'Cause it's a 'Thriller' (Watch the video)

WADSWORTH — A frightful and popular tradition returned to downtown Wadsworth on Thursday night as Scare on the Square thrilled jam-packed city streets. The evening's large-scale reenactment of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" music video featured a horde of "undead" residents strutting down Broad Street and providing a scare for Main Street Wadsworth executive director Adrianne Patrick. Wadsworth's "Thriller" production began during the city's 2014 bicentennial as in impromptu flash mob and has been performed every year since, outside of 2020's COVID-19-related cancellation. "It's awesome to have the downtown events back and, of course, this is one of our biggest events," Patrick said in the lead-up to stepping out before the crowd. "It brings thousands of people downtown and the entire community is excited to come back together in this way. There's a lot of gratitude felt after what our residents and businesses have gone through and the perseverance they've showed. "Doctor Alex and Lori McIlvane were the creators. They brought it back to Wadsworth from Kentucky where Alex was going to dental school. He graduated from there and really wanted his hometown to see what he did. It's grown so much for us since that first year and we now have hundreds of zombies in a typical year." Rain throughout Thursday and a southern Medina County tornado warning in the mid- to late-afternoon cleared just in time for festivities with many first-time and longtime visitors enjoying numerous attractions. Downtown businesses offered a trick-or-treat in the hours leading up to "Thriller" while Wadsworth Hexenbrut provided a witches' dance in front of Huntington Bank, 129 High St. In addition, a life-sized "Candyland" board game and hayrides were open to visitors at Mosaic Wadsworth, 118 High St. New Medina resident Carmello Franchina was spotted taking in the Halloween atmosphere with his family. "We haven't been here before but it was the first thing we heard about when we started looking for somewhere to go this week," he said. "We'll be back. This is pretty cool what they do, and if you look around you can tell people are just happy to be out doing stuff like this again. We can't wait to come back next year." Shannon Russ of Wadsworth and her young son Austin said he might join the zombie horde in the future. "I could see that happening," she said. "He likes it so much already and I think that would be fun for him. We come here every year and everyone was sad last year when they found out about the lockdown and that it wasn't going to happen. Everyone looks forward to it and now we're all back here together again." Contact reporter Jonathan Delozier at (330) 721-4050 or jdelozier@medina-gazette.com.