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Best scare for EXIT scene?

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  • #16
    exit scare

    Our haunt is outdoors, in a 10 ft tall cornfield maze that we fog heavily, but we have our actors (with chainsaws - we're in Texas, and for some reason that scare is almost mandatory for some folks), about three or four guys dressed all in black, criss-cross through the dimly lit path and alongside our patrons. Our customers can hear them rustling through the crop, smell the chainsaw fluid smoking, and feel as though they are being stalked...then, we give them a break. Things get eerily quite and still. The guys turn the saws off. The only thing you can hear is the wind in the cornstalks, footsteps, and a low hissing/whispering soundtrack we created (my 10 year old and some friends!) They wander on a bit into a predictable scare, they think they are home free -- by then, there's usually a nervous giggle or two (Gotta love the 13 yr olds!) and our huge, bubba of a guy, 6ft actor all bloodied and nasty, crazy looking in his hillbilly garb fires up the chainsaw on the path in front of them, back lit by a red light. We shoot compressed air at them at the same time and they RUN SCREAMING to the only exit they can see, just behind the chainsaw guy. It's a classic, yes even cliche -- but something about it gets a great response each time. People tell our ticket girls that they're back and bringing their friends for the chainsaw guy....
    "Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
    ~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

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    • #17
      Our first year, I was set on not having any chainsaws in our haunted house. After the first weekend, the most common complaint from our customers was that we did not have a chainsaw. Its great to be original and creative, but you have to give customers what they want. There is a reason that hollywood keeps putting out the same plots over and over (and even just directly re-making movies). We used the chalk board drop down for a couple of years and it definitely worked great. I think the best way to do an ending is to use a chainsaw in a good last scene (giving them what they want), then the customers go into a room that leads them to believe that the haunt is over, then you hit them again when their guard is down (air cannon, drop down, whatever).
      Bill C. Schnell
      Dark Son Productions
      NecroPlanet Haunted Attractions
      www.NecroPlanet.com

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      • #18
        I heard that complaint my first year too, but rarely have I heard it since. It is pointless for us to add a chain saw to our haunt when every haunted house and cornfield around us is using them in droves. I don't think customers necessarily demand chainsaws, I think they have just come to expect it. What they demand is to be entertained. And as long as you do that then you don't have to hold on to the "got to have a chain saw" theory like it is the gospel according to Leatherface.
        That is just my humble opinion. In the end ya just got to do what works for you the best.
        Haunting has a lot of room for experimentation.
        And don't get me started on Hollywood plots and remakes. Those guys rather sell the same old rehashed stuff over and over for fear of loosing a buck. I think they are currently on the verge of driving the recent resurgence of horror movies into the ground with the same old crap. They are remaking Prom Night! How much more can we bear? lol
        sigpic
        Louis Brown
        Owner, operator, and dish washer
        at
        DarkWood Manor

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        • #19
          Everybody does what they feel will work for their customers. I have had the following conversation 1.000's of times over the last 20 years with potential customers either on the phone or in person:"Do you use chainsaws in your haunted house?"
          "No I don't."
          "Do you have gory, bloody displays."
          "No, I don't do Crime Scenes or Murder Houses"

          "Are you going to scare me so much I wet myself?"
          "I sure don't try to do anything like that."
          "Is something going to grab me in there?"
          "I can't promise this won't happen because one of the
          people coming in with you might touch you."

          Then after the tour they might tell me their personally upsetting,embarrassing history within another haunted attraction. Then they add, "And I NEVER went back there again!" (And never took any friends there either.) If it is an adult telling me this they usually never allowed their kids to go to a haunt either.
          So anybody want to try to mathematically calculate how much business and how many dollars were lost over just, say a ten year period of time?
          This afternoon I had a tour for a Dad and his two young girls. I showed then a lights on tour mostly and gave away every potential scare, they are only maybe 7 and 5 yr. old girls, they loved it and I asked them if they had a good time, weren't scared? Then I said " maybe someday you would like to come back here then? What a concept! Doing what I enjoy, treating the customers as patrons and being able to pay your bills and not have to stand in the free cheese line! (sucking in cheesefarts.)
          hauntedravensgrin.com

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          • #20
            Exit Scare

            Our strategy is to let them think the tour is over one scene early. we stop them, talk to them a bit, then say happy halloween and send them out thru a small scene/hallway.
            they are so off guard at that point that simple popups and air cannons do the job fine to have them running and screaming out into the courtyard
            Gravely MacCabre
            aka Ricky Dick
            Castle Blood Haunted Adventure Tour
            and
            Midnight Monster Hop
            Horror Host Show

            Beallsville, PA 15313
            www.castleblood.com
            www.midnightmonsterhop.com
            www.myspace.com/midnightmonsterhop.com

            Media Director for National Halloween Convention

            http://www.halloweenshow.com
            Lifetime achievement award winner
            International Costumers Guild

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            • #21
              That is Lovely! Gravely!
              I can't stop doing this either, that's how a tour through my house ends up taking 90 minutes!!
              Too much FUN for JIM! hahahaha!
              Distracting them, calming them, this is mainly resetting them for the next one, making it a roller coaster ride.
              I keep finding new ways to have this fun. This winter has been very extreme. I saw 5 inches of water on the floor of the wine cellar, then it froze the first inch making walking over it like walking on glass, breaking glass! Fun! Lucky I got rid of this by the next night before the word got out and everybody would be demanding the breaking glass-effect for their tour!
              So we were walking through the exit tunnel when a customer sees a push button mounted on a box above his head.."what does that do?" "Go ahead and push it."
              He pushes it, the lights go out and in this quick darkness I scream!
              Of course everyone jumps!
              All this from an 89cent push-button !
              Simple scary fun bordering on the immensely idiotic!!!~~

              After 20 years I still laugh a lot during each tour of my house!
              hauntedravensgrin.com

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              • #22
                Originally posted by icarian View Post
                im very rarely impressed by chainsaw use in haunts... its so redundant, everyone does it, everyone has seen it... think of something new already, or at least utilize the chainsaw in an exciting, NEW, way... ya know?
                I agree. At one time one of the local haunts (not me) had 9 chainsaws in their attraction. Talk about over kill (no pun).

                We do have one, and it's in the middle. The character has it because our story calls for it. If the story didn't call for it, we wouldn't have one.
                ~HauntedWebby~
                www.lazarusmaze.com
                www.bbqandghosts.com
                "Doesn't expecting the unexpected make the unexpected the expected?"

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                • #23
                  It depends on who you market to

                  Fellow haunters or people who just want to be scared? Yes, it's a cliche but it is effective. It doesn't fit with the last and next theme I have so I won't be using it, but I would if I could. I don't care if anyone looks down their nose at me for being uncreative. It works, people expect it, and are still scared by it. So the reason not to do it is........?

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                  • #24
                    I also agree that the idea of a chainsaw weilding marathon man is old; very old to us haunters. To customers that come one once (or twice, or any other single digit number) a year to experience the haunt, the concept isn't so..."stale". Hey, as long as actors get reactions out of people with the gig, I doubt it'll fade. Since it hasen't already, I guess patrons still get a kick out of it.




                    But between you and me, I'd like to some "variety" with those saws.

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                    • #25
                      Chainsaws...hmm...well...
                      In my small town my business partner, Terry, and I started helping the Lions over 10 years ago and they had no chainsaw...they did use a circular saw (no blade obviously...or not so obviously...)...
                      My first year they asked us young'ins to do the final room and we promised to send them off with a bang...so Terry got the Leatherface outfit made up and grabbed his saw and I was the distraction/victim...it was a small room (walk in...sheet for a wall and turn left...small table with head body/parts on it and immediate right...) and I'd be in the corner or behind the sheet...I'd get behind them and scare them forward and Terry'd be in the doorway out...well, they'd jump back and smash into me...so he hid behind the sheet and I'd be in corner in front of them...they'd think I was going to get them and he'd jump out behind them and out the door, through the 15 foot dark tunnel exit...most would keep running the 20 plus feet smack dab into the wall of the building...it worked!
                      They kept this year after year until they sold the stuff to us...
                      Well a local charity started a haunt 2 years ago (we started our own one last year) and they had a guy who helped us as the room evolved into a full scale dinner scene from the Texas Chainsaw movie...he told them he created the chainsaw scare and scene (he did fill in for Terry once or twice a year) and they did a copycat thing...
                      This past year they were doing it again and we did ours...Terry's nephew brought his chainsaw and it had no muffler on it...you could hear it a mile away...the folks loved it and said ours was better than the other...that was a nice compliment...
                      But it works here in my 'hick town'...hehehe...
                      We have people at the door jump and look like they almost wet themselves when they hear the saw inside...
                      We also utilized an electric one halfway in a foggy body part room with a light pointed at the customers...lean forward with it into their vision and they scream...thinking the chainsaw bit is over...hehehe!
                      We're trying to not use it this year, but people stand outside yelling "Hey Chainsaw Guy!" We don't want to disappoint!
                      That's my take!

                      Kirk
                      Kirk Boemmel
                      Dark Ghost Manor
                      www.darkghostmanor.com

                      sigpic

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                      • #26
                        Originally posted by HauntedWebby View Post
                        We do have one, and it's in the middle. The character has it because our story calls for it. If the story didn't call for it, we wouldn't have one.
                        THANK YOU! this is the type of usage i'm trying to promote! too many people just throw one in, with no regards to the rest of their haunt....
                        -Mat

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                        • #27
                          "I just drove 100 miles to get here and I only have a dollar left. If I can't see your house for a dollar, I will go home disappointed. You don't want to disappoint me now do you?"

                          So what if you guys came up with something a lot better than a chainsaw ballet?
                          Will you have enough time to come up with something else if you spend all your time copying that old movie for the next ten years?
                          This is where the real loss or personal tragedy of human life falls, we find our comfort zone, what seems to "work" and we all get lazy, life passes us by, we are forced out of being an active, inventive person and then it's too late.
                          You will know that you have done something right when you discover that others are copying you..and if you hadn't done it first..nobody would have been able to do the particular thing, figured out by you!
                          I have quite an advantage here being open every night. I think of something, I try it, if it doesn't work or work as well as I had hoped I can try it with slight variations and sometimes the final success comes into the picture from a customer's response to it, inspiring me to respond with something I normally would not have thought of or seen it quite that way.
                          our lives CAN be as stimulating or as stale as we want them to be, the theater of haunted performing is such an incredible place for expression..yet too many waste time simply trying to be that other guy, you know, that guy from that movie, whatshisname?
                          Is that also your name? whatshisname?
                          Too many whatshisnames already.
                          hauntedravensgrin.com

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                          • #28
                            Thanks Jim

                            Originally posted by Jim Warfield View Post
                            "I just drove 100 miles to get here and I only have a dollar left. If I can't see your house for a dollar, I will go home disappointed. You don't want to disappoint me now do you?"

                            "This is where the real loss or personal tragedy of human life falls, we find our comfort zone, what seems to "work" and we all get lazy, life passes us by, we are forced out of being an active, inventive person and then it's too late.
                            "

                            Well put Jim!!! I believe that MOST haunted attractions I have visited are very predictable (to some degree) in what I expect to see. I believe this creates a comfort zone that is counterproductive to the intent of the haunt. Let me just say there was very little comfort zone at Raven's Grin when I recently visited. I am a big fan of keeping people off balance - utilizing the idea that almost anyone's imagination inspired by fear is scarier than any prop created.

                            On that note, thanks Jim for an outstanding evening at the Raven's Grin Inn. We appreciate your effort and had a great time!!!

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                            • #29
                              Thank You Very Much!
                              You just invented a new haunting term, or maybe it should be just a popular abbreviation? VLCZ
                              Very Little Comfort Zone.
                              Let's all say this abbreviation quickly a few times , feel how slickly it rolls from your tongue(using someone else's tongue is cheating,especially if you have a whole pan full of fresh ones!)
                              "VLCZ"
                              "VLCZ"
                              VLCZ"!!!!

                              My style of diminished customer comfort zone doesn't rely upon deafening noises (for the most part) or blinding strobes or real guiliotines. My method may require much more time and effort but after their long drive to get here I'd better be doing the best that I can to give them a memorable experience:
                              "It gives you something to talk about when you are locked up in the nursing home someday."----My Motto. Promising future fun conversations, something to regale in one's old age.
                              hauntedravensgrin.com

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                              • #30
                                I thought of a few ideas that could put a twist on the old chainsaw.

                                1)Have the customers enter a room where they see a leatherface type character desperately trying to start a chainsaw. He quickly gets frustrated, and the customers laugh at him. He takes his worthless chainsaw and smacks it against the wall. A loud crack is heard, the actor looks at the customers and says, “oops!”. Then a fake wall or ceiling fall scare occurs. This would freak people out cause they would think it was a real accidental set failure.

                                2)How about having a chainsaw guy trying to start a chainsaw, but it won’t start. Just as he gives up in frustration someone in a giant fluffy evil bunny costume comes out and attacks him with a carrot.

                                3)Build a fake giant chainsaw that is big enough to have an actor pop out of it

                                4)Just before chainsaw room post a sign with the current gas prices, and then have the chainsaw guy chasing people with the chainsaw while just making chainsaw noises with his mouth.
                                sigpic
                                Louis Brown
                                Owner, operator, and dish washer
                                at
                                DarkWood Manor

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