Reported by Anahi Avalos
Halloween is always celebrated with the haunting spirit of tricks and treats. A teacher on campus used to build a haunted house every Halloween with tricks that would make others scream and run from him, leaving him with all the treats. Mr. Shedd is a physics teacher that would use the components of physics to decorate his front yard, crafting every scary effect, room, decoration, and even costumes. Turning his own home into another world on Halloween night.
Mr. Shedd has been constructing his yearly haunted house since 1999 in Victoria, Texas, and continued to when he had moved to San Antonio, Texas until he stopped in 2012. “It all just started by me building a graveyard outside my house, dressing up and scaring people. But then I started to wonder, what if I assembled my house into one big haunted house?” Mr. Shedd said.
He would buy a bunch of materials to create petrifying props from scratch. One year he made a mirror room with an infinity mirror table, “It had a two way mirror at the top, so when you looked down at it, it looked bottomless.” Mr. Shedd described. He had made this mirror table by using physics, the reflections bounce off one another to create such illusions.
He also has made a polka dot room, “I painted the room black with white polka dots on the walls, Then I made a polka dot costume and had someone dress up in and blend in with the wall. So whoever enters and tries to find the door, a teacher in costume messes with them from all corners of the room, blocking the doorway as they try to escape!” Mr Shedd exclaimed.
Mr Shedd couldn’t run the haunted house alone, fortunately teachers at Madison were more than happy to volunteer to help. “Most teachers, especially science teachers, have participated in my haunted house by dressing up in each room, lots of kids scream and wail out the house, leaving all their candy for us.” Mr. Shedd said.
Mr. Shedd was thrilled and full of excitement throughout the whole process of making the haunted house, even if it was costly. “Buying the materials can be expensive all together, and took me a while to build and construct. I put a lot of my time and effort into this haunted house, and in the end it was worth it.” Mr. Shedd explained.
He’s created crafty horror costumes over the years. One year he was Buffalo Bill from Horror Franchise Silence of the Lamb. He also recalls making and dressing up in a bat costume, “I was crouching on top of a box I had, posing like a gargoyle, and people would just stare at me trying to figure out if I was a statue or not. I would catch them by surprise when I stood up and spread my wings out, all I’d hear were people screaming bloody murder!” Mr Shedd Said.
At the end of every Halloween night, Mr. Shedd his creatures of the night would celebrate their scares by ordering pizza and bags of candy retrieved from the floors of the rooms, Mr Shedd gets to have the tricks and the treats!
