A pre-Halloween tradition returns to Newton on Saturday, Oct. 28.
A section of 137 Street will be closed for the annual Spooktacular Newton, a free festival from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Costumes are encouraged during the family-friendly event, which has trick-or-treating, a photo booth, vendor market, mini golf, haunted train rides, face painting, food trucks, bouncy castles and games.
Dancers with City Entertainment will perform, and orange gourds from the Urban Pumpkin Patch can be hauled home for a donation to Surrey Food Bank.
Held rain or shine, the street festival is planned by Newton Business Improvement Association (BIA) in the area behind the Save-On-Foods store, from 72A to 74 Avenue. That stretch of 137 Street will be closed to traffic from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Elsewhere in Newton, zombies will recreate Michael Jackson’s famous “Thriller” video during another Thrill the World Surrey event 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28 at the KPU Surrey campus (12666 72 Ave.). A dance “crash course” starts at 1:15 p.m., and $10 donation for charity is suggested. Details are posted on facebook.com/thrilltheworldsurrey.
Halloween thrills are promised on the Scream Train involving actors in the forest at Bear Creek Park, where a more child-friendly Pumpkin Train rolls during daytime hours. For info and tickets, visit bctrains.com.
Cloverdale’s Spooktacular Halloween Market returns Saturday, Oct. 21 to the fairgrounds’ Alice McKay building and Shannon Hall, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Meantime, Newton’s “House of Horrors” attraction has a new Halloween haunt that has ticket-buyers blindfolded and holding a rope as they navigate a darkened maze where “actors bring on horrific tactile scares.”
The new Sinneraria “blackout” haunt in Newton requires an add-on ticket at Cougar Creek’s House of Horrors. This year the live-theatre horror attraction is open on 24 days, ending with two “Whisper Nights” Nov. 3-4 when “victims” will use flashlights in a maze filled with “quiet sounds, lower lights and lurking monsters.”
For kids 12 and under, the calendar includes six daytime Horrors Jr. Haunt sessions with no actors and softer sounds, from 2 to 5 p.m. weekends.
The three haunted houses this year are called Echoes of Abbath, New Year’s Evil and Zycho Zerkus. There’s also an escape room, The XMAS Escape From Incineration, where guests solve puzzles and search for clues. Haunt details are posted on cougarcreekhouseofhorrors.com.
Located on 72 Avenue, the attraction partners with Surrey Food Bank to collect donations at the gate. Partial proceeds from ticket sales are also donated to the charity.
• RELATED: Creepy clowns haunt new ‘Zycho Zerkus’ house and comic at Surrey Halloween attraction, from 2022.
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In East Vancouver, Playland is in the Halloween spirit with Fright Nights, on select nights in October. This is the 20th anniversary of the attraction, which this year features eight haunted houses, 15-plus rides, creepy décor, roaming monsters and live performances. New is The Void, a forest-themed haunted house where people dare walk on the soft ground of a green “swamp” full of scary creatures.
At Burnaby’s Swangard Stadium and Central Park, the Pumpkins After Dark is back for a second year with Halloween scenes created from thousands of hand-carved pumpkins, plus music, sounds and special effects. For tickets and other details, visit burnaby.pumpkinsafterdark.com.
