Happy spooky season, ducks! As we reach the halfway point of the fall semester, it turns out that the true horror students stumble upon isn’t just midterms, but instead it’s group projects!
When a professor assigns a group project, the first thing that runs through most students’ minds is how successful and productive the group will be, along with curiosity of which role they will take on. Once you gather with your peers and it’s time to declare the leader, most people probably wish they would get swallowed into their seat or avoid eye contact because, realistically, a leadership role in a group project isn’t exactly ideal. Unlike other leadership roles in extracurriculars or clubs, your peers are more cooperative and willing to contribute, whereas in a class project, they are not always motivated or cooperative.
For most of our education throughout our K-12 years, we have had to work on group projects, and it seems that every group has its own cast of characters. Most collaboratively dread the procrastinator; you would think this person would get a thrill from stressing out the rest of the team with their uncertain time schedule to complete their task, or to even complete it at all. Then there’s the invisible member, I suppose they don’t disrupt the work flow but barely contribute, leaving the other members in a side-eye mood due to the lack of urgency and contribution. Finally, our hero, the tech guru, the member who is familiar and knowledgeable with external resources, is considered a leverage among the team, enhancing the project.
Horror films are so entertaining not only because of the jump scares, but also the adrenaline we feel for the characters in movies, listing the characters in our head and sharing our opinions with those close to us about whom we assume will be the first to die and last to survive, such as in Scream, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I Know What You Did Last Summer, etc. Notice how these films revolve around a younger age group of typically college students. Let’s transition the students from the group project into a real project — one that involves attempting to escape a haunted asylum.
The lights flicker off, and the night begins. Everyone is gathered together, and all actions moving forward are now declared by the leader. Meanwhile, the procrastinator still has not comprehended that they are in a life threatening situation, treating the night as an assignment to brush off until later. The invisible member simply hopes to survive with no plan or execution. Our hero, the tech guru, has a plan alongside the leader to collaborate; after all, two minds are better than one. Wrong. The leader and tech guru get involved in a quarrel due to both being headstrong about their opinions, resulting in the members splitting up from each other. The invisible member just slipped away and simply disappeared, and was never heard of again, although members claim they heard a mumble of distress in the distance, but never found a corpse. The leader has a plan, right? They use their bravery to go check the storage room to attempt to get the electrical box fixed. Good thing they came prepared with a flashlight, pretty resourceful, until they dropped it, and that noise drew the murderer towards their direction, in an attempt to dismiss what just happened. Unfortunately, the door slammed shut, and they got stabbed right through the door. In the meantime, in the pitch black asylum, the procrastinator’s leg became stuck in the weak floorboard, leaving them with agonizing pain, limping for the remainder of the night. Suspicion grows between the two members. After several hours into the night, the morning is almost near and their escape feels in reach. The tech guru attempts to break the chains of the door with a pair pliers the procrastinator found, just in time to dodge an attack from the killer, but unfortunately, the procrastinator’s fate was sealed by their own injury and an easy kill. The tech guru escaped and jumped into a cab, with relief, but as the car drove away, the driver’s face became visible in the rearview mirror. It’s too late. The murderer strikes and the streets are empty once again.
