Thread: Keys to a successful home-based haunt?

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Anyone have some general advice on what it takes to have a successful home based haunt?

Less is MANY times...more. I have seen soo many home haunts, overstuffed with cheap props, sticking out from everywhere and anywhere. They look soo fake and not at all scary... Many times a few well placed props can be sooo much scarier than 50 all over the place.

Lighting (not lightning) and sound effects are KEY. Think about a horror movie, if you turn the sound down, the scare factor is reduced greatly. Proper lighting of your props makes them look alive or ready to spring out. Focus there...

Pick a theme...and stick with it. If you do a graveyard...do a graveyard...don't add a pirate, clown or executioner with that theme, it ruins the scare factor, even if the props ARE scary.

Focus on details, webs, fog, lighting can up the scare factor by 100, even if you have NOTHING (no props, no tombstones, nothing) outside..but some fog rolling in, dim lighting, and some good sound effects..can freak people out more.

If budget allows, buy higher quality props. Ebay is FILLED with cheap props that are just a waste of money. If you can spend money on 1 high quality prop and build around that, you will get the most bang for your buck.

Planning is key...

nuff said

Great Advice!

Originally Posted by meltdown211

Lighting (not lightning) and sound effects are KEY. Think about a horror movie, if you turn the sound down, the scare factor is reduced greatly. Proper lighting of your props makes them look alive or ready to spring out. Focus there...

I totally agree with this. I have spent more time thinking about music and lighting than anything else.

Originally Posted by meltdown211

Pick a theme...and stick with it. If you do a graveyard...do a graveyard...don't add a pirate, clown or executioner with that theme, it ruins the scare factor, even if the props ARE scary.

Interesting point. I am not sure we have a theme per se. We live in a condo and what we are goining to do is:

Have a graveyard at the bottom of the steps (we live on the second floor). Lots of red and green lights shinning on the tomstones. Some bats hanging overhead, blinking eyes in the bushes and spidewebs everywhere. We will have graveyard sound FX playing in that area and one of the tombstones plays Sound FX when you walk past it.

Upstairs we have a sizeable porch area. I am going to tarp it off to make a room. Its going to have lights (possibly a strobe), a mist machine and a skull/ghost that floats up and down when you walk by it. We will decorate it with skulls and such. We plan to have a table where my wife takes people to to hand out candy and while she is doing that I will jump out and startle people from a hidden area. We will have organ and sound FX in this area.

I guess thinking about it, our theme is undead because of the graveyard and ghosts.

Originally Posted by meltdown211

Less is MANY times...more.

Lighting (not lightning) and sound effects are KEY.

Pick a theme...and stick with it.

Focus on details...

If budget allows, buy higher quality props.

Planning is key...

nuff said

I've edited the key points of meltdown's post. I'd almost swear I wrote it myself as this subject has come up in the past, and I've made virtually the exact same points. Way on the same page, man.

Plan a theme. Everything you do should follow that theme. The absolute worst displays look like Halloween garage sales spewed out all over the front lawn. Buy or make quality props that reflect your theme and think hard about the layout. Don't clutter up the place, if you can help it.

I was writing about the fact that I'm only aware of one other major haunt "near" my place, i.e., a few miles away. The display is big, the guy means well, but it's laaaaammme. Among other things, he's got about a dozen newpaper stuffed shirt/pant/shoe combos, with various Halloween masks on, lying side by side on his roof. I frankly don't know what the objective is: (1) He has been holding back from The Salvation Army; (2) He thinks sleeping folks are spooky, especially when on the roof; (3) His recycling service won't haul away his newspaper; (4) He has put virtually no thought into it.

If you have the time and wherewithal, try to build your own props. Well done homemade stuff is usually far more scary than what is sold by the mass merchants. Besides, everyone in your neighbourhood will have seen the stuff at the local Wal*Mart.

Moreover, just cause something looks cool in the store doesn't mean it's going to work for you. I think this is one of the chronic issues with home haunters: someone sees a cool prop and has to have it. The person ends up throwing it out on the front lawn with the rest of the cool, albeit unrelated props. This can only work if your theme is "Unrelated Cool Props".

If you are, however, going to purchase props, stay away from the low-quality mass-produced garbage and focus on 1 or 2 high-quality pieces. You won't find this stuff at the mass merchants and will likely have to buy online.

Lighting and sound are really essential. You can read about lighting on some of the Halloween websites. I'm still trying to improve on this front. On sound, my haunt used to suffer from lousy sound. Last year, however, I got a proper sound system and, most importantly, a custom-made track from my sound engineer brother. The sound fits the theme to a tee; no giggly-goblin witchie-poo barfbag chain-clanking piraty-arrrrh crap. This is because there are no goblins, witches, chains, or pirates in a cemetery, at least not in my cemetery. Just the sound of death. It really made a HUGE difference.

Again, in the context of a cemetery, for example, little things can help; i.e., spider webs, rats, moss, etc... It enhances the realism. However, a severed, bloody limb doesn't, unless your theme is cemetery-slaughterhouse, and we know how many of those are around. That kind of prop in that setting actually dissipates the suspension of disbelief.

A few related thoughts:

Fog machines are always good.

If you're going to make something, it's hard to go wrong with a Flying Crank Ghost. It's an amazing prop that works for virtually any theme.

If you can help it, don't rely on dressed-up humans to work your display. I don't know why, but I find this also kills the suspension of disbelief.

No walkthroughs. Argh.

Go to pumpkinrot.com and explore his website. If anyone out there really gets it, it is him. Tremendous talent. Very influential.

Good luck...

...and good times.

JD

Wonderful points all of them and I totally agree, this is my 2nd haunt and I wish I had followed these tips last yr.
I am confused by one tip though.... *no walk throughs??*

Originally Posted by NewbieHaunter

Wonderful points all of them and I totally agree, this is my 2nd haunt and I wish I had followed these tips last yr.
I am confused by one tip though.... *no walk throughs??*

It's a personal opinion.

The amount of work, time, and expense necessary to do a "quality" walkthrough eliminates most aspiring home haunters from contention.

The key is quality.

By all means, do a walkthrough if you have all the resources required. Most people, however, don't. This goes for most Halloween first-timers, in particular. Some of the walkthroughs I've seen online make me cringe. The talent behind them - that was clearly spread too thin - would probably have produced an awesome display, if that's where the energy had been directed in the first place.

JD

gotcha, I understand what you are saying now and I agree.

Awsome post JD. Thanks!

Originally Posted by JD..

If you have the time and wherewithal, try to build your own props. Well done homemade stuff is usually far more scary than what is sold by the mass merchants. Besides, everyone in your neighbourhood will have seen the stuff at the local Wal*Mart.

Maybe I'll try making some stuff next year, but I cant imagin that I can make gravestones look as good as the store bought ones. I think they do a pretty good job actually. In general I agree with your point though.

Originally Posted by JD..

If you are, however, going to purchase props, stay away from the low-quality mass-produced garbage and focus on 1 or 2 high-quality pieces. You won't find this stuff at the mass merchants and will likely have to buy online.

COuld you show an example of what you mean by a high quality prop?

Originally Posted by JD..

Lighting and sound are really essential. You can read about lighting on some of the Halloween websites. I'm still trying to improve on this front.

Could you point me in the direction of some cool lighting resources?

Originally Posted by JD..

If you can help it, don't rely on dressed-up humans to work your display. I don't know why, but I find this also kills the suspension of disbelief.

Could you expand on this point?

Originally Posted by JD..

No walkthroughs. Argh.

Could you expand on this as well?

Originally Posted by JD..

Go to pumpkinrot.com and explore his website. If anyone out there really gets it, it is him. Tremendous talent. Very influential

Amazing. Not sure I have that artistic talent though.

i disagree with the fact that some of you are saying that in order to have a good set up that;

1) needs to be homemade

2) one theme

i buy my stuff and mish mash it around my house...i have several themes and u know what?...everyone that comes to my parties are maazed and say that its the best halloween party they have ever or will ever be in...

the key is to do the "themes" in an orderly fashion where they are spaced well between (ie different rooms).

also i never buy the children's props...its all good stuff or its not up...i add to them (ie leaves from outside, fog, lights, music, etc)...

so to a point i disagree with what some of you are saying

Bottom line: Have fun, if you like what you did...it is a success!!!

Makes no difference if you do a display or a walk through Haunt, if you're not smiling from ear to ear, why are you doing it in the first place.