I watched it. I liked that they were average houses and everything they did could be done by any of us.

 

I watched it as well and it was good Loved the Monster Lab too it is suppose to be on again at 3 am Central time Sunday

 

I was flipping thru channels and saw it by chance although someone had listed it under the Halloween on TV thread. I really need to check through these listings more often. Anyway, I too found this year's show to be the most enjoyable.

I'm glad Madame Leota that you started this thread because I wanted to ask a few questions about it.

First, when the "witch" house asked about the way that the designer was going to attach the boarded up window look, he said it was like sandwiching the window between boards on each side. It looked to me that both sides of the sliding window moved so he could do this. Is this a correct intrepretation? We have a few windows that slide sideways but one side of the window is fixed and so don't see how this would be possible on ours. Just wondering if I was missing something?

I guess that house didn't have any smoke detectors inside because with the fogger in the garage the way it was I was sure the dectectors would have been set off. Think I remember reading on the forum that even if set too close to the house and it gets pulled in thru the eaves into the house it could set them off. Am I remembering this correctly?

Second comment is regarding the Psycho house being done by the interior designer. How stable did it look to you guys with that facade up there on the roof? I could see this facade being applied to the side of a dormer section of the roof like I think TK421 did on his roof because you would have some additional support behind it. With no support that I could see on this roof however, it looked like a massive heavy accident waiting to happen. Think the designer even alluded to this which in itself was pretty scary. What did you guys think?

 

I know what you mean about the boarded up windows. I thought it was a lot of trouble when they could have just attached them with velcro and called it a day - no construction required.

As far as the fogger in the garage, I'm sure they could get by with it for TV. I don't know if it would actually set off alarms or not, but it didn't make much impact either.

One thing I really loved was the "angry villagers" banner over the garage door of the monster house. That was really cool! I wonder how much something like that cost.

 

I only caught the last 10 minutes of it.

 

I caught parts of it. It definitely gave me ideas. I've also gotten hooked on all the Halloween shows on the Food Channel which is ironic because I don't cook!

 

I dug it; there are always a few good ideas on these show and this year the final designs were awesome. I am going to totally steal the fish tank bubbler idea next year.

 

I watched it last night, and I have to say I was disappointed. The designs were decent (Monster Lab had some great stuff), but I really think the show overall has gone dramatically downhill.

I think (?) that the show debuted in 2009, and that episode was, by far, my favorite of the three that have been produced. The first episode actually focused on how the designers transformed the houses. I took away at least three ideas from that show and applied them, with great effect, to my own decorating. I felt like, with that show, the designers and families took a back seat to the actual work, and that the episode was created to inspire other home haunters.

This year particularly, the show seemed to focus on the personalities involved rather than the how-to and design aspects, with emphasis on the "high-stakes" (lol) competition between the designers (something that was, as far as I know, totally absent the first two shows). I detest all this kind of manufactured "drama" that these shows are now pushing, attempting once again to recreate the done-to-death reality TV catfight formula for drawing viewers.

Additionally, the designers apparently had access to all kinds of unique props this year to beef up their designs (the trees and bushes in front of the Monster Lab house, for example, which looked amazing, but they just had those trucked in...almost felt like they were cheating, lol...), but I don't think the final product was necessarily better. I preferred the more simple but resourceful props that the previous designers were able to come up with for their designs.

Since the first episode, I've awaited each new episode with bated breath, hoping to take away more good ideas for my own haunt, but I'm coming away more disappointed with each episode. :-(

As a final thought, I agree that the boarded up windows for the witch house were awful. No detail whatsoever - just looked like pieces of vinyl tacked over the windows (which is what it was, essentially, lol...).

 

This year particularly, the show seemed to focus on the personalities involved rather than the how-to and design aspects, with emphasis on the "high-stakes" (lol) competition between the designers (something that was, as far as I know, totally absent the first two shows).

I am with you here, far less how to do it this year than the last two though I felt the final products were much better this year.

 

Just looked for it. It's on Sunday again.

 

I hate I missed it. Thanks for letting me know about the Sunday rerun. I'll be sure to watch! I love these shows!

 

Not only did I watch it, I'm in it! So is my daughter and son. You only see us briefly but she was the Queen of Hearts and he was the Phantom and I was a dapper vampire and I'm the guy with the top hat that you see walking into one of the houses with my daughter during the very short trick or treat segment. I was actually called by the producer to be one of the homes but my neighbors wouldn't have gone for it as they wanted the houses right next to each other besides I was more interested in a prop show not a decorating show so I declined. Anyways, the Helgeson's, the Psycho style house, are good friends of ours and from talking to Gary it was a pain in the arse to do this as the crew was at the house for almost 2 weeks and you the homeowner, did a heck of a lot of the work! The prize money was probably less then what it would have cost them to hire crew to do the work the homeowners had to do! But it was a fun night getting dressed up for Halloween and they had candy they wanted us to eat, which I saw none of on the show, probably because being as it was August and a very hot night the candy was for the most part melted and not what you want to eat! For all the filming we did, about 4 hours worth, they used very little of what we were part of which kind of sucked but it was a decorating show so that's what they focused on.

 

MrOct31, that is pretty cool anyway! I liked the interior of the psycho house but I wasn't too impressed with the outside. I can't believe they were there two weeks! That would have driven me nuts.

I did not like the "witch hunt" house at all, mainly because the theme was so convoluted. The designer didn't seem to get that there were no actual witches during the Salem hysteria. Women dressed as puritans stirring cauldrons? Nah, doesn't work for me.

Oh - I also like the zombie-fied family portrait, even though it didn't really go with a mad scientist lab. Still cool.

I really wish HGTV would get back to shows like "Extreme Halloween" and "What's With That Halloween House?", where they feature real people and their home haunts.

 

For more DIY catch MS's Haunted House

If you guys are looking for a more hands- on-how -to-build garage and yard haunt, hope you are able to see Martha stewart's Haunted House on Hallmark. It's on now and not sure if it repeats. Martha had others, sorry didn't catch names, building and decorating this garage haunt. I'd have to say that this is a more DIY special. Only part way through it, but they have a mine setting, voodoo shanty, mad scientist lab...fun so far and lots of suggestions for materials to use.

Saw a bit more of the show and they made tombstones out of blue foam. There was a guy who also made these wire and paper creatures that were really cool. There was a makeup section. The kids had fun with the mad lab. Very nice special. Liked it better than some of her past shows.

 

Saw it with my wife. We thought the overall execution of two of the three houses was good, but the "witch" house was just so convoluted as a theme that it wasn't even worthy of being a competitor. We could forgive them for having so much stuff trucked in. While those of us here buy a little each year, if we had the money, we'd all truck in a pile of new stuff every year.

I especially enjoyed the "neighbors with pitchforks" garage covering, and the "family portrait". Those were very inspiring, although a vinyl banner to cover a 20' wide garage door isn't going to be cheap as a one-off.

 

The psycho house was actually more morbid than what you saw. I guess after they were done decorating the producer/director felt it was to graphic for a "family" show and they had to cover or remove a lot of the more gory props. In person the monster house was the best of the three at least from the outside, the mad scientist theme inside really didn't go with the Bayou cemetery feel he had going in the front yard, even though it was well executed. The funniest part of the night was watching them try to get the fog to stay down in that cemetery on a hot August night while they were filming and all I could think was, "I guess none of them has ever heard about a vortex fog chiller!"

 

I thought this was the least inspiring of those that I have seen over the years. Like somebody said it was more like a reality TV "drama" show than a how-to haunt your house show. I liked the Science Lab the best, and the guy that did the Witch House wouldn't know a witch if they ran him over on their broom!!! Disappointing all in all.

 

I missed the Halloween Block Party 2011 re-run that came on this morning at 10:00 a.m. EST. Does anyone know if this episode is online anywhere? I would really like to see it, but I can't find it on Hulu or on youtube.

 

I got it this morning. The witch house designer needs to study up on Halloween. Boarded up windows with witches falling out? That design was a mess.

I really wasn't impressed with this special. I usual see something I would like to craft/create, but there was nothing.

This year has been slim pickings for Halloween shows. I did like Halloween Wars and Making Monsters though.