please help soon

[tiney2]

ok. trying to make this short. I live on a farm and this is my fifth year. I usually take a hayride to different haunted areas. This year we are make a hugh maze. Using a long pis nursery (a couple pens will be a room others will be hallways twisting around. Then the maze will zig zag out side (using cattles panels bent into an upside down U covered by 4 mil plastic. then it will curl around to go into one barn and maze around in there (with a couple open areas and then into another barn (with a couple open areas and finally reaching outside for a cemetary line with big round hay bales. This year is based on SAw (the movie. I have only watched a few minutes. But like when they first enter in I will creat the bathroom scene with a toilet and 2 guys chained up and dead guy in the middle of the floor while playing the words on the tape. ( there will only be small groups entering at a time) I have a ramp that underneath a guy is under there and turns on a strrobe and pounds under their feet. then I have someone that will come out at them from a slit in the wall. I als have someone going to be grabbing feet. I also will cut 2 small u's in a wall for someone to rech long icky arms into the walls. With this being so large I need more scare tactics. I also am doing a strobe on a foil wall. Please any help!!!!

guys are building tomorrow and I need help quick

[Smiley]

'Fraid I'm not all that familiar with hayride scares, but every great haunt has one thing in common: crazy actors. It seems you already have a few at your disposal. Good. If you can, try to get a few more people involved and instruct them to improvise. Have them chase the tractor, jump into it, jump out, interact with scenes, or just plain act like their on speed. When actors improvise, they can give people more bang-for-their-buck because patrons won't be seeing the same thing twice.

[Mr. Haunt]

I don't have much advice for you, but I would also have to say with the use of good actors can make the most basic set look very detailed and full of action.

One other thought, don't get to deep into movie themes and create something off of a movie. You never know who goes through your haunt. Movies such as Saw, Nightmare on Elm St., Friday the 13th, Halloween, and so on are all "licensed". Haunts can get into trouble by copying movies and getting to close to the actual movie. YOU CAN GET SHUT DOWN IF YOU GET CAUGHT!

An example, and I am not saying names, did one of his whole haunt that looked like Freddy Krugger (Spelling) world. All of his actors dressed as Freddy and he got caught. Lucky enough for this haunt owner he did not into to much trouble.

As for the whole touching thing, I am not so sure thats a good idea. There is a lot of possibilities that a person could get triped and hurt. It's a accident waitng to happen. Thats why a lot of haunts use the rule "NO TOUCHING THE ACTORS AND THEY WONT TOUCH YOU".

I am not saying change your idea, just think SAFETY FIRST ALWAYS! These are all things that I have learned on this forum from other haunters.

Mr. Haunt

[horrorfiend99]

It sounds like you have a lot of space to fill up, and I am a little confused. Are you saying that in the past you used to do a hayride/maze hybrid and this year you're changing it into one giant maze? It seems to me, if you are having trouble staffing such a large maze or coming up with enough gags, perhaps the hybrid idea is actually best.
If you are intent on one giant maze, just know that it is very important to fill your space with great sets/props/decorations and/or lots of actors. I have been through many haunts that were very large and took a long time to walk through, but where the scares came few and far between. That is simply inexcusable.
I also think that theming your entire maze after a film is a mistake. Not just because of teh legal issues but also because it shows a certain lack of creativity and originality. In haunts I have designed I have used licensed characters before (I have included rooms based on Friday the 13th, Halloween, Hellraiser and Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and a lot of fans do enjoy such rooms, but it is extreme to theme an entire maze on one film. Also, the farm setting of your haunt seems totally wrong for the Saw theme (Chainsaw Massacre or a similar backwood inbred horror situation comes to mind as appropriate), and the other scares you have planned don't seem particularly thematic. Think seriously about going with a different theme altogether.
As I mentioned before, giving your maze a chainsaw theme would be good becuase the large size allows for some more open spaces in which to wield the saws, and your strobe lights would work well with such effects.