Thread: Haunted Medical School

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I'm so excited! I'm the faculty advisor for a charity haunt this year. I'm finally going to get to do a real haunted house (Don't worry, I'm still doing my yard haunt too) We're doing "Test Subjects" so the storyline is an old abandoned Medical School where they did experiments that go horribly wrong. We're going to be heavy on actors due to budget restraints but the cool thing is that this is going to be done at the career college I teach at and the main program in this school is for medical careers so we have lots of great things we can utilize for a theme like this.
So my fellow Halloween Freaks (as my students call me), I'd love to hear any ideas you might have for this. Oh yeah, we have a great atrium with four entrances in the middle of the school that the entire hallway for the school goes around so weather permitting, I'm hoping to incorporate that with some "live" bushes and escaped "experiments".

I know I can rely on the creative (aka morbid) minds here!

How about a haunted library in the medical school? Maybe make some books fly around the room with an Axworthy setup. Floating lanterns? Books moving in and out on shelves. A dissection room. With bloody instruments. Maybe fly them too.

love the books idea!

Oooh, fun project! And it comes with actors too! Actually I think you can get some of the best scares if you have actors in your haunt and usually actors and assistants are hard to come by.

Don't know if you can still view the video replay of the NBC Celebrity Apprenctice episode from this past season (Season #2, Eps 904 on 04/04/10, they did a Harry Potter theme), but they had a wand shop with boxes that would fly off the shelves (done cheaply by actors poking them off the shelf with a stick by hand from small holes behind the boxes), but maybe that kind of idea could work for the library as well with "foam books" or "hollow cardboard books" that would be lightweight. Here's a link to a picture of the wand shop over at NBC's website. The photo says it was Episode 904, picture 24 of 34.

I guess to simplify things, the books wouldn't have to fly completely off the shelves, like ones on the CA did. You could attach the "movable books" to a long board, which board would be hidden on the backside of the bookshelf and connected to the books through holes in the bookshelf's wall. With all of the books anchored to the board, by pushing the board forward and backwards the books would jut out of the bookcase and then get pulled back into it. I'd use something stiff and solid like a dowel rod or such to attach each book to the board with screws. I'd attach a comfortable pull handle to the board where the haunt assistant would grab on to it. One assistant could easily control 2 separate nearby book areas; one on each hand. With several board/book systems and with more assistants, you could animate the whole wall of books. I wouldn't attach all the books in a straight line either, I'd take books on one shelf and some on a nearby lower shelf and angle the board in the back to attach to both. I think this would give a nicer look to the moving books on the shelf. If this is confusing the way I described it, let me know and I'll draw a pic of what I'm thinking and post it. I definitely think this would be a good, low-cost "animation" display using some helpers.

If you have the time, I would also suggest checking out the DVDs of Stephen Kings "Kingdom Hospital". It was set in a modern day hospital which was built on the the site of an old civil war factory where a number of kids died in a fire. Over the years since the fire and the construction of a hospital, terrible experiments were conducted on people down in the lower levels of the old hospital; and their spirits as well as the childrens' from the fire have haunted the hospital along with other creatures that only some can see. I loved this series as you might guess.

Thanks for the great ideas. I did see that episode of Celebrity Apprentice and you're right that would be a good easy effect. I also need to take another look at Kingdom Hospital. Just the feel we're going for. Thanks again!

I agree with Terror Tom! That would be great!