Community members have one last chance to get spooked tonight at the eighth annual KTA Haunted House.
Community members have one last chance to get spooked tonight at the eighth annual KTA Haunted House.
The haunted house is open 5-9 p.m. at KTA’s Puainako store, 50 E. Puainako St. in Hilo. It is free, though non-perishable food donations for The Food Basket, Hawaii Island’s food bank, will be accepted at the entrance. Tonight wraps up the haunted house’s four-night run.
“It is spooky, creepy and moderately scary,” event organizer Tony Armstrong said about this year’s attraction. “And there are plenty of surprises.”
KTA began the annual event in 2010. Attendance has increased each year.
In 2016, it expanded for the first time to four nights in order to accommodate the larger crowds. Nearly 8,000 attended last year’s haunted house, with about 3,000 on Halloween night alone.
This year’s theme is “The Twilight Zone” in reference to the original science-fiction television series. There are “dozens of references to various ‘Twilight Zone’ episodes in the haunted house,” Armstrong said, which have seemed to be popular with attendees so far.
This year, the haunted house also featured for the first time a walk-through event for the public to learn about the exhibits and take pictures during the day without the haunts. Armstrong said he hopes to continue the walk-through exhibit next year.
“A huge amount of comments we get from the public are, they thank us for doing this because there’s not a lot of stuff going on in the community for Halloween that’s family oriented,” Armstrong said. “And (the haunted house) is free. So people are really grateful for KTA donating their time and energy and volunteering toward constructing and building and setting up.”
Email Kirsten Johnson at kjohnson@hawaiitribune-herald.com.