Haunted House Fans

[Cincy'sMom]

What scares you???

Ralph and I are very involved in building, decorating and writing a haunted house every year, that is a fund raiser for our annual trip to dance at Disney World, and we are getting started tonight. Since it is the 10th year and many of us have been invloved for a long time, it is difficult to come with with new stuff each year, and we are always looking for new ideas. Our huanted house is different then most, in that we have ten rooms, each with a story that builds up to the scare...sometimes with speical effects, jump scares, etc. I was hoping maybe some Pet Talkers had some ideas of things they have seen at haunted houses that they liked or just things that scares them that would help give us some ideas.

Thanks!!!

[Nomilynn]

Well after my experience last night, I would have to say a spider room would scare the bejeezes out of me!!! Check out my story in "Tonight Tilly is my Hero" for some CREEPY ideas!!! LOL

[AmberLee]

Uh, I don't like horror/haunted genre, so these may be totally 'old hat' but I'm spooked by:

creepy sensation, especially when I can't see what's touching me. (Particularly when it's dank...)

clowns. (What's going ON behind that mask/makeup...)

feeling peeled grapes when you don't know what they are

strobe lights (disconcerting)

taxes and overdue bills, but I suppose this is a REALLY useless suggestion, even moreso than the above.



Good luck

[Cincy'sMom]

Thanks for the ideas. We did a spider room two years ago that we dropped spiders (plastic) from fishingline on people's heads while the stoey was going on and then had aguy dressed as a spider chase them.

We also have had clowns 2 out of the last 3 years, in a "jack-in-the-box" type room. Got a lot of good scares.

We have not used strobe lights in the past becuase one of our guides got motion sick from them, but he is no longer dancing, so we may be able to bring those in.

We have also used movie ideas (Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers) in the past. Anybody seen any good scary movies?

[Nomilynn]

I swear the scariest movie I EVER saw was "Fire in the Sky" and that was about alien abduction.. I don't know how you might renact that but it was SCARY!!!

[NoahsMommy]

I've been to "Knott's Scary Farm" here a few Halloween's...it is SCARY!!! Here are a few things that creeped me out:


*I think what scared me the most was when you have someone dress up in a really yucky/scary costume and just STARE at you...it is the scariest thing. When you turn your head for a second...they get closer....freaky!!!

*Sounds of screaming....

*Things jumping out at you, be it a person or an object.

*Sudden darkness

*The "rides" would be almost totally dark and the people dressed up would have cans with nails or beans or something in them that when they walked by you, they would shake them...it really scares you when you are there already in the dark.

Good luck!

[AmberLee]

Originally posted by Cincy'sMom
... We also have had clowns 2 out of the last 3 years, in a "jack-in-the-box" type room. Got a lot of good scares. ...

When I wrote my comment I was thinking that I'm probably the only person in the world who is afraid of clown. Sort of a relief to hear that I'm not.

A few years ago on a religious retreat they made a mock-up of the meditations of St. Teresa of Avila (sp?)'s 7 (9?) mansions of the soul. [Boy, didn't I pay a lot of attention! ] Her first mansion is/was the earth-bound soul represented by spiders, lizards, and snakes. Perhaps a dark room with the sound of slithering and rattles and an occasional sleek 'creeping' against skin?

[sammi]

I don't like clowns either - in fact I had a stuffed one and I threw it out.

[Dakota's Mommy]

Gosh, I really wish I could be apart of that again this year as I was last! Good luck with all that hard planning you guys do and good luck, I hope it turns our great this year as it did last!

[Aspen and Misty]

We went on a hunted house ride thingy one year and when you first go in there was a women tied to a pole who had blood marks on her and she looked dead but when you walked by her she grabed your arm and said beware he is in there, it was freaky walking in there thinking someone was going to kill you or something. you could also do a room where when you first enter the lights are on but then they snap off and there are glowing ghost in there hanging from the ceiling and stuff. You could also have the people walk towards a door and then have a bright light shine at them and sounds of an on coeming car or something then wheels screachign and the light go off. I dunno..I'm not to good at this stuff.

Ash

[Cincy'sMom]

Ash-those aren't bad ideas. Lat year we actually put a ghost in our entry way into the basebaement and had it do the intro. it was rigged to a motor and in an empty elevator shaft, and everything else was completly black, so it looked like it was floating in there. It worked really well.

Chritsy-I am a little worried about this year. we started later then normal and I don't know what the guide situation will be Donny is still AWOL and I think Ben is done dancing so I don't know how much (or if) he will work. Could be interesting!

[kohala]

Originally posted by AmberLee


When I wrote my comment I was thinking that I'm probably the only person in the world who is afraid of clown. Sort of a relief to hear that I'm not.

A few years ago on a religious retreat they made a mock-up of the meditations of St. Teresa of Avila (sp?)'s 7 (9?) mansions of the soul. [Boy, didn't I pay a lot of attention! ] Her first mansion is/was the earth-bound soul represented by spiders, lizards, and snakes. Perhaps a dark room with the sound of slithering and rattles and an occasional sleek 'creeping' against skin?

A whole LOT of people are creeped out by clowns after Stephen Kings "It" - Pennywise the clown

[kohala]

Some of his subject matter might provide ideas - I've had dreams (when I've had stressful days, I guess) about images I formed in my mind after reading Tommyknockers:
Get some of those 5-gallon plastic water bottles, you could cut them and fill them with weird things (dare I say dolls?) then super glue them, attach some rubber tubing and have someone design a way to make them "glow" from time to time; make like a mad scientists lab.
Or how about Needful Things? Any of King's stories that have a good image of a physical reality of some sort that can be reproduced might give you ideas. If you like, I'll post more.

[Cincy'sMom]

Being a chemist, I have been trying to come up with a mad scientist room for a few years now. It is hard cause there is no ventalation in the basement and even dry ice would be dangerous. I am thinking of doing a radioactive room, with variuos wast drums, glow in the dark things and a mad scientist. I just hope it doesn't end up cheesy.
I am not sure I read Needful things. What was the premis of that one? I really wanted to use some ideas from Depseration and the other similar one his alter ego wrote about the child whose drawings became the monsters that attacked..the one in the mine? That was a cool book...

[kohala]

The main evil character opens a shop and sells "Needful Things" which people covet but can't afford. So he makes deals with them to pay for the "things" and gets all kinds of mayhem going. Not sure how you could work that, as it is more of an interplay than I realized when I posted before.
But I think you could combine sci-fi and horror into the mad scientist room via dim green lighting, lots of "lab" tables with fake stuff on them (tubes, bottles, you know), sound effects on a tape player (burbling, slurpy kind of sounds) and maybe some strategically placed light flashes. A lab skeleton with intermittent flashes of backlight, and there are lots of crafty ways you could make the "experiments". You could use those tubed lights they sell in holiday colors (I'm sure they'll have Halloween colors available soon, if not now) to run from a few "Bottles" to represent some yucky liquid flow!
A lot of this you could make yourself, including taping the sound effects! And keep it relatively dark.
Designing sets and props was my favorite part of my years studying theatre. Much more fun than acting, for me. In fact, if you have enough people, you could stage a ghoulish wildhaired scientist, too!
BOOOWHAAHAHAHAHA!