Thread: Making a "fright light"?

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I've been looking into the "Fright Light" remote controlled flashlight from Monstertronics. Basically, it's a flashlight that your guests would carry through your haunted house, but your actors can remotly cause the lights to "flicker" or "go dead".
I'm trying to find a way to build these myself, as they are quite expensive and I would need MANY of them. I'd also like to have the trigger for them to go out built into the hallways so that they would automatically go out in the right part of the haunt.
Even if this couldn't be achieved, I am looking for a TON of cheap flashlights. If I could find some dim ones with only one LED that would be preferable. I have done some experimenting with an amber LED and loved the dim results of that.
Anyone have any input, suggestions, or ideas that could help?

I talked to an electronic control expert this morning and he said overlapping commands would be a huge problem.
That being said, I think we will be using flashlights still, but they will not be triggered... just on the whole time.
I'm now trying to gather information on costs... would it be more cost effective to use regular flashlights and replace batteries more often, or to modify some flashlights to use 1 led and change the batteries less often. I like the look of an amber LED, but don't know if the cost of modifying the flashlights would offset the costs of replacing batteries and regular light bulbs whenever someone drops them.

Coleman? Remote Control 8D Family Size Pack-Away? Lantern, Model 5317-702, Coleman? Remote Control 8D Family Size Pack-Away? Lantern, Model 5317-702 Kits, Coleman? Remote Control 8D Family Size Pack-Away? Lantern, Model 5317-702 Products

have you seen these?

I've looked into similar lanterns as an option, but still think that overlapping signals would cause problems. An actor pushes the remote, the lantern in the room turns off, but so does the one in the next room.
Also, these lights tend to be very bright and many, like this one, use a fluorescent lamp, which would shatter if dropped. That is why i'm leaning more toward modifying a regular flashlight to use one LED... I believe it would be much more durable, and less bright than any other option.

so you arent going with the remote controll anymore?

Unless I can find a fairly cost effective way to do it without overlapping signals, probably not. There's also been concerns raised about guests hitting the lights against walls or otherwise abuse them trying to get the light to turn back on.

How about rigging them in such a way that they are generally unreliable and flicker a lot? You know, like the plastic ones you buy at Dollar Tree. ;-)

Why would you need many many? What type of traffic do you get? My understanding of the way those flashlights are used is one per group.

Another alternative to the auto flicker/dim/go dead problem might be to have each group led by a host who is in control of the flashlight. Of course you'd have to have more manpower for that but you could control timing without circuitry.

We do not have a guide with the group, and our scenes are highly detailed. I think I would like to have each person in the group have their own DIM flashlight, that way they can each point it wherever they want and potentially see something that nobody else does. Hopefully that will solve the problem of only the front person seeing what's ahead or around them, and the person in back can shine their light back to see who's following them. We can have upwards of 50+ people in the haunt at any given time.

You could charge the people to use the lights like it says in one of the reviews on
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