Pell City Parks and Recreation employees Elliot Jacobik and Erika Young work on the Lakeside Trail of Nightmares, which opened Thursday night. The haunted trail ride is also open tonight and Saturday.
In Talladega, trick or treating in town will be Monday night, but those looking to get a jump on candy collection can head to the Armstrong-Osborne Public Library on South Street today, 3-4 p.m. Go back to the library at 4 p.m. Monday for a screening of “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”
The Talladega Parks and Recreation Department will host the annual flashlight candy hunt and new “haunted hay ride” Saturday night at the Ben Bruner Sports Complex, with the gates opening at 6 p.m. The events are open to children between the ages of 3 and 12, and tickets are $2 each for the hunt and hayride or $3 for a combined ticket. Tickets must be purchased at the Spring Street Recreation Center before the event.
The Munford Jaycees will be sponsoring their annual fall festival Sunday, 2-5 p.m., at the old Munford High School building.
On the Courthouse Square in Talladega, Monday night belongs to the “Sleepy Hollow Dega Fall Festival, with at least 18 local businesses (and two dental practices) giving out treats. Kids games are free, and it only costs $1 to participate in the cake walk, stroll through the haunted alley behind the Ritz Theatre or be in one of the two costume contests inside the Ritz (12 and under, 13 and over).
The overall theme of the event is taken from Washington Irving’s classic tale of the Headless Horseman.
Talladega College had to cancel the haunted house it had planned for the Welch-Coleman ballroom, but will host a Fright Night Movie on the Lawn and costume contest Monday night on the quad starting at 7.
Sylacauga will host a trunk or treat Saturday, 6-8 p.m., at Bluff Springs Baptist Church on New Line County Road. Chocolate and coffee will be served.
Grace Baptist Church on 15th Avenue Southwest in Childersburg will have inflatables, hay rides, food and car trunks filled with candy Monday, 6-8 p.m.
The Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department is set for Spook Fest Saturday.
“We will have our Trunk or Treat, our Trail of Terror Ride and much more,” said Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department director Roben Duncan.
This year’s Trunk or Treat is 6:30-9 p.m. Saturday at Lincoln Park. The Trunk or Treat is free to attend and is open to children of all ages.
The Trail of Terror Ride also begins at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $2 each. The last ticket is sold at 9:30 p.m. and the Trail of Terror ends at 10 p.m.
Duncan said the Trail of Terror Ride will wind through Lincoln Park past a mortuary, a caged gorilla, ghosts, spiders, goblins, witches and much more on its many twists and turns. The haunted trail ride will last about 15 minutes.
She said Spook Fest will also feature a moonwalk, Cookie Patch, games, prizes, face painting, concessions and more.
“The Lincoln High School HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) club will have a number of games booths as a fundraiser,” she said.
Duncan said the HOSA booths include balloon pop, ghost hook, apple bob, tug-a-war, potato sack race, face paint and hair spray, coke ring, marble in sand, dum-dum tree, make-a-mummy and guess this. Money raised at the booths benefits the HOSA club.
For more information call the Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department at 205-763-1006.
The second annual Riverside Safe Halloween Fall Festival is Saturday.
Hosted by the Riverside Volunteer Fire Department, the festival is 4-7 p.m. at the walking track at Coleman Park.
The event is open to all ages and is free to attend, although donations are accepted benefiting the Riverside Volunteer Fire Department.
The event will feature a bonfire, hay rides, several carnival games and a throw-a-pie at the mayor and many other city officials.
The hay ride is free. Carnival games and throw-a-pie are 25 cents a ticket.
The fire department will sell hot dogs, chips and drinks as a fundraiser.
Pell City Park and Recreation employees and Pell City Civitan Club members are putting on the final touches to the Lakeside Trail of Nightmares.
“It’s going as planned,” said Elliot Jacobik, Parks and Recreation athletic director.
He said the groups are meeting tonight for a final practice run before Lakeside Trail of Nightmares opens Thursday night.
“About 30 volunteers are participating in the Trail of Nightmares,” Jacobik said.
The haunted trail will open 6-10 each night, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Tickets are $5 each and ticket sales end at 9 Thursday night, and 10 Friday and Saturday nights.
Jacobik said guests will see about eight different horror scenes and it will take 10-20 minutes to complete the Lakeside Trail of Nightmares.
“It’s sort of what you would expect in a haunted house,” he said.
He said children 12 and younger must be accompanied by an adult.
Jacobik said the haunted trail starts on the east side of the park, goes along the park’s concrete walking trail and finishes in the big parking lot near the lake.
Each night, organizers will show horror movies, appropriate for children, at the large pavilion. Thursday night the movies include “Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Haunting in Connecticut.” Friday, the group will show the movies “Corpse Bride” and “Dead Silence,” and the three movies are slated for Saturday night, which include “Hocus Pocus,” The Haunted Mansion,” and “Pet Cemetery.”
Movies are free and begin at dark each night. A storyteller will tell ghost stories to children at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the big park pavilion.
Proceeds from the event go to the Toys for Children program.
Civitans will a concession stand and will sell food and drinks at the park each night.
— Home staff writer Elsie Hodnett contributed to this report
