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| NewsSaturday, October 20, 2007 10:58 PM CDT |
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Haunted house going out with a scream
BLOOMINGTON — If your idea of a good time is getting rattled by realistic-looking ghouls in professional stage settings with special effects designed to chill you to the bone, time is running out. | Video After 12 years, Creatures Crypt will haunt visitors for five more nights, ending Halloween Night. Co-founders John and Laura Dolan previously announced they want to spend more time with their family. They have four children. The dozen or so volunteers wearing black armbands one recent night, however, were not wearing them to signal the show’s pending curtain call: It was to honor the late Danne Buchanan, who died in August after being hit by a truck while attending a concert out of state. He was a central character and a key volunteer in Creatures Crypt. The entire last season of the show is dedicated to his memory. Buchanan was 6 feet 5 inches tall and 300 pounds, but in his costume his height was 10 to 11 feet tall, said his widow, Jennifer Buchanan of Fisher. “Danne was the main attraction — he was the Grim Reaper on stilts,” she said. “He built his own costume. It was all from scratch.” This season, his Grim Reaper costume was in a corner and only a small ghoulish creature came out of the folds of the garment. Honoring husband’s memory Jennifer Buchanan had never volunteered before, but she wanted to honor her husband’s memory by being there. Their son, Jordan, 20, of Rantoul, and their daughter, Danielle, 11½ of Fisher, also came. Among people in the makeup room one recent night before a show was Adam Shake of Normal, who relished a break from his day job behind a desk. He enjoyed “the fact I get to explore my dark side with my friends,” adding that the end of Creatures Crypt was “very sad.” Lacquer and carburetor thinner Another player, Alvin Moore, had eyeballs that were yellow and red. “A little lacquer, carburetor thinner — that stuff can’t hurt you, can it?” he quipped. “It’s a lot of fun to entertain people and to put fear in people.” Moore, who was wearing novelty contact lenses, is part of a group called Creatures of the Night from Decatur. Rosa Salzman, a former volunteer, flew in from Wyoming to volunteer two nights when she found out it was going to be the last Crypt. Her funniest memory was when she went to hand the rope to teenage girls to guide them through and “they all started backing away and falling over each other and screaming.” There are about two dozen core volunteers, but 200-plus volunteers help throughout October — 40 to 60 a night. Creatures Crypt works with nonprofit groups, whose proceeds depend on how many volunteer hours are worked. Frightful end for haunted house What: The last Creatures Crypt Haunted House When: 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday and Sunday; 7 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 7 to 10 p.m. Halloween Night Where: 1201 E. Bell St., Bloomington Cost: $11 Also: Lights-on, low-scare show for children from 1 to 3 p.m. Oct. 27; $5 for children and $2 for adults and free for children bringing an unwrapped gift E-mail this story | Print this story | Search archives | RSS Show comments |  Hide comments | Hide comments on all stories |
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