the university’s 11th annual haunted house brought out people looking for Halloween thrills.

Around 30 volunteers and the university’s student union staff spent Friday and Saturday turning parts of the Rosaria Student Centre into a post-apocalyptic, Area 51-themed haunted house.

Though Ryan Nearing says he isn’t someone who likes being scared, the Mount student union president did like seeing the student centre turned into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

“It’s cool … it’s a day-to-day working environment and it kind of helps us imagine what it would be like if there was an alien attack,” said Nearing.

In first part of the haunted house, people went through abandoned offices where desks and chairs were flipped.

Then visitors weaved through a world of frantic human survivors and zombie-like aliens, complete with strobe lights and hanging severed limbs.

Victoria Smith and Jayden Elliot went through the haunted house at least six times.

“It’s jump scary,” Elliot said. “There’s one part where this girl with a weird mouth bangs on the window and then someone chases you. But there’s other parts where people are just zombies.”

“The first three times I was almost ready to pee my pants,” said Smith. “But now it’s like, funny and scary.”

The $7 entrance fee, or $5 with a non-perishable food item or toiletry, was donated to Shelter Nova Scotia, an organization that helps homeless Nova Scotians.