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Hello All!
I know I meant to put this up sooner but there was just much going on after Halloween. In fact this week I was STILL putting stuff away. But it is all away and sadly, it is a long wait until next year.
Alright. Much has gone on this past year and after last years, "The Creep Machine" show, I decided that was my final display at the location of my parent's house. Well, I had a change of heart late on this year and decided to put up a small display anyway. The display was based primarily on scares, so I simply called it, "The Scare Zone". My family was dressed up in costumes as well. My wife was Storm from the X-men (see pictures in my gallery to the left of my main page). One of my sons was Spiderman and the other was The Dragon Slayer Ninja. My wife handed out candy at the front door of the house while I played 'scare master' and watched over the scares that I had set up on the side of the house where I normally put up my displays.
I had three scares in all.
1) Spydro the Giant Jumping Spider: He made a return this year for the first scare. He is simply an interactive scare prop which I bought from Spirit Halloween. I put him in the same location he was in my 2013 display, right next too the back yard entrance.
2) The Boo Box. This is a startle scare in which a Trick Or Treater (TOT) would place his/her hand in a central opening and this would trigger a VERY loud sound. It was a very effective interactive scare and by far the most popular of the night. I was going to debut the Boo Box in 2012, but that was the year we got hit with Hurricane Sandy and lost power. For two years the Boo Box remained unfinished in the basement. This year I finished it and put it in the scare line up for this years display. I put it in the Vestibule on top of the table that normally I use for the Magic Mirror.
3) The Scare Chair: This was something I whipped up in a couple of days as I wanted a third scare for my display. I recalled back to last year's Creep Machine and found the best scare I had in that show were the electric firecrackers. I decided to hook them up under a long bench. It was the same bench I set up last year with the intention of my wife sitting there and handing out candy and also it was to be a photo op as well. But last year was too cold out. So, getting back to this year, I put the e-crackers under the bench and I had it set on a delay circuit so when people sat down on the bench, I would sneak my hand into the vestibule and push a small button. This would activate a time delay so I could walk away. No one knew I activated it myself. It too proved to be a good startle scare. Because I chose a large bench rather than a chair, four people could sit down on it at once.
In addition to handing out tricks and treats I also set up a large speaker closer to the front yard and played Halloween music.
Here are the videos from Halloween. The first video is live footage from Halloween night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP-gLWAn0OQ
This is the narrative where I explain everything:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qcGP35kisw
All in all it was a very nice evening with no wind and no rain. We had good weather for once! Turnout seemed to be a bit low this year, and Trick Or Treaters didn't start to come out until after 2:00pm, where as 2009, also a Saturday Halloween, TOTs came out at Noon. At first it was mostly younger kids and I mostly had fun scaring the parents. But later on the older kids came out. Those that showed up appeared to have fun with the scares and I sure had fun scaring them! You can hear in the video that I am laughing constantly. I had small and large groups of people come. The largest group was the last one on the video and they actually stayed awhile. Between the candy, scares and music, it was really more of a small party rather than my normal displays. People loved the added touch of the music I was playing up in the front yard.
Everything went smoothly, but towards the end of the night my jumping spider was acting up. It would jump up, but wouldn't reset. So I have to look into that issue and see if I can get it fixed before next Halloween.
The Boo Box was a bigger hit than I thought and I certainly want to use that again. As I figured it was scary enough the idea of putting your hand in an unknown place. Many people were screaming even before they triggered the box! One boy I got so bad it looked like he was ready to cry (towards the end of the video).
I initially wanted to stop at about 7:00pm, but because it was such a nice night out and no threat of rain (for once), I ran to almost 8:00pm. After that, everything dropped off.
Still though...out of it all I had at least 6 people ask about the Magic Mirror so next year for Halloween 2016, Vlen the Magic Mirror WILL return!
Despite the small size of the display for this year, it was still very fun. I hope you enjoy the video. I have attached some pictures below of my wife in costume and of the display. I took more video than pictures this year so I do not have as many pictures this year. The last picture is of the neighbor's house across the street taken from our side yard. They had a pretty elaborate display.
Enjoy!
I know I meant to put this up sooner but there was just much going on after Halloween. In fact this week I was STILL putting stuff away. But it is all away and sadly, it is a long wait until next year.
Alright. Much has gone on this past year and after last years, "The Creep Machine" show, I decided that was my final display at the location of my parent's house. Well, I had a change of heart late on this year and decided to put up a small display anyway. The display was based primarily on scares, so I simply called it, "The Scare Zone". My family was dressed up in costumes as well. My wife was Storm from the X-men (see pictures in my gallery to the left of my main page). One of my sons was Spiderman and the other was The Dragon Slayer Ninja. My wife handed out candy at the front door of the house while I played 'scare master' and watched over the scares that I had set up on the side of the house where I normally put up my displays.
I had three scares in all.
1) Spydro the Giant Jumping Spider: He made a return this year for the first scare. He is simply an interactive scare prop which I bought from Spirit Halloween. I put him in the same location he was in my 2013 display, right next too the back yard entrance.
2) The Boo Box. This is a startle scare in which a Trick Or Treater (TOT) would place his/her hand in a central opening and this would trigger a VERY loud sound. It was a very effective interactive scare and by far the most popular of the night. I was going to debut the Boo Box in 2012, but that was the year we got hit with Hurricane Sandy and lost power. For two years the Boo Box remained unfinished in the basement. This year I finished it and put it in the scare line up for this years display. I put it in the Vestibule on top of the table that normally I use for the Magic Mirror.
3) The Scare Chair: This was something I whipped up in a couple of days as I wanted a third scare for my display. I recalled back to last year's Creep Machine and found the best scare I had in that show were the electric firecrackers. I decided to hook them up under a long bench. It was the same bench I set up last year with the intention of my wife sitting there and handing out candy and also it was to be a photo op as well. But last year was too cold out. So, getting back to this year, I put the e-crackers under the bench and I had it set on a delay circuit so when people sat down on the bench, I would sneak my hand into the vestibule and push a small button. This would activate a time delay so I could walk away. No one knew I activated it myself. It too proved to be a good startle scare. Because I chose a large bench rather than a chair, four people could sit down on it at once.
In addition to handing out tricks and treats I also set up a large speaker closer to the front yard and played Halloween music.
Here are the videos from Halloween. The first video is live footage from Halloween night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP-gLWAn0OQ
This is the narrative where I explain everything:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qcGP35kisw
All in all it was a very nice evening with no wind and no rain. We had good weather for once! Turnout seemed to be a bit low this year, and Trick Or Treaters didn't start to come out until after 2:00pm, where as 2009, also a Saturday Halloween, TOTs came out at Noon. At first it was mostly younger kids and I mostly had fun scaring the parents. But later on the older kids came out. Those that showed up appeared to have fun with the scares and I sure had fun scaring them! You can hear in the video that I am laughing constantly. I had small and large groups of people come. The largest group was the last one on the video and they actually stayed awhile. Between the candy, scares and music, it was really more of a small party rather than my normal displays. People loved the added touch of the music I was playing up in the front yard.
Everything went smoothly, but towards the end of the night my jumping spider was acting up. It would jump up, but wouldn't reset. So I have to look into that issue and see if I can get it fixed before next Halloween.
The Boo Box was a bigger hit than I thought and I certainly want to use that again. As I figured it was scary enough the idea of putting your hand in an unknown place. Many people were screaming even before they triggered the box! One boy I got so bad it looked like he was ready to cry (towards the end of the video).
I initially wanted to stop at about 7:00pm, but because it was such a nice night out and no threat of rain (for once), I ran to almost 8:00pm. After that, everything dropped off.
Still though...out of it all I had at least 6 people ask about the Magic Mirror so next year for Halloween 2016, Vlen the Magic Mirror WILL return!
Despite the small size of the display for this year, it was still very fun. I hope you enjoy the video. I have attached some pictures below of my wife in costume and of the display. I took more video than pictures this year so I do not have as many pictures this year. The last picture is of the neighbor's house across the street taken from our side yard. They had a pretty elaborate display.
Enjoy!
