As Halloween approaches, Pitt’s Horror and Spectral Club provides a place for students to celebrate their love of all things supernatural.
The student organization, which meets weekly, hosts a range of horror-themed events open to all students. Past events have included movie nights, presentations and group field trips. Members say their participation has provided them not just club membership, but genuine community.
McKenna Best, a senior human resources management major and the club’s president and founder, said she filled a gap in Pitt’s student organization offerings when she started the Horror and Spectral Club.
“I have always been a lifelong fan of horror, and I didn’t really feel like any of the clubs here really fit what I was looking for,” Best said. “I wanted another space for like-minded people to just chat about horror and anything under that umbrella, so I kickstarted the club.”
Over the past year, the club has had the opportunity to explore various allegedly haunted spots in Pittsburgh.
“Last semester, we got the funding for a paranormal tour downtown so we got to go to the City Morgue, the courthouse, and prison,” Best said. “That was really popular.”
The Allegheny County Courthouse is particularly famous for paranormal sightings. The building is said to be haunted because of the 58 jailhouse hangings that have been held in what is now the building’s Family Court wing.
Best said she feels excited about the club’s future, especially a planned excursion that takes riders through Pittsburgh’s three rivers and highlights local stories, legends and supernatural occurrences.
“This semester, I’m excited because we got the funding to go on the Haunted Three Rivers cruise on the Gateway Clipper,” Best said. “That’s one that we’re all really excited to do.”
Best believes the club has created a “really nice community” of horror lovers at Pitt.
“A lot of underclassmen haven’t gotten that involved in college yet because they haven’t found anything that interested them until this,” Best said. “That’s why we have the club.”
To Best, the draw of the horror genre is in its deeper meaning.
“I love the creative expression [in horror] as well and how it has a lot of deep ties,” Best said. “I feel like horror is much more historically and politically tied than people think. It’s a very introspective genre.”
Maea Fivecoate, a sophomore bioethics major and club member, said she enjoys horror’s broad appeal, including its ties to folklore.
“The thing that interests me most about horror is the fact that anybody can enjoy it. Like, it’s not something that is specific to one group or subculture,” Fivecoate said. “Everybody has horror stories. Everybody has folklore.”
Dino Bianchini, a sophomore environmental science major and club member, has been drawn to the unfiltered nature of the horror genre since he was little.
“I think there’s no restraint [in horror]. Characters can swear, they can be bloody. It’s very uncensored,” Dino said. “It’s just always something that’s really clicked into place for me.”
Fivecoate said she values the community Horror and Spectral club has created, especially since she lacked a similar one in high school.
“I didn’t really have anything like that in high school, so I just wanted to be able to have a community where everyone enjoys horror, whether it be horror books or SFX makeup or horror movies or video games,” Fivecoate said.
Marissa Fong, a sophomore English writing major and Horror and Spectral Club social media chair, agrees.
“I feel like we’re all kind of a big friend group. I get along well with everyone there, and it’s just like, immediately as soon as you walk in. We’re all kind of weird, we already know what we’re here for,” Fong said. “We just all immediately get along and don’t care about anything else for a couple hours every Thursday.”