Decapitated baby dolls with blood painted on their necks are scattered among little kids behind bars, screaming and begging to be let out. A covered silver platter lies on a table in a dining room setting where the lid is lifted to reveal the main dish — a bloody head surrounded by eyeballs and raw heart-shaped meat. After two more rooms, the maze looms ahead, containing painted faces and monsters and a girl strapped to a chair with strobe lights flashing, revealing her electrified hair from the volts being shocked through her body.
Welcome to the Smith’s haunted house.
For the past four years on Oct. 31, visitors pay $4 before entering the Smith’s house on Longvalley Drive and are escorted to where sophomores Carly and Kathleen Smith have transformed their basement into a place where clowns wield chainsaws and heads are served for dinner. The money they have raised from their entrance fees has increased from $300 the first year to $1,200 last year. Each year, all of the money is donated to a different charity.
“If we were going to make [money] in return, then it just wouldn’t be the same,” said Carly. “It would be more like working for it and not just for fun to try to raise as much money as you can.”
Kathleen said they did not raise that much money the first year, yet they were still able to purchase a goat for a family in Africa through an organization called Heifer International. The second year, the Smith twins donated around $1,000 to Because of Collin, a charity that supported a Northbrook family to help pay for their son’s medical needs. Carly said despite the low turnout, many of the attendees donated more than the admission fee. The next Halloween, about $900 to $1,000 went to the Billy Garrity Foundation, another charity that is connected to the community.
When the Smith family fostered a child through Safe Families, an organization that helps parents who cannot financially support their children, they decided to donate the $1,200 to the child’s family.
“We had a little boy who was 10 months [old] during the time of the haunted house last year,” said Carly. “When he ended up moving back with his mom…we helped them pay for appliances and pots and pans and regular housing things that she could not afford.”
The tradition of hosting a haunted house for charity started as a haunted house themed birthday party in the twins’ basement. The party developed into a project where Carly and Kathleen go shopping for decorations on sale after Halloween and start the decorating process the next year in the beginning of September.
A group of 15 to 20 friends join the effort each year, dressing in costumes and doing homework in between shifts. Sophomore Kaylie Madden’s job has been to guide the spectators through the haunted basement, telling tales about each area.
“I think it’s a lot of fun when I get scared,” Madden said, referring to the characters that pop up in different spots every time.
“Someone popped out and this girl fell back and her foot fell through this pipe in the ground,” Madden said.
Kathleen said the incident happened in the unfinished part of the basement where there is an old lid covering one of the pipes in the floor.
“I guess my friend had popped out with a chainsaw and [the girl] just backed up right into [the covered pipe]. I think one of her legs fell in and it was sopping wet,” Carly said.
“We just couldn’t believe it happened,” said Madden. “We’re like, ‘What do we do? Do we go on or do we help her?’”
In the end, the person who initially scared the girl escorted her out of the basement. The pipe is now surrounded by bricks to ensure the same thing does not happen again.
“[The crew that operates the haunted house is] just a big group of friends and family working together for charity,” said Madden. “We’re not doing it to make money for ourselves, we’re doing it for our community. “[People] always want to go.”