A person dressed as a menacing skeleton stands in front of Laura Jackson's red-dyed swimming pool at her haunted house in Tempe. (Photo courtesy of Laura Jackson)Whether a project is created out of passion or necessity is apparent in the quality of the work.
ASU alumna and Tempe resident Laura Jackson's passion is the spooky spirit of Halloween, and the product is her inaugural donation-based and frighteningly impressive haunted house, hosted out of her home at 941 E. Lamplighter, off of Rural Road, just south of Baseline Road.
Last weekend, several rooms in Jackson’s house were transformed into scary movie scenes complete with an eerie tour guide, live actors and video and light effects.
For Jackson, the idea of creating the haunted house wasn’t difficult to come up with; it was something she wanted to do for several years.
“I’ve always loved Halloween and creepy stuff. Over the years, I’ve accumulated lots of decorations, especially after Halloween when it’s clearance,” Jackson said.
The only problem was finding an inexpensive way to black out the walls of the entire house so that it was actually scary.
When she found an entire bolt of black fabric for $7 at Goodwill, Jackson knew it would be the year to execute the idea she had dreamed of creating for years.
Once the walls were taken care of, it was time to figure out how to scare the attendees.
Some of the rooms of the house are reminiscent of classic horror movie scenes from “The Ring,” “It” and “The Shining.” Others were random nightmarish ideas thought up by Jackson and her friends.
“I have seen a lot of horror films and so have my friends, and we all just collected our ideas together,” Jackson said. “We wanted it to be super cool but not so hard we couldn’t do it.”
Jackson’s roommate, who also attended ASU, was more than willing to help, and she is one of the actors featured in the haunted house. Her family members also acted and did make-up.
“She’s just so cool, she let me take control of everything,” Jackson praised.
The actors in the house range from ages 7 to 30. The children are very convincing and seem to have a lot of fun participating.
Another free and non-commercial haunted house in Tempe is “Terror Nights” near Jackson’s at 511 E. La Donna Drive.
Jackson thinks it would be great if she could get more houses to participate and create an entire spooky neighborhood in the future.
“It would be like the neighborhoods that go all out for Christmas lights, but with haunted houses,” Jackson said. “There are houses that are big and elaborate but really expensive to go through.”
Jackson will be hosting the haunted house on Wednesday and again on Friday and Saturday night. Each night runs from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The house is free to go through but cash donations are accepted.
Reach the reporter at lindsey.lucero@asu.edu
