AMHERST – If you hear screaming at the Amherst Centre Mall this weekend, don’t be alarmed.
It’s just people being scared silly for the second straight year at the 2017 Great Amherst Scarefest, taking place inside where Shoppers Drug Mart used to be.
Kelly Brine, one of the creators and a co-ordinator of the Haunted Scarefest, works at the bookstore at the Amherst Centre Mall and often heard screams emanating from the Scarefest last year.
“Last year when we put it on I could hear the screaming all the way up the hallway at the bookstore,” said Brine.
She said it went over so well last year that they extended the 2016 Scarefest to Sunday.
They did the same this year, starting Wednesday and running until Sunday. This year’s show has more creative ways to terrify people.
“The first thing you go through is a cemetery, and then you go through a haunted forest, which upon you come across Esther Cox’s house, and next to Esther’s house is a haunted playground,” said Brine.
The tour also includes a circus with scary clowns, a zombie pit, an asylum, a morgue, and much, much more.
Wednesday afternoon, soon after the opening of the Haunted Scarefest, Aleisha MacAskill and Kristy VanSnick, both adults, emerged from the Scarefest screaming.
“Me and my family just drove up from Moncton for it,” said MacAskill. “The asylum and the clowns scared me the most.”
VanSnick is from Amherst and said the show was put together really well.
“I went through it twice already,” said VanSnick. “You never know what’s coming up or what’s around the next turn.”
The cost is $5 for teens and adults, and $3 for kids.
“This year we put a cost to it so we can earn back what we have spent out of our own pockets to buy decorations,” said Brine. “Whatever we make this year, half will go to a charity and the other half will go towards getting stuff for next year.”
Last years Scarefest was where the Bluenotes clothing store used to be, but this year they upgraded to the former Shoppers Drug Mart Store.
“We’ll probably be in the same place next year but, hopefully, if we can keep it going and get bigger and better, if there’s nothing there, we want to take over Zellers.”
The Haunted Scarefest for kids 12-and-under is Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The show for teens and adults runs Thursday and Friday from 4 to 9 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 3 to 6 p.m.
