Indigenous students' haunted house spooky enough to scare Ellen's producer? They think so

A group of about two dozenhigh school students fromSunchild First Nation along with their industrious social studies teacherhave been sending videos to Ellen DeGeneres trying to convince her to send her easily-spooked executive producer, Andy Lassner, to visit their homemade haunted house after being inspired by the show's annual tradition.

Ellen has been sending Lassner to haunted houses for several years during the Halloween season often with a Hollywood star sidekick. Lassner'sheart-stopping and often curse-filled reactions are filmed and then posted on YouTube.

Kjeryn Bateman, a senior high social studiesteacher for the Sunchild First Nation School, said she started watching Lassner's videos in university when she needed a good laugh.

When she started working on the First Nation, located near Rocky Mountain House, in 2016, she decided to use the videos to inspire her students to work together tomake their own haunted house and spook community members.

"I've had students that previously didn't talk so much in class or you know weren't really involved as much and to see them like bond with other students make new friendships and then just to see them take charge in different events is just amazing," said Bateman.

Three years later the First Nation's haunted houses have become more elaborate, the crowds and the number of students involved havegrown, and what once was just a Halloween event has evolved into year-round community building.

So,Bateman urged the students to invite Lassner this year on Twitter by producing more than 30 videos that showcase the First Nation and their haunted house with several Ellen-related hashtags, so they could thank him.

And spook him, of course.

"It would be cool if he came here because normally he goes like these huge Hollywood ones and they've got professional actors and makeup and like huge amazing sets and they look awesome," said Bateman, where admittedly she said their house is homemade, with a lot of dollar-store purchases.

Hauntingsuccess

Under Bateman's guidance, an ever-larger group of Grade 10 to12 students belong to a leadership council who meet twice a week.

They come up with a theme for the haunted house, design it, make the props and costumes, act in it and tour other students and community members through the dark maze.

This year's theme is Hollywood Horror which includes elements from a variety of horror movies including Scream, Saw, The Ringand American Horror Story.

"Most of my friends are in leadership soit's always fun to scare little kids with them," said Lillie Makinaw, 16.

After the success of their first haunted house, which had a clown theme, the teens began to host more events such as a Thanksgiving dinner, aValentine's dance, and an Easter egg hunt.

They also run the canteen at community bingos and special after school eventswhere the entire K-12 school is split up into different teams with Cree animalnames.

Bateman said the school spiritis needed for the community that usually attracts media attention for more traumatic and disturbing events.

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Grade 12 student DusteenBigchild has been with the leadership council since it started.

"I love everything about leadership [council]," said Bigchild.

"We wouldn't be who we are today and we wouldn't know anything about being a role model, a leader and kind to one another."

Bateman said it's been a joy watching her students come out of their shell and spread their new-found joy around the greater community.

Even if Lassner doesn't show up, students sayit's been a lot of fun rallying together, making andposting videos to try to get him to come.

"Everything we've done because of this so far, like building a bigger haunted house than ever, and making all these videos going to all these things and even having CBCNews come, this is such an opportunity for all of us that even if Ellen doesn't even notice us we've had a blast if she does come it will be the cherry on the cake,"said Trinity Hoover, Grade 11 student.

The Hollywood Horror haunted house isopen to the public.