Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Preparations are under way
for LGPD's haunted forest

By Shari Kaplan

As the weather turns colder and the days grow shorter, Oak Meadow and Vasona parks are beginning their insidious transformation from unassuming recreational areas into the frightening, freaky and sometimes funny third annual Haunted Forest and Spooky Hollow.

The event is a fundraiser for the Los Gatos Police Department's volunteer organizations: reserve officers, Volunteers in Policing (VIPs) and the Disaster Aid Response Team (DART). The nonprofit Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad also shares in the proceeds.

From Oct. 24 to Oct. 31, beginning at 7 p.m. each night, the Phantom Express--better known in daylight hours as the Wildcat Railroad--takes brave souls through more than a dozen scenes set up throughout the narrow-gauge railroad's loop through Vasona.

According to show director Stuart Kuramoto, some of the new scenes for this year are the haunted, 18-foot-tall Castle Raglan, a Godzilla scene, an Angel of Death scene and the Raptor Pit.

Many crowd-pleasers from last year will also be in place, such as a murky graveyard with unquiet graves, a rustic cabin that houses chainsaw-wielding maniacs.

Brand-new this year is a "scary walking tour" in another part of Oak Meadow, in which costumed guides offer walkers safe passage through additional live-action scenes. Some of these are Dr. Hurt M. Badd's chiropractic office, the Kaos Lab and its mad scientist host and scenes featuring trolls, zombies and additional members of the chainsaw clan.

"The show overall this year is huge. There's a lot more pneumatics and a lot of cool new effects. My goal is to become the premier family Halloween attraction in Northern California," Kuramoto says.

Other new additions are various pop and rock bands playing every night, a one-night performance by a country line-dancing group with audience participation, and carnival-style games and prizes for children in the Spooky Hollow area. Spooky Hollow also includes its usual fare: less-scary scenes for children, a trick-or-treat tour, rides on the Bill Mason Carousel, visits with McGruff the crime-fighting dog and other activities. Local service clubs and other groups will sell food, drinks and treats.

The Phantom Express runs every 20 minutes, 7 p.m. to midnight Oct. 24-31. Tickets, which are stamped with specific ride times, are $8 for adults and $6 for children ages 12 and younger. Spooky Hollow tickets, which include a carousel ride, are $3 each, two for $5 or five for $10. Tickets may be purchased from 1 to 5 p.m. weekdays in the lobby of the Town Council Chambers, 110 E. Main St. Tickets are also available seven days a week from Discovery Comics, 466 N. Santa Cruz Ave., in the Safeway shopping center. For information, call 354-6842 or 395-8162.

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This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, October 15, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.