Thread: Dead End Manor - Our 2008 haunt

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We had a very successful haunt last night. This is our second year of really stepping it up after a long break starting when our daughter was born. We usually only get the kids on our short street but this year I put fliers on every mailbox in the neighborhood (fifty four in all) plus a sign on the main street. The response was very good with a lot of kids and adults coming by. I'd say we had ten times more visitors this year over last. I'll be promoting it even more for 2009.

I was part of the haunt (dressed in a chemical suit with the other dummies by the van) and was jumping up and scarring people. I received a ton of compliments and appreciation for the haunt which was very nice.

Here's a rather poor video with a walk-through of the entire haunt...

YouTube - Dead End Mannor

It's pretty dark but I wanted to try and capture everything with the lighting that was there. The eyes that light up on the walkway go along with a bush shaker and a roar but it was late and the battery in the MP3 player had died. The pop closer to the porch is the hidden air cannon which really got a lot of people. There were four fog machines scattered around the haunt as well (three with chillers).

Here are pictures that show everything a lot better...

Halloween 2008 - a set on Flickr

I really have to thank everyone on the forum for all the great info and advice. I was able to really enhance the haunt this year thanks to all of you. After a little rest we're going to start planning our 2009 haunt and building new props.

Thanks for looking!

Looks like a great haunt! Good job

Looks amazing. The air canon is an idea I think I will incorporate next year. Loved the display by the van. I bet you scared a lot of kiddies there.

looks like a great haunt , i am sure everyone must of enjoyed it alot , also great use of lighting effect .

Thanks for the kind words. I wish the video quality was better so it was easier to see everything. My camera's video mode doesn't seem to do too well in low light.

The van display was a big hit. Dr. Shivers was a little too far back and you couldn't hear all the dialog I recorded very well due to the distance and Hallowindow. The was a bit too much fog so it was hard to see the other dummies as well which reduced my camouflage. I still got some great screams and had a ton of fun being able to interact with visitors. Next year I think we're going to build a lab scene around Dr. Shivers.

The air cannon was the best thing I did. It was really getting people. I loved to sit there and wait for the pop and scream. It was motion activated (as was the tree shaker) and ran off a prop controller I built. Next year I'm going to have it trigger a digital camera and flash when it fires so I can capture the expressions and put them on the web site.

Halloween is over and I can't stop thinking about it! Augh!

Awesome video! You did a fantastic job on your haunt!

Wewh! We worked the whole weekend and are about 90% cleaned up. I took one van load of stuff to my store today and I'll have another ready to do shortly. I have a few more cords to collect and the fog machines to clean as well.

If I took a guess, I'd estimate that we put in about 100 man hours of work for this haunt. Yikes!

Looks like fun.... well creepy fun that is! I really like the Bucky peeking out