Halloween came early for several Hill Country Middle School drama students. Last month, they were given the dubious-sounding task of creating blood and life-like intestines for a Salvage Vanguard Theatre play, Evil Dead: The Musical.

Pam Friday, their drama teacher, was also the set designer for the play, based on a trilogy of campy cult-classic horror movies involving borderline cartoon-like body-snatching demons. The students aren’t old enough to see the show and learn what previous productions had used, so all of their ideas had to be completely original.

“That’s one of the great things about the tech class, it’s all problem solving,” Friday said. “It’s an integral part of learning.”

The eighth-graders got to try out different recipes of fake blood and did research on what materials would work best for the intestine scene.

“We originally tried making it with paper,” said Joshua “Waffles” Rothfus. “But that wasn’t sturdy enough.”

The students had to use materials they readily had that would stand up to a month-long run of the show and hold shape and dye well.

“So we ended up using cotton stuffed inside panty hose,” said William Brown.

In order to get into the eighth-grade drama class, students had to take two previous semesters of elective drama and all of them say it was well worth it. They learned early to check their egos at the door.

“It’s nice to be something you really aren’t; it’s just fun to be someone else for a while,” Mackenzie Carlson said. “And they told us in our first class, if you’re afraid to be a dork, this isn’t the class for you.”

The 63 students rotate through acting and set design, getting to try all facets of theater production. The tech group is working to create a porcupine costume for their upcoming production of “The Princess and the Porcupine.”

“We’re so proud of this group,” Friday said. “Right now, there are four different groups working simultaneously.”

She says she’s tapped her students to help her with professional plays before.

“That’s one of the nice things about being an artist in town,” Friday said. “It sets up a really nice community where you scratch my back, I scratch yours. I’ve done some design work where I’ve taken payment in the form of workshops for my students.”