Thread: Suggestions for a ghost town yard haunt?

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Hey all,

This year my theme is a zombie-filled wild west for my yard haunt. I have been trying to find ready-made props online, but can find nothing with a western flair.

Any suggestions?

-Jose
StrictlySplatter.com

I just lost a lengthy post I was making with suggestions due to the board timing out on me...grrr...I absolutely hate when this happens to me.

here are some thoughts I had, best I can remember...

I think this will be a hard theme to find ready-made props for. But don't get discouraged because you can fairly easily repurpose a lot of "general" props to a western theme, ie. take a skeleton and add western garb to it.

You can find barbwire garland and do some quick fencing. Places like Oriental Trading carry this. I've seen it at lots of stores however.

Last year I bought Spirit Halloween's zombie farmer and wife standing props. They would make great town's folk for your wild west town. Don't know if Spirit will carry them again or not, otherwise search out used sources or places like ebay.

Check out Grandinroad.com. They haven't posted new stuff for 2009 but they still have 3 items from last year that you might consider--lanterns, cowboy skeleton, wanted posters.

Consider purchasing zombie masks and adding hands and legs and your own "body" to them.

When I think of a wild west town I think of card sharks, gunslingers and cattle rustlers. You could adapt an animated rising skeleton toe-pincher coffin prop to a western theme--black cowboy hat, vest, poker cards in pocket. If you can make some of your own toe pincher coffins, they wouldn't have to open and could be added to the animated one and make it look like there's a pile of unfortunate card sharks that met their fate.

If you can create a facade of a barn you could have a demon bull emerging from it. Red LED lights in the eyes would be cool, and if you could rig puffs of smoke (fog) coming out of the nostrils, really cool. Set to a motion detector if possible. You wouldn't need a whole bull body, just the horned, skull head coming out of the entrance of the barn. In the dark with proper lighting on the skull, the illusion would be enough. This mask has possibilities if you could find something like it here in the States: Animal Face Masks | Bull Mask | partydomain.co.uk

I'm not into "hangings" but certainly a strung up gunslinger or cattle rustler would be fitting.

Great suggestions.

Yeah, I was going to just dress some skeletons in cowboy hats and whatnot.

One question, what is a toe-pincher coffin exactly?

One where the toe/foot area gets really narrow. I'm sure you've seen them. Here's a how-to using XPS foam:

Spooky Blue's Halloween Home Made Coffin

How about skeletons playing poker, a saloon, a gun shootout, or an old abandoned mining village?

Here is some inspiration from Unit 70:
http://products.unit70.com/products....=&cat=&theme=7

Don't forget the Indians. Feathers and rawhide, bows and arrows for a few of those skeletons. A haunted teepee?

You might be able hang a horse thief or cattle rustler. I can't do nooses in my neighborhood - got lectured by a nine-year-old when I hung a pirate from the yardarm year before last.

I found some plastic longhorn skulls online when I was thinking about doing the wild west. And plastic wagon wheels.
Zombie dance hall girls doing the can-can.
Train robbery? A 55-gallon drum makes a great locomotive - link is to the one I built for that other holiday.

Yea, old west stuff is hard to find.
It helps that my yard is desert landscape.
Used barbwire for a cemetery fence too
I had to make my mine shaft and mine cart myself.
Adding costumes to the bluckies this year too.
Several members have done old west/ghost town haunts here.
Yard Haunt Junkie is working on a mine theme this year also,he is making everything with wood pallets.
Ghost of Spookie, njwilk, and nightride had some great ideas.
Lots of photos online.
Look for Disney,Knotts,Calico Ghost town,CedarPoint Theme parks to name a few.
Hope this helps.

I definately think it cant be a ghost town withouth Tumbleweeds

Depending on where you are, see if there's a slaughterhouse, or any ranches near you. Chances are you can get bovine and pecarry skulls and bones dirt cheap/free.

And check meat processing plants...ESPECIALLY around hunting season for random leftovers from big game.

if you have a biglots near you, i'd suggest looking there. My biglots had big wagon wheels, planter boxes that looked like troughs, aged things that had a western flair all over their "garden" section. You might be able to find some props that you can paint and distress even more. Just a thought.