Thread: the dead zone; empty wasteland

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ok, i have on me trail what i call "wasteland." We have alot of empty space between different "scenes", and regardless of if we can do it or not, i need ideas for all that empty space. gracias and good 'hunting'

Skulls on pikes...corpses...jack o lanterns in the trees...simple scare crows....various signs...scary sounds....air cannons....FOG FOG FOG!!!.....

Hard to say without seeing your setup.

you know...we are gona have sum fog machines...maybe we can get sum to blow ovr the empty wasteland....
we have some signs too, but they are kinda more for specific stuff, and to hav them hanging randomly around nowhere would be wierd, but we could make do. we are using sum heads on a stick later on down the trail....
The only "visual" i can give is....

ok i dont hav the time now...but ill add it lateer

How about impaled victims like this:

Originally Posted by partsman

How about impaled victims like this:

that would be good.

Originally Posted by nightmare hollow

you know...we are gona have sum fog machines...maybe we can get sum to blow ovr the empty wasteland....
we have some signs too, but they are kinda more for specific stuff, and to hav them hanging randomly around nowhere would be wierd, but we could make do. we are using sum heads on a stick later on down the trail....
The only "visual" i can give is....

ok i dont hav the time now...but ill add it lateer

ok, the only visual i can give is...

before the wasteland is micheal myers. from there, its a straightaway to our semi-"large" graveyard. after the graveyard, its Freddy. from there, we have a huge empty space until the end, where we will have Leatherface jack up a chain-saw and scare the crap outa them.

Yes, Martha Stewart IS a good source for inspiration, even for the most demented of haunters. The reason she resonates, even with the most gory, jaded haunters is that the woman sure knows how to make a visual impact:

Check out the top left corner. I love that walkway. It's eerie in a "what's going to pop out at me?" way.
I used a similar technique in an empty area once, but my pumpkins had faces and were scattered a little more randomly off to the sides of the path. It looked awesome but I don't have any pictures unfortunately. It was very menacing. It filled up a large area with little effort.
The same effect could be achieved using lanterns or even the cheap pumpkin buckets that are everywhere right now.

PS,
I'm putting a Martha Stewart prop in my next display. She scares children without even having to wear a costume!

If the grass and weeds are dry and overgrown, you could take a very long length of 1/8-1/4" rope and some wooden stakes, and an operator, to create invisible rustling.

Place the rope in a LARGE loop through the grass, with the ends in a spot that can hide a person. Use the stakes as "corners" to keep the loops shape as the operator pulls on first one end of the rope, then the other. You will probably want to tie a few knots in the rope to give it something to catch on the grass and taller weeds, adding to the sound and creating a little movement.

You might even be able to place the rope so the rustling parallels the trail, so the sound chases them.

Go cheap and simple--make some markers for a Potters' Field. That's the nice name for a section of cemetery reserved for folks who lack the cash or social graces to be interred in the 'good' part. a lot of potters' fields have graves for unidentified persons and the indigent, so the markers are pretty simple and the graves barely maintained if at all. This is a good way to use simple wooden crosses, simple wood planks standing upright, and that kind of thing. Think extreme poverty and neglect. Barely light it--you want just the idea of something out there. You might add a dark silhouette back in the shadows, too. It could be as easy as a cardboard cut out painted black and set where a light behind it gives it shape. I've been looking for just the right shape for the trees at the very back edge of my yard--the street lights from the next block over cast just enough light into my yard to give a decent shadow of a person--or something. I don't know if I'll have time this year [bad winds slowed my set up down a lot], but I'll keep it in mind as a quick creepy effect. Another idea is just sound. A battery powered boom box on repeat playing low moaning, howling, or something my brother dredged from his twisted mind--a child crying. Noises in the dark are sometimes worse than noises from what we can see. Good luck