The build for Chestermere’s annual Haunted House is underway and it is sure to spook anyone who dares enter.
“I’ve always loved Halloween,” said Halloween enthusiast “Dr. Giggles,” or Mike Koroll.
“I just like the season,” he said, “I like the chill in the air, and the leaves falling, something always excited me about Halloween.
“It’s a good excuse for everyone to have a good time,” Koroll said.
“I dabbled with decorating for Halloween since the mid 1990’s, as I was able to pull my neighbours in it got a little easier to go bigger,” Koroll said.
He added, that one person can’t build and host a haunted house themselves, and since his neighbours enjoy Halloween and building the haunted house it was a perfect match.
“As it gets bigger, you have to surround yourself with more talented people to get stuff done,” he said.
About half of Koroll’s street is involved with the haunted house, and love it, they all have nicknames for each other now, Koroll added, “We’re next level.”
However, this year Koroll had to overcome challenges which put him and his building team of neighbours behind schedule. Koroll had been waiting to purchase a carnival style tent, which took longer than expected.
While waiting for the tent, Koroll and his neighbours began working nonstop to get everything ready.
“There’s so much preparation behind the scenes, I’ve been working on stuff since April,” Koroll added, “We started building corpses, boxes, and wheels of pain.
“It’s a lot of hard ware involved. Every piece you see I had to talk to somebody to figure out where we were going to get the wheel of pain, hunting down bearings, how do I make it drive. There’s so much behind the scenes it’s a real time eater,” he said.
Koroll spends all year researching and coming up with new ideas for the haunted house.
“We’re all looking on Pinterest, talking to buddies, we’re sharing ideas out of our sick twisted minds. I just try to pull the best ideas that I hear.
“It certainly doesn’t all come from me, you have to be able to recognize what the really good ideas are, and take the very best ideas, weather there Dangerous Dave’s, Deadly Darrel’s, or mine, at the end of the day its what’s going to scare people the best, what’s going to look super awesome, and mind blowing,” he said.
Another challenge Koroll has to overcome each year is the expense it costs to host a haunted house.
“It’s so expensive to put one on, when I initially started I used to just pay for everything and then it got out of hand as it got bigger.
“This year we did a pub night fundraiser, and we put a float in the parade this year which was a big success, we got first place,” Koroll added, “I want to create a buzz and have everyone have a real blast. This year I’m hoping to get 5000 out this year.”
Along with the haunted house Koroll is also hosting a pumpkin carving contest.
On Oct. 23 at 5 p.m., 100 donated pumpkins will drop, and families are encouraged to snag a pumpkin, take it home, carve it, and bring it back for a chance to win a prize.
“If people aren’t here in time to get a pumpkin they are more than welcome to pick up their own, carve it out, and bring it back with their name and phone number on the bottom,” Koroll added.
Last year, Koroll’s pumpkin carving contest didn’t go as expected, as he was having difficulties reaching the right people.
“We were trucking pumpkins up every night into the haunted house, through the maze to get them out of the frost, so they weren’t ruined
“The way I envisioned it was there’s a crowd of people waiting and as soon as the pumpkins are unloaded their scrambling for the best pumpkin,” Koroll said.
Koroll added he wants to create a good feeling in the community and get every member of the family involved in the Halloween activities.
“I would like it to be kids carving them, that’s the idea, to bring the kids into the fun because Halloween night we’re usually scaring them to death,” he said.
Koroll’s neighbour and haunted house builder “Dangerous Dave” or Dave Curda said the reason the haunted house keeps coming back is because everyone involved likes Halloween.
“It’s a bonus that we can actually help out the food bank,” Curda added, “It’s our own personal goal that we try to up the weight every year.
“It’s going to be tough because last year was 1600 lbs. Every year we try to make it bigger and better so people bring more,” Curda said.
Throughout the last two weekends leading up to Halloween day families can walk through the haunted house by bringing a food or cash donation for the Chestermere Food Bank from 7:30 p.m., until 9:30 p.m.
There will also be food trucks, a fire pit for everyone to keep warm, and a real nasty house of pain.
For more information about Chestermere’s annual Haunted House please visit the Dr. Giggles House of Pain Chestermere Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/DRGIGGLESHOUSE.
