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Photos by Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Liberty University student Brent Helton dresses as Michael Myers, a character from the 'Halloween' movie series.

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• Experience ScareMare from the inside

ScareMare

Since opening in 1972, more than 300,000 people from various states have toured ScareMare. Friday and Saturday night attendance averages more than 1,500 people.

If you go

• Location: 2300 Carroll Avenue, Lynchburg
• Cost: $8 per person
• Proceeds: After covering operating costs, proceeds go to the Liberty University youth ministry center or into the university's general fund.
• Dates: ScareMare's final days of operation for the year are Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
• Hours: The house opens at dusk. Those in line by 11 p.m. are allowed to take the tour.

LYNCHBURG -- Lighted torches glow on each side of the fogged-over entry gate. Then comes the graveyard marked with crooked tombstones leading to the house -- weather-beaten, windows boarded, two stories tall and creepy.

The pre-Halloween sky is blue-black. A half moon is visible through the trees.

Shortly before showtime, a young man -- a stage manager type -- stands among the headstones and makes an announcement to the lost soul crouched beside an open grave, to the pale-faced guy carrying a severed arm and the young girl sitting upright in her burial plot, hair littered with dirt and dead leaves.

"You're amazing, and I love you guys, and we've got a group coming pretty soon," he says, exuberant.

Inside this empty house rumored to have been a day care center, an orphanage and the site of at least one death, nearly 200 students and volunteers from Liberty University gather on October weekends to run ScareMare, a haunted house.

This Halloween marks ScareMare's 35th anniversary, drawing more than 300,000 visitors since 1972. Although those who operate the house that attracts roughly 20,000 visitors each fall from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and as far away as New Jersey and Canada attend a campus founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, there's no shortage of blood.

Freddy Kruger is here with razor-blade fingers. As is the ghoul from "Scream." Outside, anticipating the night's first group and sporting bloody gashes across his face, Jesus waits on the cross.

"It's really an evangelistic event," said robe-clad Jesus -- 22-year-old Liberty senior Douglas Slachter. "The majority of it is reaching out to those who don't know Christ."

Although some conservative Christians view Halloween as a pagan holiday and promote harvest festivals instead, ScareMare feeds people's appetites for being freaked by the undead. After drawing people to the house, volunteers hope to lead them to Christ.

Although it's not the only Christian-themed house -- some that followed nationwide include anti-abortion scenes -- ScareMare was perhaps the original.

On the inside, the house is full of dark, zero-visibility mazes, strobe-lit rooms and dressed-up ghouls jumping from dark doorways.

Outside, it's a makeshift ministry. After exiting the house and passing Jesus -- long-haired, wearing a crown of thorns and slumped on the cross -- visitors follow a leaf-strewn path to lighted tents where Liberty students lead prayer.

Guests leave with business cards referring them to Web sites such as allaboutgod.com and pamphlets titled "How to begin your relationship with Jesus Christ ScareMare Edition."

"If there's even one person who has come to know Jesus Christ as their savior ... ," began 21-year-old ScareMare volunteer Jake Whitman. "That's the only reason why we do this house."

Last year at ScareMare, 4,300 people professed spiritual decisions. More than 3,100 left contact information with volunteers and were counseled.

"We want them to realize that each of us has to someday face our mortality," said Steve Vandegriff, who directs Liberty's Center for Youth Ministries, which operates the house. "From a Christian perspective, we feel faith in Christ is the only answer to the questions of what happens when we pass away."

Inside the house, there's little mention of Jesus. Groups shuffle inside, like visitors do at any haunted house. On-edge couples grab hands. Kids cling to mom and dad's shirts.

"He's coming!" student volunteers shout, doused in stage blood (ScareMare's flavor of choice: zesty mint.)

"Someone save me, please!" an actor calls from one room, his voice drowned by screams as he drops from a hangman's noose.

In the chain room, walls are lined by upright coffins, a student in each. The smack of chains against a metal folding chair cues the lights for a split second. Coffin dwellers lurch at guests, making boys to grown men yelp.

One coffin-confined student wears a Bill Clinton mask with exaggerated features.

"Bill Clinton's pretty scary, if you ask me," one volunteer says between groups.

But 20-year-old Philip Passopulo gets the most screams. He cackles and gets in the faces of guests.

"He scared the s--- out of me," one visitor says of the Liberty freshman.

Between groups, Passopulo boasts of making a boy cry. He calls scaring one group "pretty awesome." To increase the fear factor, he a wears a metallic mask from the movie "300."

Appropriately, the mask was worn by the character "The Uber Immortal."

Meanwhile, out back, Slachter, as Jesus, lifts his head and asks about the crowd. There's a steady flow, even on a Thursday. On Saturdays, people wait up to five hours to enter the house. Saturday brought 4,300 guests -- ScareMare's largest-ever one-night total.

But even Slachter knows ScareMare isn't for everyone, he says above the recorded sound of whipping wind.

Some curse at him as he grips the cross, saying Jesus at a haunted house is "just wrong."

Others take long, contemplative looks while passing.

Conversely, one man approached Slachter on ScareMare's first weekend and gave him a hug.

Farther down, in the preaching tents, volunteer Whitman holds his Bible and compares heaven with the haunted house.

There's a room in the house with multiple doors, he explains to a group, but only one leads out.

"It represents the one way to heaven," he says. "That way is Jesus Christ."

Following Whitman's lead, the group -- some in Liberty sweat shirts, one wearing a Coors Light T-shirt -- bows heads and prays.

Those wanting more information are directed to the nearby resource table.

ScareMare draws youth groups, those who say they are already saved, proclaimed Christians. Many know its message -- it's preaching to the choir, so to speak.

"It's very good to bring God ... to anybody who's willing to listen," said Bedford resident Will Robertson, 31, after visiting.

Others called the message "kind of awkward," to "nice."

But religion is not forced upon anyone -- there is, after all, an $8 admission charge -- volunteer Mike "Rabbi" Sandal said.

ScareMare, the Liberty senior explained, seeks only true-believing Christians.

"We're certainly not saying, 'Turn or burn,' " he said. "Forced faith is no faith at all."

Back in the house, Roni Dunbar, a 19-year-old Liberty sophomore from Vinton, waited in a dark corner for visitors.

Killing time, she showed off her injuries. There's a bruise on her arm. She scared a teenager so much that she got punched in the throat -- twice.

All the pain, she said, is for a higher purpose.

"People are getting saved," she explained. "And that's our goal."