Powell High School students decided to give community members a good spring spook on April 15.

The Spring Scream Haunted House is the Powell High School Drama Club’s way of having a little fun with their fundraising. The original idea was to host the haunted house over April Fools’ Day, but some horrific late winter weather forced the students to save their screams for another day. The haunted house sold tickets at $8 a pop and ran from 8:30-11 p.m. to account for the fact that the typical April evening does not get very dark or spooky.

“There’s not necessarily a theme like we do in the fall, but it’ll have all kinds of disturbing entities in there. So chainsaws and the whole nine yards,” drama coach Jeff Greaham said ahead of the event.

Just an hour before the haunted house began students dressed as bloody ghouls were hanging the final cobwebs and cackling about the mayhem to come. 

In a trashbag-lined hallway, senior Joe Bucher waved a rusted old shop ruler that had been conditioned and painted to look like a bloody knife, while he explained to two underclassmen that they will have to gently but firmly chase patrons into a particular section. He had done this before, he said, and they will not want to go. 

The Spring Scream allowed students to blow off some steam ahead of their big spring show while also raising money for production costs. In May the students will be performing the classic 1946 play “Annie Get Your Gun.”

“There’s lot’s of period costumes and props and things like that and anything that’s stamped with Buffalo Bill on it is kind of pricey,” Greaham said.

On the evenings of May 5-6 the community can come see the drama club’s hard work pay off. There will be a large cast with lots of dancing and traditional songs, Greaham said.