Thread: Haunt Help

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Hello all, so I am creating my first semi professional haunt called Fear Farm. It's in my friends barns which are connected, and will be both indoors and out. I want the haunt to contain a multitude of fears like clowns, darkness, chainsaws, spiders/bugs, and I want to have a claustrophobia area. This is where I need help, any idea how I could do a claustrophobic effect? My last resort is build a hallway that gets smaller but I want to see if anyone has some ideas.

Thanks

Two ideas for a claustrophobic effect. One...make a entryway low where they have to bend down or even crawl to get to the next room.

Second: Use a take of the Claustrophobic effect used by Oak Island Attractions. Here's a link to their catalog to see how they do it. Could give you some ideas: http://www.oakislandproductions.com/...009Catalog.pdf It's around page 4 or 5.

Aw heck, I scanned it because they really are a great idea. I personally don't like them because it really is an intrusion on your personal space. In other words, I was scared but also a little annoyed:

Here is the first one they came out with. The closing in walls:







Now their next one was pretty cool. It's around your legs so you had no idea what was going to scare you at your feet. Also, you can't move fast so you feel pretty vulnerable:






Here's their ceiling effect:






And here's their effect like the one for your legs but for your upper half:

Ah, yes...

The side-wall one isn't exactly fear inducing (I'm actually claustrophobic), as it's too easily pushed aside.

The cieling one would be my choice to purchase if I had the space/money.

As the brochure reads, though, they would be best when combined with something else.

Actually, you can't push it aside. It squeezes you in. You have to stick your arms out and push yourself out. It's like being born...heh

Originally Posted by Terra

Actually, you can't push it aside. It squeezes you in. You have to stick your arms out and push yourself out. It's like being born...heh

HA! Some guys I know who run a big pro haunt in Michigan had a "swamp" effect using the same idea of air-filled "bladders" and some woman came out of the haunt saying her favorite part was the "air vagina".

-EEric

Originally Posted by Terra

Actually, you can't push it aside. It squeezes you in. You have to stick your arms out and push yourself out. It's like being born...heh

The one I went through wasn't that hard to push aside. Yeah, it sorta pillowed back, but with my arms at arms length out either end, there was a decent sized pocket around me. Enough to keep me from oging mental, anyway. And, I walked through with my arms outstretched.

(admittedly, I may not be the best judge of the amount of resistance in such things, though. I don't really know the limits of my strength. For instance, I have accidentally picked up a truck before while trying to break a nut on the u bolts underneath... "Cole...can you please put the truck back down")

And, since my wife and kids were close behind me, I can't really ask them, either...

Since I'm not really claustraphobic, I don't know what kind of effect this would have, but what about a twist on the dot room concept, except make a hallway with the flourecent paint on the walls and have it fade to complete blackness as they go down the hall, does anyone consider the dark as claustraphobic??

i don't know if i consider the dark claustiphobic, but i do know when it is so pitch black you can't see anything, it is very scary.
when my daughter was younger we went to a haunt and a monster scared us into a tunnel where we had to crawl. i ended up crawling 3/4ths of the way on one arm because she wouldn't crawl and i had to carry her with one arm. but other times we had to crawl i just did not enjoy that. if i found i had to crawl i just left.
i've heard that a lot of places won't allow the bags overhead for that closed in feeling. if they come down for some odd reason it's like a bag over the head, you can't breath. it might be hard to breathe for someone who has trouble breathing anyway.
i like your idea of the hallway getting tighter.
i've been in that vortex tunnel and it is awesome. somewhere on here is a tuitorial from someone making one.
i heard of a haunt with a hallway and they would have a front and back guide. when they got the people down where they wanted them they were actually lead into a room built in the hallway and each guide slammed the front and back doors shut and a dim light came on so they could see they were enclosed. then the room spun a couple of times and then they let them out. you could have them continue down the narrowing hallway. [i heard the walls of the room was the only thing that spun, kind of the vortex effect.]

One haunt I've been to uses a diamond shaped hallway to give the sense of the walls closing in. They painted it in alternating black and white and they had it built well enough so that an actor at the end of the hallway could bound off of the angled bottom (and did a strobe light) and it was seriously awesome.

^
/ \
\ /

Kind of like that, but the roof peak was much lower, and the angles a bit sharper....

If you angle the upper walls in, then it gives you the feeling of the walls closing in, without having to actually have anything touch anyone.

Don't forget the "trapped" aspect that a lot of claustrophobic's fear - not having a way out seems to really trigger a lot of fears.

One way doors could be a possibility.
Swinging doors with springed hinges - push them to go through, they close behind, and there's no handles to pull them back open.
That might be a great way to have people enter your claustrophobia area...help set that "helpless" feeling.