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What are the best ideas, tools that make a great Haunted House?

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  • What are the best ideas, tools that make a great Haunted House?

    We change our HH rooms every year but it always seems to come to a point where you are at a deadend. Our Haunted goes up for a month and gets taken down so we can't keep the rooms up permanently all year round. We have done dot rooms, neon splattered room, claustrophobia room, Drop panels, portrait hallways, slaughter room. What other factors should we add? I feel like we are missing something.

  • #2
    Hey you asked for advice so I'm going to give it to you... sounds to me like your haunt is a mash of all kinds of gag type rooms. Personally I would NEVER put a DOT room in my haunt because to me it just seems so cheesy, 90's or typical. To me that just isn't realistic... as for the phobia thing, I avoided them for YEARS because I felt the same thing as the dot room however I came around to it feeling exactly as you posted... maybe we hit a wall here. We can build amazing sets, but that is just to look at so yeah maybe we need a DOT ROOM (LOL) or something that just isn't our style so mix it up. So I'm right there with you, so we choose the phobia walls and you know people hate them and people love them, its really 50/50. I've gotten complaints about them, I've seen then leave our haunts at a standstill where we had to put people at the thing to force people in... again hard to say. But I also hear people scream inside of it so you take the good with the bad when you know it really makes people freak out. So I've come around a bit on gags like this and I'm open to adding more, however I think you might be way to gagged up it sounds.

    So if you are looking for a chance do something the total opposite and build something realistic, with a special fx that showcases a ghost, demon or something supernatural. Just a thought...

    And by the way not taking a shot at the dot room, actually seeing how I've had the same feelings as you over the last year but im not embracing some things I said I would never do and to some degree hit or miss have enjoyed the results. I'm not going as far as a dot room (LOL) but I do feel you!

    Larry
    Larry Kirchner
    President
    www.HalloweenProductions.com
    www.BlacklightAttractions.com
    www.HauntedHouseSupplies.com
    www.HauntedHouseMagazine.com

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    • #3
      The first 2 years we did the Dot room as it got great reviews. Then we switched to the splattered neon paint on walls and it gives the feeling the walls are coming at you as the actor blends in as well. We thought of it as a calming area where you think the terror is over then it starts again. Our first HH we have more of a funhouse where we have a portrait hallway with drop panels, 2 rooms where we switch it every year. We try to make one room the gore factor and he other 2 more for scares. I think we will make the rooms more darker next year and add another strobe as well as more drop panels. We have buzzers, bells. We are trying to see what else we need to add to the gore scare factor. At the end we use a sawzall to chase the people out. After doing this for 6 years we want to revamp the ideas. The 2nd HH we turn into 3 big rooms with skits that combine with the storyline at the beginning of the long walk in the woods.

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      • #4
        I have tons of people tell me this following comment: We are so distracted by the incredible detail that we didn't pay attention and got scared by something jumping out. Detailing your rooms or creating rooms that are detailed to the bone in and of itself can be a scare because you don't know where to look. If I'm in a dot room I'm looking for the person in the dot costume as an example. Larry
        Larry Kirchner
        President
        www.HalloweenProductions.com
        www.BlacklightAttractions.com
        www.HauntedHouseSupplies.com
        www.HauntedHouseMagazine.com

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        • #5
          Well, it seems as if the OP is on a serious budget, just by going off of the rooms listed etc. Question, how effective could it be if you were to mix up scares? Instead of spending hundreds of dollars per room detailing out a library etc (especially for a tear down haunt)... why not mix up the classic 'gag' rooms? Like, put a drop ceiling in the dot room? (or you get the idea)

          Like the portrait hallways, everyone does the painting drop window, why not have someone on top of the hallway reaching down? Or take a coon tail on a stick and dip it in front of them / on top of them? Or perhaps make it look OBVIOUS that one of the paintings are a drop panel (have it crooked and have the actor move it like they're getting ready to drop scare them) ... then have a panel UNDER that picture and have it slide to the side and a zombie reach through, almost grabbing them?

          IE: Give them the OBVIOUS scare rooms, have them THINK a character in a Dot costume is going to start moving in a bit, but trick them up with something completely different? Best we've done was have a clown in a kid's room, with a "teddy bear" costume (dummy) in the corner in a chair. People thought it was going to move, but in actuality the scare was in a falling shelf. They first come into the room, looking at the dummy costume with stuffed animals / bears on it, and then as they got just passed it, a falling shelf hits a metal catch in the ceiling (impossible for it to actually fall on them)

          Also* Larry is right. We've been through the darkness and being haunters that's how we enjoyed the show. Force ourselves to be engrossed into the details... worked very well for us. We got some good scares on us.

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          • #6
            The first few seasons we went light with details. Then we started add some detail but not overly detailed. The drop panels we have mixed up from a dropped portrait to the same color wall blend in so you couldn't see if it would drop to a reception desk where you think the panel would open sideways but dropped down. We also have added multiple drop panels so you won't know which would drop and we make them all drop. The dot room we switched to splattered paint to change the actor up. One year we did the stuffed animal costume. Thanks for the tips we have been trying to think and tinker how to change it up next season. Misdirection is the best when they wait for something to happen and it doesn't then the scare comes.

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            • #7
              New Twist on Old Ideas

              I run a HAUNT that only runs 1 weekend, and we only have a week to set it up - so having tons of detail can be quite difficult, and a unifying theme that is very specific can be extremely expensive. We have done both, and found both to be effective. When I theme, I try to keep it open enough so we don't have to spend too much $$ specifically detailing rooms to a theme that we can't reuse the following year. We try to find a new twist on some of the old stand-bys, for example - I've never seen the dot room work very well - I can always spot those actors right away, so we have used a room littered with hockey masks painted with UV paint and hung on the walls, as well as hung from above the audience about the height of 5 - 6 feet. This has worked beautifully for us both times we used it, and the audience has a very difficult time locating the actors, since they are all in black wearing the same masks. Simple, but very effective. Try looking at how the scares work, and then find a way to do a twist on them that the audience doesn't expect.

              There's my $.02

              Randy

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              • #8
                I'll tell you what visiting some haunted houses really helps. We are on our way right now to Legendary Haunted House tour. Nothing better than to end the season relaxed and visiting haunted houses with no pressure. See everyone there!

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                • #9
                  I agree we are in Chicago right now. Excited to do the haunt tours. Being here reminded me to check in and see what everyone was up to. It's been a very busy season happy and sad it's over. Looking forward to learning, seeing new things, and most of all can't wait for Transworld. To answer the question posed going to all the events nothing like first hand experiences.

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