The Haunted Basement Before the public had even seen the Haunted Basement last year, it was thrust into legendary status. There were rumors that it had been shut down before opening in 2006 because it was "too scary" (actually, it was due to fire code violations). Others pointed out that the Soap Factory required a signed waiver at the door. When the art center's Halloween exhibition finally opened in 2007, the waivers were dutifully enforced, and the Haunted Basement lived up to its scary hype.
In an added twist for 2008, the Soap Factory's press release states that the Basement is currently being investigated by the "Twin Cities Paranormal Society," although no information verifying this was immediately available. The already-creepy basement -- 12,000 square feet formerly used as a real soap factory and a railroad storage site -- is filled with artist-created pieces brought together by creator Chris Pennington. Last year's artists made "installations" including an upside-down cornfield and corpse-filled body bags swinging from the ceiling, so it's more about the bizarre and creepy than gore and cheap scare tactics.
Last year's event drew more than 3,000 people and sold out some nights, so it's suggested that you buy tickets in advance.
Jahna Peloquin
Zombie Pub Crawl 4
Who knew there were so many beer-loving zombies out there? The organizers of the annual Zombie Pub Crawl -- where participants don gruesome makeup and fake blood -- sure didn't. While this bar-hop has doubled in size each year, it started out on a whim three years ago. After watching George Romero's 2005 film "Land of the Dead" at Block E, Claudia Holt and her group of friends were just goofing around, acting like zombies as they left the theater. "Then someone said, 'This would be more fun if we were drunk,'" Holt recalls.
And the Zombie Pub Crawl was born. The first two crawls lurched through northeast Minneapolis, but they moved the route last year to the West Bank area to accommodate the surprising swell of zombified bar-hoppers. An estimated crowd of 1,500 will meet Saturday in Gold Medal Park (next to the Guthrie) for what they call "the undeadening." Zombies will do last-minute touch-ups on costumes and get final instructions before swarming the streets. The crawl will leave the park when co-organizer Chuck Terhark gets on the bullhorn, rallying the horde with the crawl's official zombie cry:
"What do we want?" "Brains!" "When do we want them?" "Brains!"
The crawl will end at the Cabooze, where Dance Band and MC/VL will perform. Getting there might be hard, however. Terhark said the crawl's itinerary is a loose one, as zombie pub crawlers are traditionally hard to pin down, wandering where ever they may.
