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Volume 38 Issue 4
October 17, 2000

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Spirited students slip into ‘The Realm’
MCC talent works at Valley haunted house for Halloween

BY LEAENNA M. EL GHALAYANI
MESA LEGEND
Submitted October 17, 2000

As the dusty old courtyard doors open, an eerie feeling fills the air and your heart feels like it is going to pound a hole in your chest.

Pushing and shoving their way down long corridors, a little girl shouts, “You go first!” Another girl responds, “No, you go first!”

In an instant, a gruesome creature with a black cape holding a sickle leaps toward the girls.

“The Realm,” a haunted-house attraction in Chandler, is in it’s fifth season in the Valley and will feature several MCC students this year playing the parts of scary demons and creatures.

It took a cast and crew of 29 people six weeks to set up the maze of haunted rooms and creepy corridors.

Kim Patterson/For the MESA LEGEND

Mike Lorg is one of many MCC students who plays a role in 'The Realm,' a Valley haunted house. Lorg sits in the electric chair every night.

Robert Black, the father of The Realm’s owner Craig Black, is in charge of the many electrical and mechanical features.

“I come up with ideas and he makes them work,” Robert said.

The castle’s exterior wall was used on a special Halloween episode of “Wheel of Fortune.” Robert said the prop was donated by the game show.

It takes approximately 20-25 minutes to walk through the entire attraction, but as Halloween approaches, Robert intends to add more rooms and halls to the attraction which would make the walk-through even longer.

Many of the MCC students working at The Realm are also involved with actions that occur behind the scenes. MCC student Kelly Wheeler is the stage manager. She is acquainted with Robert through a MCC play  called “Inspecting Carrol” in which they both participated.

Currently, Wheeler is working toward a technical theater degree. This is her second year working at The Realm as a stage manager.

“There’s an audience going through the whole thing versus just watching it,” said Wheeler of the audience’s physical participation in the attractions.

Mike McLaughlin, 24, a liberal arts student, is The Realm’s courtyard demon who also helps with the set’s special effects. McLaughlin said he enjoys getting an adrenaline rush from chasing or crawling after his potential victims.

“It’s tremendous fun,” McLaughlin said. “It’s like you’re playing, you’re not you. You get to be a different person.”

Michael Bethanceourt, a 24-year-old engineering student, strolls down the darkened halls on two foot stilts chasing after people and slapping walls. “I lurk around in the darkness,” Bethanceourt said. “They can’t see me, they can just hear me.”

“It’s fun,” said Robert Mellen, a mechanical-engineering major who was asked to return this year as the jester. “They go screaming and running through my room,” Mellen said.

Daniel Berry, 21, plays the swamp monster.

Berry said it is a thrill to scare people as they venture through his corner of the castle.

“When I jump out and see the people run down the hall it’s pretty amusing. Scaring people — that is fun, you have to admit that.”

The Realm is located on  the corner of Country Club Drive and Elliot Road, and is open every Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday from dusk to 11 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from dusk to 1 a.m. Tickets are $13 for adults and $7 for kids.

Black donates a total of $8,000 of The Realm’s proceeds to the Phoenix and Chandler Boys and Girls Clubs.

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