Coquitlam haunted house ‘goes out with a bang,’ founder says

When the haunted house finally closed its doors just before midnight this Halloween, Macarthy Whyzel knew it would be for good. 

The annual haunted house on Westwood Plateau is not coming back next fall, Whyzel told the Dispatch, ending a seven-year run for the homegrown Halloween attraction that quickly became one of the most popular spooky stops in the Tri-Cities. 

The decision was based on the growth of The Uplifting Group, a volunteer group that was partially inspired by the success of his haunted house. 

Whyzel soft launched The Uplifting Group last winter. His initial goal with the volunteer club was to help people experiencing homelessness access food, water and other daily, basic life necessities. The group has grown to include more than a dozen volunteers. 

Coupled with a full course load at Douglas College, where he studies criminology, Whyzel’s schedule was too full to continue the Halloween tradition for another year. 

“I’m honestly doing that about 30 hours a week, so it has become a full-time, unpaid position,” Whyzel said. “The Uplifting Group is something I can run all year long, it made sense to close one down and keep the other going.”  

Since 2017, the haunted house has attracted thousands of people to the top of Westwood Plateau each October. Whyzel, who grew up in Coquitlam, started the house at the age of 17 to raise funds for local charities. 

By 2021, word of mouth spread throughout the community, and his haunted house started to raise more than a few hundred dollars. That year, roughly 5,000 seekers of spooky showed up on Halloween night, racking up just under $2,000 for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank. (He also raised about $1,400 for Backpack Buddies, a Vancouver-based charity that delivers meals to kids battling food insecurity, in 2023.) 

“The whole idea of [Halloween] is that it’s whimsical and magical and you dress up. It’s an excuse for people to get together to do something and have a good laugh,” Whyzel told the Dispatch last fall.

The closure leaves just one haunted house fundraiser on the Coquitlam block. For about 20 years, one of his neighbours has operated their own haunted house for Variety, a children’s charity. When Whyzel opened his own haunted house in 2017, the neighbours worked in tandem to raise money for charity. 

This year, about 20,000 people came to the two houses throughout October, raising roughly $10,000 in donations, Whyzel said. Halloween night brought even more people than expected. 

“This was probably one of the latest nights,” he said. “I went out with a bang. . . . It was a lot of insanity, a lot of kids. We ran out of candy within hours.” 

This fall also marked the first time the City of Coquitlam partnered with the two neighbours. The city closed Forestridge Place — where the houses are located — to cars for the evening, reducing the risk of vehicle collisions with kids and other Halloween enthusiasts. 

But as the popularity of the house grew, so did Whyzel’s desire to do something more consistent for the community. 

In the spring, after spending a few months buying basic supplies — food and water — and delivering them to people living on the street in the Tri-Cities himself, Whyzel posted about his work on Facebook. He instantly received dozens of requests from strangers, which paved the way for the creation of The Uplifting Group. 

This fall, The Uplifting Group separated into two internal divisions — one with experience in social service and another for people with limited exposure helping others. 

Whyzel leads the latter group, which currently includes three volunteers. They focus primarily on delivering care packages to people living outside 3030 Gordon, the only permanent homelessness shelter in the Tri-Cities, and a few other spots in the region. He hopes to double the number of volunteers by the end of the year. 

 “They’re usually from the Tri-Cities and come out with me,” Whyzel said. “We do four days a week of outreach, Tuesday to Friday, preparing meals every single day we go out in addition to care packages. It’s really growing.” 

The other group delivers care packages across the rest of the Lower Mainland.

Although the haunted house will not reopen next Halloween, pieces of it will live on. Whyzel is currently in the process of selling his decorations — lights, goblins, ghouls — to other people who run haunted houses across Metro Vancouver. 

It was not an easy decision to close the house for good, he said. But it was one that has allowed him to extend his community outreach for 365 days each year instead of 31 days in October. 

“I feel like I’ve almost outgrown it,” Whyzel said. “I view it more as a stepping stone where one chapter closes and another one opens.”