On Friday October 29, the Student Activities Council (SAC) sponsored a Halloween double feature in Valders 206. Scooby-Doo (2002) was screened at 7:30 p.m. and Candyman (2021) was screened at 9:30 p.m. This event was part of the SAC’s “Halloween at Luther” events, which included a costume contest, escape rooms, and a trip to Pinters for the corn maze.

Prior to COVID-19, movie nights like this had no problem with attendance. On average, there were 100 attendees per event. Last year, gathering that many people in a space was not possible. Eli Leupold (‘22), vice president of SAC and interim co-chair of the cinema committee, said he is excited to be able to have events like this again. 

“I feel like one of the things we lost during [COVID-19] was watching movies with other people,” Leupold said. “That’s why I joined SAC cinema two years ago, because of that communal experience of seeing something with other people in a theatre. With [COVID-19], it was so easy to pick up your phone or pause the movie, but when you’re in a movie theatre with your friends you really have to pay attention and you all experience the same thing together.” 

Rachel Lummis (‘23) is the chair of the homecoming committee of SAC. She explained that the movies for this event were voted on and chosen by the executive committee, and that they try to pick movies that are popular and will draw a bigger crowd.  

Lummis also explained that this year, it is much easier to schedule events than last year. SAC still has to submit full detailed reports to the Covid Response Team (CRT), but only when it is inside and there will be over 100 people attending. Last year, many proposed events were denied by the CRT due to safety concerns. 

“I know that sometimes on campus people will say, ‘we go to a small school, we have to find our own activities,’ which is true some of the time, but I think that during [COVID-19] as well as this year, SAC has put on so many more events than we would have in other years,” Lummis said. “We hope that students can get out there and meet each other. I know that a lot of freshmen really did not get to meet new people during [COVID-19], so I think that’s kind of fun.”

Chayla Velander (‘24) attended the first movie with five of her friends. She echoed Leupold’s statement of being excited to see movies with friends in person. 

“I happen to love Scooby-Doo, [it] is one of my favorite Halloween movies, so I am very excited,” Velander said. “We did nothing on Halloween last year, so this is the peak of excitement for us right now.”