You may not find everything to be as bone-chilling as you would hope, but you will probably leave with at least one shock to tell your friends about.

Tatiana G. Papanicolaou '98, who went last week with some friends, says you don't leave "shaking with fear," but there is definitely scariness to be found.

She recalls walking on a rail over hundreds of rats, and then seeing one of the actors sitting down with hundreds of mice crawling all over her.

There are also lots of haunted houses where people jump out at you, she adds.

And if Spookyworld can get caught up in the campiness of its very premise, it also has a convenient rating system, based on one to four skulls, through which you can organize your thrill-seeking schedule (any resemblance to Fried Nose Ring rating is purely coincidental).

Four Fried Nose Rings

* Haunted Happenings. (Various Locations in Salem, Mass.)

"It's one of the most bizarre things you can do," Craig A. DiGregorio '99 says about spending Halloween in Salem, MA. "It's a very odd experience, and people take it very seriously."

If any place has a right to take itself seriously, Salem does. Home to the witch craze of 1692 to 1695, it boasts a large number of historical attractions and sites, from the old courthouses of the witch trials to the graveyards where the executed witches were buried.

Today, it has become somewhat of a mecca for Halloween wanderers, creating a "Mardi Gras-type atmosphere," says Sean Coughlin, an employee of the Salem Wax Museum.

DiGregorio, on the other hand, compares the scene to the infamous "pit" in Harvard square, but notes that it is "more odd."

Still, Salem features activities for everyone. Today, all the major museums and various haunted houses will be open, live reenactments of the witch trials are held, and you might even find a few brave souls wandering the cemeteries looking for the gravestones of executed witches.

"The whole atmosphere was so ethereal and spookyish," says Manisha S. Shetty '00, who went last Halloween.

To make things even more exciting, last year rumors went around that a serial killer was looking for victims, say DiGregorio and Coughlin. In Salem, anything is possible.

Five Fried Nose Rings (Add another if serial killer's on the loose.)