[Bubbels]

If you have ever been down in a real mine, you know that the temperature always drops. So if you could some how drop the temperature by 10 degrees, I think it would really add to the affect! Maybe sit an AC box unit (assuming you have one on hand) in a corner somewhere. Let it run on high for a couple hours before the ToTs come.

 

[propboy]

Don't forget about safety. FIRE hazards, if you are pro the plastic will not pass code.

I love the temperature drop idea. The sand falling idea is also awesome to hit all the senses!!!

If you can bring in sand/dirt to lye on the floor so people are walking in real dirt rather than a basement or garage concrete floor.

-PB

 

[Demon Dog]

A bottomless pit/shaft should work also well with this theme. I remember seeing once - but of course can't find now - someone displaying on the web a walk-through they had done with a haunted mine theme. He had made a bottomless pit that was only about a foot tall and covered with a thick piece of clear plastic that people had to walk across to continue down the path. He really had done a great job on it. But the same thing could be done to the side of the main path with barricades to keep people from walking on it, or have a rickety bridge over a bottomless pit illusion on either side of it ("will the bridge collapse as I'm on it?"), or mount it vertically for an endless tunnel illusion.

 

[Skulkin]

I made my Bat Cave with brown kraft paper. I took a faux paint roller and rolled brown paint on it and black bats. Then I crinkled it up and that gave it a texture of rocks. My pic isn't the greatest, but you can see the effect on the right.

They used to have an "elevator" in the Natural History Museum in Chicago that gave you the feeling of going down. (I was a little kid and thought it was for real.) What they did was had a roller at the top and bottom and put paper (like from a web press) around it, painted like the inside of a mine or cave. The rollers turned and gave the appearance of going down. You could probably even do a simple crank system or a barbeque spit to turn it.

 

[Junit]

Hey, Scatterbrains, did you ever make it to the haunt that was in the (actual) silver mines up in Park City years ago? ( I think the last year of operation was 12 or 13 years ago)


Anyhow. They did a lot of stuff making it seem the thing was going to collaps (essentially a drop-spreader filled with sand, making the mine look like it was going to be falling in) and with people trapped in the rock. Big bugs and stuff like that.

It was actually pretty interesting as the only lighting was the lanterns on people's heads.

Then those went out...

That would be an awesome haunt to go to!

 

[redrom]

All excellent ideas. Bottomless pit under a rickety bridge, like a rope bridge, is a must. The walls of the bat cave are pretty much what I'm going for, just a lot more of it and curved over the top. I'm not sure about chilling the tunnels because it's pretty cold already in Oregon on halloween. It would have to be really cold to be noticable. Maybe a fan at some point to make a draft tio indicate a way out.

 

[borisbo12]

Build an entrance to a mine shaft about 3 feet square and about 3 feet deep. Then put a "bottomless Pit" effect at the other end. Make a small mine cart that sits just inside the 3 foot square part, but when you look editable 2023 calendar past the cart it looks like a mine shaft.

Of course you will have skeleton miners.

Again, build some mine carts from plywood, like cut outs. Then make animated "tombstone peepers" with zombie or skeleton or mangled minors peeking up behind it.

A cave in with arms and legs poking out.

Lots of bats.

That's all I got for now.