Thread: HELP!!! Possible Theme Change

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Heres my dilemma. I am torn between two themes. La llorona or Disney Pirates like Hirez. I would love to do Pirates but I don't know how to make them scary because I do a walkthrough. Please give me any thoughts you have. Thanks!

Anyone have any input?

I'd say the Pirates. Reasoning behind that is, due to the really messed up story behind La Llorona which I don't think kids should be exposed to. Adult and teen haunt, ok sure. But young kids, no.

I suppose you're right. I've got so many more ideas with pirates then I do with La Llorona. Also Pirates is a much broader concept, then La Llorona. I would love to do it in the future but it might be something that only fits in a pro haunt.

I love La Llorona and don't think she's much, if any, scarier than a lot of children's classics, but I think she'd be awfully hard to pull off in most communities due to lack of familiarity with the story.

Add me to the camp of having a pirate theme. Thinking it would be a fun challenge to make them scary. Seen many pirate displays that are more like shows and if you stayed away from that and just made it a pirate themed walk-through with many sudden scares it should be easier to pull off.

An aside: I see the logic using 'shows' for a display haunt. Even then though, can't see a eight year-old having the patience to watch it.

Pirates can easily be made scary and not "Disney-ish". Fire (simulated), loud noises, lightning, darkness, pop-ups, deformations, missing limbs (hooks and peg legs), etc is all scary to little kids. The eel at the end of the show scared the cr@p out of kids. Case in point.

Take away the songs, fun music, and humor, moving skeletons or even posed static skeletons are scary.

The whole section of the ride "Pirates of the Caribbean" BEFORE the "yo ho" song (with all the vignettes of dead pirates) used to scare me as a little kid.

We do a "show" with our pirate display because it is a "closed room" and not possible for a walk through. We do not have the space or the proper layout to do a walk through ... But that may change very soon.

Little kids were quite frightened during the "darker" scenes like the helmsman and a couple other things that weren't seen in the video. If you keep it "dark" with a lot of details, you can't go wrong.

Little kids (ages under 10) WERE the ones who WANTED to watch the entire show, sometimes several times, possibly because they could somewhat relate to it with "pirates of the Caribbean" movies and actual theme park ride. It was the teenagers that didn't have the attention span. But that was only a couple of them because they were more interested in moving on to toilet paper houses, chase girls, or something.

That said, we do our entire home haunt FOR little kids (ie: kid friendly) because those are the ones that enjoy it so much.

Also with the little kids (ages under 10) were so dazzled and memorized by the whole setup (how many times do you see full animatronic skeletons at someones home, when it was over, they forgot to take "candy". Every kid, parent, adult, etc, left with a huge smile on their face and that all the payoff I need.

Any info you need on how we did anything in our setup, just ask.

Originally Posted by BlueFrog

I love La Llorona and don't think she's much, if any, scarier than a lot of children's classics, but I think she'd be awfully hard to pull off in most communities due to lack of familiarity with the story.

I agree that La Llorona would probably work best where there's a large Spanish-speaking population, as they'd be more familiar with the ghost story. Then again, from what I've read of La Llorona, its core elements (wife abandoned by her husband for a new lover, and enraged she murders their children) seem to derive from - or at least, echo - the Greek myth of Jason and Medea.

Honestly, I had to google "La Llorona" and read the story real quick to know what it was. It would be difficult to get the entire point of the haunt across to most visitors, I would think.

Go with pirates.

Though, and please don't take this the wrong way my pirate loving friends, but I have absolutely no clue what pirates have to do with Halloween. Is it just because there are a lot of skelly's involved?

I think between the two the pirates theme would be the way I would go. I think your concern was how to add scares to it if I understand you correctly.

I do think that pirates...the dead, mean, to-my-grave and deep-blue-bottom-of-the-sea kind are scary. And certainly walking the plank with sharks or crocs below has a sacry enough theme to it. Pirates who are skeletons who come back to get those who stole their treasure or get revenge on those who punished them (think of bodies put on public display in iron cages and such) can yield some good images. Whether it's Peter Pan or POTC, I think little kids can relate to them, so their coming back from their watery grave and going after people is graspable. I personally don't like the image of a mother going after her young children as a theme for little ones. Mom's have a tough enough time as it is and I certainly wouldn't want little tikes scared of their own mom and certainly you don't have to go to ghost stories to get substance for this, just the newspaper.

As for scares, I think Hirez made a lot of very valid points and gave some great advice. I can see a croc suddenly coming out after them, a deranged pirate if you have actors, eerie night with thunder and lightning, walking a plank over infested waters below (maybe this could be a bridge but same idea of fear of what is below or to the sides of the pathway), the pirates could encounter headhunters or wild animals or snakes, the treasure they seek could be their halloween treat. I'm personally a big fan of pirate themes.