My first haunted house

[Scarefest13]

Its almost fully lit i have lights everywhere and yes it is fenced in!

[Dr. Giggles]

Fully lit = VERY VERY VERY BAD, you want dim misdirectional lighting! Thats uber imortant!

[Scarefest13]

I was just saying it COULD be fully lit if i wanted it to

[haverghast asylum]

I do an aysum haunt. For lighting I use clamp lights like this http://homeharvest.com/homeharvest20...0WWhite200.jpg

I chaing to have them hand down from the over head wall bracing. I hook them up to flicker circuits. It looks pretty neat. Notice the lights in this pic http://seminars.torontoghosts.org/blog/media/asylum.jpg

Hope this helps some.

[tustinhaunt]

I started making haunted houses when I was your age... I started with black plastic sheeting ($60 for a 10'x100' roll) and wooden poles used to help trees grow ($6 per 10' pole.

Pound the poles into your lawn, duct tape and staple the black plastic sheeting to the walls. Make lots of twists and turns to disorient people. Get a fog machine and a couple strobe lights. Get a decent costume. Make a scary soundtrack for your haunt.

That right there will probably run you $400, so don't expect much from your first year. Just have fun.

[Oli_sleven]

Well I have lots of Ideas and I don't want to spam the forum with them all so just IM me... I too am only 13 but I am from england!

[badlander2000]

I love hearing about more 13-17 year old haunters every year taking the time and making the dedication to go out and get a truely good education about the aspects of making an excellent attraction (no matter how big or small) which assures a great success. The reason I get so excited about this is because I first came to this forum in March 2005 when I was 11 which was my first year of Buffalo Badlands but back then there were only like 5-15 (maybe) kids and/or teens on the forum and through the last 3, very soon to be 4 seasons I have witnessed the day-by-day growth of these forums and I totally look forward to helping you peeps out in your endeavors.

[Mortallus Inc.]

Hi Scarefest,

1. Congratulations on being ambitious.

2. Don't look to scare the crap out of everyone because chances are, you won't do it. Even if it's an honest attempt, you dont want it to be a lame attempt.

I suggest also finding some bigger friends that can help you out too for halloween. For your budget, you can do some decent little things, but try to make yourself MEMORABLE versus scaremastersupreme.

The black plastic suggestion is a great one. You can even take big ol garbage bags, slit them to make large sheets, and line a room, line the garage, and use that as a starting place.

-Get a fog machine.

-Get some strobe lights.

-Get some loose auxillary lighting that you can add colored flood lights to. Green and purple work well when used as accent lighting. Turn out your house lights and SOME of your outdoor lighting. Put little single strobes in the windows and in your entryway.

-Go to Home Depot and buy tiki torches. Spray paint them black, and line your driveway.

-Spend time with regular ol bagged spiderweb and work with it. If you play with it enough, you CAN do decent things for a standard house haunt.

-Stereo speakers... blare some decent music... get some White Zombie, some industrial metal, or some death metal. Make sure you blare it at a level to a)drive your neighobors nuts, and b) to the point right before it distorts and becomes garbage.

-Invest in some decent cd's like Midnight Syndicate. Good mood music.

-Put your candy in the BACK of the house so parents and kids have to walk around, and have friends back there to do whatever it is you work out. Just remember, growling in a rubber mask isnt scary. It sounds like a kid growling in a rubber mask.

-Concentrate on just being 'creepy'. Slow, methodical movements work well. One of my friends bought and off the rack hooded robe from Spencer's. All he did was walk around dragging an old shovel from the garage... up and down the street... not saying a word. Occasionally he'd pause, just stand there...slowly turning his head, and start walking again. He had a 'pit' in his yard that he'd dig, then fill back in. That's it.

The next year, parents were still talking about it. (ask mom or dad before digging holes in their landscaping though... We're adults, so we thought it was funny...)

Just get creative. Make kids work for the candy. Just remember... no physical contact, know when to stop, and be polite to the adults at the end.

[OgeXam]

Mortallus Inc. had some really good ideas and points.

Though I would strike one of them:
-Go to Home Depot and buy tiki torches. Spray paint them black, and line your driveway.

Open flame and Halloween Costumes are a bad mix... At a professional haunt in a controlled enviornment you can risk using fire.

At a home haunt with little kids running around with fairy wings and big wigs full of hair spary, fire = BAD

[Mortallus Inc.]

Yes, that is a very good point. My driveway setup was very wide so lining it with flame in a way that people weren't near the torches was easier.

I did tend to forget that most won't have that luxury. So yeah, I agree... ditch the real flame tiki torches... maybe find some safer alternative.