Haunted House Walk-Through Tips

[Golfie]

I've been planning a small haunted house walk-through to make in my garage to set up next year (hopefully). I have a few questions about the whole thing and tips to make it better and more cost-effective.

 

1. I need to seperate the room into small walkways and halls, what can I use to divide the room?

 

2. Are there any tips to making some REALLY scary effects?

 

3. Share some of your experiences with haunted house walk-throughs; what was it like to create it?

 

 

Thanks!

Andrew C.

[DallasAlvey]

This one time I was going through this one haunted house and they had

this circling stobe light in then someone walked in front of us wearing black.You coulden't even see him coming.Then you could have really scary music playing.That would be a

sick haunted house muhahhah.

[Ryan King]

If you made PVC Outline / Supports. Bought a butt load of black fabric and hung it from the PVC frames. Also get some smoke Machines and for sure some strobe lights like Dallas suggested. That would work best in my opinion

[Angry_Gumball]

We had actually set up a haunt at my church many years back in a garage sized room. The room had 2 doors on 1 wall, one on either end so our layout had kind of a W or M shape however you look at it. We strung some twine across the room and got tons of black sheets and draped it over the twine. I sat in a small indention area we made, slouching in a chair as though I was dead. Unsuspecting visitors would be caught offguard when I suddenly jumped up and screamed at them. In one part of the room, it had this walk in storage area so we put a strobe light in there, some disco ball with an It the Clown-like dude. At the tail end, it was pitch black with the exception of another strobe light aimed at our graveyard scene so as people were distracted by that, we had another dressed in all black including the faceless mask jump out at them. It got everyone who walked through it.

 

Just keep the initial layout simple like an S or a W shape depending on the layout of your garage...once you got a layout set up and walls up, start theming it.

[Mr.Six]

Don't you need a permit for an actual haunted house?

_six

[FlippyTrick09]

You could always use ply-wood (like Wild Adventures "Phobia" does). You would have to paint it black or some other color though. Black lights with scary writing on the wall would be awsome. ALso, have a window in one of he wals, and a "scare-er" behind it and make them pop out when someone walks by. Storbe lights are also cool. Make sure you have atleast one "scare-er" to follow people for a little bit and scare the mess out of them. Oh yeah, send people in as groups, or atleast make time between the people. Like if it was a haunted hotle or something, have one of the bell people (with complomentary blood, and other scary stuff on them) give a little back-ground on the fake hotel.... I think You could have a really scary haunted house --Mitchman--

[Cameron]

See if you can find some old cubicle walls .. they're easy to set up in any configuration. Plus you can keep them around and reuse them year after year (changing the layout each time).

 

Other than that you might be able to find some old screens that you can setup (which are basically the same thing as cube walls .. but not connected together).

 

Large sheets of foam-core could work too.

 

Failing that, Ryan's suggestion is pretty good.

 

Cameron.

[TheBannedKid]

Everything seems good so far...

 

One thing many don't think about is lighting. Lighting can make or break your haunted house. I found the following website to be awesome when it comes to lighting. http://www.skullandbone.com/tutorial_01.htm

 

Its also good to make the pathway very tight to confine the line to single file. Add some items to distract the guests such as hanging chains, cloth, string/rope, etc. Just make sure no jerks can rip the items off their anchorage. If you need any ideas for props, look here. http://www.halloweenmonsterlist.info/

[Golfie]

If you made PVC Outline / Supports. Bought a butt load of black fabric and hung it from the PVC frames. Also get some smoke Machines and for sure some strobe lights like Dallas suggested. That would work best in my opinion

 

 

ude: That's an awesome idea - probably the cheapest idea I've found so far. Plywood wouldn't be as great to use because of cost.

 

Cameron - The cubicle idea would be cool, but I don't have any place that I could get some.

 

Thanks for all of the ideas!

[PKI Jizzman]

I make a haunted trail every year, I use bloody sheets, strobe lights, lights, blow horns, awesome masks.....hmmm houses....get some music, fog would be good...blow horns, like the small ones...they scare the crap out of anyone!

[Cameron]

For lighting, we did this at my friends house on halloween years ago.

 

I bought about 20 blinking red LEDs from Radio Shack (they're about $1-$2 each), and then 20 regular (non-blinking) red ones - which are even cheaper. Wire up a blinking one in series with a non-blinking one (which means they both blink together), and hide them in the bushes and stuff. They look like eyes, it was very cool.

 

We also put a milk crate on the front lawn covered with black plastic (just a trash bag), then attached some dryer ducting to it like legs so it looked like a giant spider. We hid a car battery in the crate and put lights on the front like eyes. It was great..

 

My car was parked on the street out the front of their house, and we talked about sticking strobe lights and smoke machines under it (make it look like a space-ship or something). However we never got around to it.

 

Cameron.

[IceDragon]

wooden frame with black plastic bags pegged together is what were doing. as long as nobody leans on it, it can be very effective. pushing a hand against it will create a ghostly effect. another little push will make the peg pop off and the hand escape through the bags, scaring anyone there

 

 

also, ripped binbags are great too, string them up and you can hide someone behind it

 

 

if you have one entrance, make them go in one direction,m circle round and then out the same way.

 

fog machines are good, if you cant get one of them, go looking for canned smoke, that way you can spray the rom before anyone goes in.

 

try and get a few amps (if youre allowed). play pre-recorded demonic sounding messages and music over them. some will actually attract people

 

 

email me (Apocalyptic_Demise@hotmail.com) for some good suspense music from films, etc.

 

 

 

 

what i have so far:

 

1) a hut and forest

2) smoke machine

3) 400watt amp with 2x200watt speakers

4) cd player

5) microphone

6) strobe

7) disco lights

8) 5/6 actors

9) hanging objects

10) many hiding places

11) a place where the guide leaves, and the bushes next to the victims starts to shake via stirng and fishing wire. (once again, actor)

 

anything else i may need?

 

what else can i do?

 

 

 

 

also, quick question: does anyone charge people? if so, how much?

[Golfie]

^I have a smoke machine that was damaged last winter (I've gone through two of them by cause of weather), but I can probably just open it up and sauter the snapped wires. I guess I should really stop leaving it in the garage during winter.

[IceDragon]

^I have a smoke machine that was damaged last winter (I've gone through two of them by cause of weather), but I can probably just open it up and sauter the snapped wires. I guess I should really stop leaving it in the garage during winter.

 

 

yeah, thats not the best of ideas, lol. keep it in a cupboard or something at room temp.

[Fallen Heretic]

Have any of you guys ever used Infrasound? Ive seen it used in a 'quiet' room on a ghost tour of an old stately home. The guide took us to a dimly lit wooden panel room where he told us the usual kind of 'someone was killed here, ther spirit still lurks...blah, blah, blah". He then took a fake mobile call and said he had to go take it, but he would be right back. He left closing the door behind him. Where he actually went was next door, where he turned on an infrasound generator. We couldnt hear it, but we could feel small vibrations through the wall. What is for certain is that it made us feel very strange, almost dizzy. In that environment it makes you feel like there is 'something' there. It was a subtle but awesome effect. Really freaked us out.

 

Not sure if it would work on an unguided walkthrough cos you need to keep people in the same area for a little bit. It would be a cool addition if it can be fitted in. Most people dont know about infrasound so in their minds it becomes an 'unexplained happening'.

[TheBannedKid]

Which fog machines do you guys have? My first one was a cheap one from K-Mart and now I have a professional one that fills up my entire front yard in a minute.

[Hercules]

Clowns

[ECZenith]

I do a trail every year. It's important to incorporate as many senses as you can to make the experience as real as possible.

 

Visual-Even the simplest prop can be enhanced by its placement and some detailing.

 

Touch-Hang things from the ceiling that people will have to push/walk through, tattered curtains,strings, spider webs, severed body parts work well...

 

Sound-Make an original soundtrack for your haunt to set the mood.

 

Taste/Smell-You may not want to touch this one, Universal are the only ones that can pull it off as of yet, IMO.

[Golfie]

Which fog machines do you guys have? My first one was a cheap one from K-Mart and now I have a professional one that fills up my entire front yard in a minute.

 

I first got one at K-Mart (The Oval-shaped kind with the yellow tank cap) when that one broke, I got a $45 one from Halloween Express called "The Fog Machine" it only takes about a minute to warm up and shoots out a LOT of smoke on one heat-up. The entire body is metal and it includes a nice fog-juice gauge on the back.

[ECZenith]

I have a "Fog FX" brand fogger with a remote timer. About 30 bucks well spent.

[TheBannedKid]

Same here. I use that one for small effects and I use my Chavet F1250 to fill my yard. I think the Fog FX fogger runs at 2,500 cu ft/sec while the Chavet runs at 10,000 cu ft/sec. Its amazing, but it would be even cooler to get the ones that the parks use. They get up to 20,000 cu ft/sec.

[IceDragon]

i have the Atari K1000. best £50 of my life! fills up my house within 5 minutes, and thats impressive!

 

the only downfall: we have hardly anyone do trick-or-trating around here, but its funny to try and make them jump in any way possible.

 

this year, im gonna freeze my a$$ off sitting outside in a halloween costume with a sign saying 'Free Sweets!' then an arrow underneath, pointing at a bowl thats placed infront of a bush, where i will be hiding. as soon as they get anywhere close, i jump out at them, then invite them back for some sweets. its quite a laugh. even some of the adults try to get it as well!