Madeleine Coles

News Editor

What do you do with a creepy old building?” That was the question Zac Shumway asked himself after leasing what used to be an old restaurant on Fifth Avenue. The natural answer: turn it into a haunted house.

Zac and his wife Amy, with help from their children, turned the abandoned and somewhat rundown building into the Halloween attraction surprisingly missing from Pocatello until now.

The haunted house, which they dubbed “Fear on Fifth” fittingly opened on Friday the 13 and will run Thursday to Sunday until Oct. 29, when it will run every day until Nov. 1. 

According to Shumway, the attraction was almost entirely a “do it yourself” endeavor, with most all of the work being done by himself, his family and a friend who helped with some of the more artistic aspects of the project.

The team mapped out a route through the building then built walls and decorated each room to ensure maximum scare potential. Although Shumway said he ended up spending well over a thousand dollars in props and decorations, they also utilized what they already had at their disposal.

What was once the restaurant’s kitchen is now a bloody room filled with chopped up “bodies”; a meat cooler features heavy fog and human-like shapes hanging from hooks; even the restrooms have been put to fearful use.

“It’s a pretty scary building just by itself,” Shumway said. “I walked through with my kids in the dark, and it’s a lot bigger than you realize. It’s pretty creepy.”

The number of people scaring customers varies by night, as it is operated by volunteers, but there are usually around 15 actors working in the building. However, Shumway said he anticipates 20 to 25 volunteers working on and around Halloween. Actors range from the young kids of the Shumway family to middle aged engineers looking to get a good scare out of the citizens of Pocatello.

And, according to Shumway, they succeed.

“I would say the majority of people that come through here- they scream,” he said.

Shumway added that he would like to keep the attraction going next year, if this year proves to be profitable enough.

“There’s nothing tricky about making hallways and scaring people,” he said. “It’s just having enough people to pay for the building for the year. If I can do other things and keep the building paid for then hopefully next year it will be even bigger.”

Even with the approximate ten minute walk through the attraction is now, Shumway said he sees lots of room for expansion. But he spent about a month setting up the attraction and modifying the building to create a path.

“We put a lot of time into just a lot of little things,” Shumway said, including a drop down wall piece and electronic spiders. He added that anyone in Pocatello is welcome to visit, as they tone down some of the scares for small children.

“And,” he added, “what else do you do during Halloween?”