NORTH CENTER — Basements are universally creepy and the one at St. Benedict church is no exception.
Thanks to Harrison Ornelas, it's now downright frightening.
A senior at Columbia College majoring in production design, Ornelas is the mastermind behind St. Ben's all new Fright Walk, reviving the church's haunted house tradition after more than a decade's hiatus.
Ornelas, who attended St. Ben's school through eighth grade and graduated from Lane Tech in 2011, said he remembers being carried through the old haunted house by his mom as a youngster.
"I was clinging to her," he said. "I had my face buried."
Ornelas is hoping to produce the same reaction with Fright Walk, which debuts Friday and runs Saturday, Sunday and the Thursday before Halloween at the church, 2215 W. Irving Park Road.
"I'm terrified," he said of opening night nerves. "But it's a different kind of scary."
"His love for sets is exactly what we needed," said St. Ben's pastor, Fr. Jason Malave, who recruited Ornelas for the gig last spring, stopping the youth in his tracks as he rode past the church on his bike.
"Honestly, the aspect of getting college students engaged in parish life was the primary driver" for bringing back the haunted house, Malave confessed.
Once on board, Ornelas set about researching scare tactics — "I've been reading a lot of articles on 'how to do a jump scare'" — and scouting his location.
"I came down here and sat alone with a flashlight and a sketch pad," he said. "I had to absorb the whole space and figure out things like where I could put a wall."
He created a storyline — industrial workers got trapped in the basement and mutated into zombies — and put his Columbia training to use building and painting walls, hanging spider webs and mixing up batches of fake blood.
"There were a lot of nights I was working alone, and a couple of times it was a little unnerving," said Ornelas. "The pipes hiss, the boiler kicks in, there are a lot of bump-in-the-night things."
The Fright Walk, like all haunted houses, plays on universal fears: fear of the dark and fear of the unknown.
"The best kind of tool is that it's disorienting," Ornelas said of the twisty path he devised. "No one knows this layout, that's a big fear inducer."
Should Fright Walk prove a hit with audiences, Ornelas is already making plans for a sequel.
"I know places where it can be improved. It's the first year, and I had to swallow that and know I couldn't do everything," he said. "If it does catch on, it can only get better."
Proceeds from the haunted house will help St. Ben's eighth-graders pay for their class trip to Washington, D.C. Ornelas volunteered all his services for free, though he does now have a new credit to add to his resume.
"I'm not getting paid," said Ornelas. "My reward comes in heaven, Fr. Jason says."
Fright Walk runs 7-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 7:30-10 p.m. Sunday; and 3-10 p.m. Thursday, 2215 W. Irving Park Rd. Cost is $8 per person, $5 on Sunday. Tickets can be purchased in advance online.
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