University of Rhode Island students experienced a night of frights on Oct. 23 at the haunted house event hosted by Brothers on A New Direction.
The organization kicked off their B.O.N.D. week celebration at the Multicultural Student Services Center with a series of thrilling Halloween theme events. The haunted house event has been a tradition since the beginning of B.O.N.D. week. The event took place from 8 p.m. until 10 p.m. and was free to all URI students.
The brotherhood began decorating the MSSC with frightening halloween decorations at 6:30 p.m. Third-year B.O.N.D. Alumni Chair Jeffrey Douglas said that the event set-up finished at around 8:10 p.m. – 10 minutes later than the initial event start time.
“We really just used what we had to make the best out of it and give them a good haunted house,” said Douglas.
Fourth-year B.O.N.D. Vice President David Osuji said that the brothers bought some additional decorations as well with their funding account.
“We tried our best to make it as a haunted house as a bunch of college students trying to get the community together and have fun,” Douglas said.
In groups, students were guided through the MSSC by a brotherhood member. Inside, students saw spooky decorations and B.O.N.D. brothers dressed in fighting costumes with a goal of scaring the URI students.
First-year Gary Cleveland screamed so loud, one of the scarers called him a “little girl,” according to Cleveland.
“I didn’t know if I was scared, happy or sad and every time there was a jump scare I would scream,” said Cleveland. “But it was a lot of fun, I give them a lot of credit, it was a great time. Overall we had a blast!”
At 9 p.m., the line had formed almost down to the quad. To keep students in line entertained, B.O.N.D. brothers scare students to give them a taste of what was to come inside.
First-year Gianluca Albanese said the scariest part of the event was the man in the orangutan costume. Albanese was so frightened that he lost his shoe and had to go back into the event to find it.
The man behind the orangutan costume was first-year B.O.N.D. prospect Delvin Tavernas. Tavernas said he was told he would be walking around during the event and saw it best fit to scare people dressed as an orangutan.
“My best scare of the night has been where they have me hide behind a wall and as the people go by they see me,” Tavernas said. “Then I run towards them and they start getting scared as I’m just chasing them.”
With only 30 minutes left of the event, the line to enter the haunted house still awaited 50 people. Osuji said he was stressed and shocked to see how long the line was.
“We did not expect such a huge turnout, but we’re trying to run groups of ten or larger,” Osuji said. “We are trying to give the people what they want and let everybody in so we’ll see what happens.”
Osuji said that the event turned out to be spectacular.
“First of all, the turnout was a lot larger than we expected and through personal review of people who have actually gone through it, we improved a lot from last year,” Osuji said. “I’d say for what we could have done in our ability it was 10 out of 10.”
To learn more about upcoming B.O.N.D. events, visit the brotherhood instagram @bondbrotherhood.