What’s your Favorite theme…

[FablesStudios]

I love Pirate themed things. Flume rides, gulf courses, water parks, movies. This is not the scariest theme but I still absolutely love it. The possibilities are endless.

Maybe one day ill have enough space to have a pirate themed something….


Peter
FS

[Allen H]

I have a pirate themed haunt, I find it very eay to come up with ideas for that show as opposed to the others. I would say my least favorite theme is the generic victorian manor theme, Its fairly limiting and VERY VERY popular, we have several great shows in my area alone but its almost over done as far as number of attractions or very loosely adhered to because of its limits.
Asylum is a good theme and can make a strong haunt, I also like Castles, I can see a prison theme being limited but providing a high energy show.
For those who are budget minded the Cannibal/zombie redneck theme is cheap and effectve.
At my park I have a Castle, a pirate show (3-D), an asylum, a graveyard, and a death trap maze (light Saw theme) as well as a pumpkin patch.
The trail I own inside the park cycles through 5 themes so it changes each year. they are, Realm of the Beast (gets to vary this year it was werewolves), Maze of the Minotaur (greek myth monsters), Frozen with fear (yeti), Classic creature feature (classic black and white movie monsters, sets and all costumes are in black and white I love this one) and lastly "The Infestation" (bug themed pretty high creep factor there).
so the haunts I work on for SCREAMS are pretty normal but the trail I have alot of fun with.
I guess I love off the wall themes where I am immersed in another world.
Allen H

[hauntedkimmy]

I would have a hard time picking a theme, but I guess I go more towrads traditional skeletons and tombstones and ghosts type stuff. Not much into the clowns and stuff that's more modern.

This year we are switching gears and doing a real haunted barn. I have to get my wheels turning on THAT theme now, LOL.

[Jim Warfield]

Could have used this. A few years ago the city dumping ground just over the hill from my house(Not nearly as nasty as it sounds, they keep it cleaned up in neat piles and mow it often)
Some farmer was given permission to dump a tremendous load of black dirt , like a semi-load that the city needed to replace sodded areas with that they tore up doing street and water main work. In that pile of dirt were the bones of cows, horses from what must have been some previous farmer's animal burial ground from many years ago, since the animal rendering business comes and takes the complete critter and have been doing this now for a great number of years.
Imagine wiring the bones back together to have a barn full of skeletal farm animals awaiting the customers!
The boney cow turns it's head loking at the customers and says,"No milk today, sorry."
Mount a plastic gallon milk carton in the cow, upside-down of course.

[spong8]

Post apocalyptic themes are my favorite. I give the haunt even more props if it isn't zombie driven.

Personally I'd love to see this as a theme. Post nuclear war, survivors of nuclear war/winter/summer have all rebuilt "society" in their own ways creating contrasting tribes, with different cultural beliefs. Due to the scarcity of resources, each tribe is very protective of their little settlements and basically war against neighboring tribes for resources.

The idea being that you as a guest to the haunted house are nomads and are caught in the cross fire of these waring tribes that are filled with brutes, mutants, government experiments that survived nuclear blasts, corrupt humans and other chaotic things. Maybe have societies that are filled with people who worship a chainsaw and kill/survive with them. The real scare their is the carnal need to survive.


I also like the mystery house/hotel rooms. Kind of like the haunted mansion themes but not really restricted to being within a mansion or hotel, I really liked the movie 1408. It was mostly in the hotel room, but then it wasn't at one point...but it was...Spoiler!

Then of course I'd find it fun to have just a complete gore porn haunt. Blood guts and mayhem the entire time. I'd like to see how creative someone can get past chopping off limbs and what not. Gory is easy but if you aren't creative with gore, it won't impress me or many of the kids who grew up with SAW the franchise.

[hauntedkimmy]

Jim, thanks that's a GREAT idea!!! My hubby works in the dairy industry so that's also a nod to him which he will LOVE!!!

Being very rural where we are at, we are fortunate to have a good friend who is a farmer and butchers his own cows and pigs. I'm sure I can talk to him for some livestock goodies. Not sure about the whole cow skeleton but maybe we would come up with something!! Thanks again!

[MournfulManor]

As a grown-up goth kid, I find my tastes are still very much in line with the gothic sensibilities. I love victorian mansion, cemetary, torture scenes, prison, asylum, and gore scenes, but they have to be done with a sense of style and taste. They have to transport me to another world filled with menace and dread, not just be some black painted wood and a few lights. With me, detail will make or break a theme. While I don't hate on Alien or post-apocalypse themes, they would make the bottom of my list of favorite themes, as would futuristic sci-fi themes.

[darkXmoon]

As a grown-up goth kid,

Me too!!! Long live my doc martins and black nail polish!


I love crazy paranormal haunts with gore mixed in. I love tricks of the eye and illusions that make you not know what to trust on what may and may not be real. I like things that are just over the top crazy with madness and insanity.

In a lot of my work you will find things that are just more bizzar and creepy.

[Pumpkin King]

I tend to go for the hillbilly theme with a bit of victorian gothic themeing thrown in. I love the traditional stuff.

[Boni]

At Dr. Buzzsaw's Haunted Hospital and Asylum, guess what, we like the Hospital theme.

Infectious toxins, mental patients, different shock treatments, all sorts of sharp objects and blood. Waiting room can be normal people, the morgue, you can work in an elevator, a secret basement, a mad scientist, people returning from the dead, brain surgery.

Some areas the doctor is good, some bad, sexy nurses, zombie doctors, zombie nurses, zombie patients.

Easy props that can be donated from many sources, hospital beds, walkers, wheelchairs, etc etc.