My younger son, whom I call "Bear" but logs on occasionally as "MoochFan" is asking for ideas. He is in the 8th grade Theater Arts class at his Middle School, and they are in charge of the Haunted House at his school. We never celebrate Halloween (mainly because it's no longer the innocent holiday Hubby and I recall from our own youth), so he's needing help in coming up with ideas. It'll be at the school, so it needs to be easy to set up/take down, in keeping with zero tolerance for weapons, and appropriate for middle schoolers. Any ideas?
Daily Kitten Chat Forum » Purrs
MoochFan Needs Ideas for Haunted House
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I think that my memories of Halloween would be much too ancient, Gatakitty. I remember the stupid stuff like a bowl of cold spaghetti and a vat full of hard boiled eggs, all of which you had to feel while blindfolded. I think today's kids are a bit too sophisticated for all of that!
Posted 3 years ago by WillowandWindismom #
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HMM pop out hands flicering lights lound booms coming from somewhere but were dun dun duu
Posted 3 years ago by neelaANDcharlie #
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I was at a Halloween party once where there was a huge bowl filled with half jelled jello and into it they put grapes. People were blindfolded and told to put their hands into the bowl and try to guess what they were feeling. Of course everyone screamed "eyeballs". There may be some variation of that he could implement. Roseanne Barr had one of the funniest Halloween shows that I have ever seen on t.v. There is often a replay of it around this time so maybe you could keep an eye out for it. They had really creative and funny ideas for halloween pranks and decorations.
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I saw this in a magazine! You take a large refrigerator box and cut small holes in it and attach rubber gloves to the inside of the box have kids crawl through box and have several hands grab them that are in the gloves!
last year at school we did a miniature golf course! One was a pumpkin, a ghost a spider web and the last was a monster we used pvc piping and cardboard to make the golf course it was a hit!Posted 3 years ago by 4 kits staff #
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Gatakitty I just received an email with this site in it. They have a number of things on halloween decorating. Hope this gives your guy some ideas
http://www.instructables.com/community/Halloween_Decorations/
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I remember back when I was in high school I helped with a haunted house at school. We had strobe lights going for the eerie effect set up a maze of tables covered with sheets that the kids had to crawl through and at various locations we had someone laying on the table with their hands dangling down. Various things like a someone dressed as a zombie, someone as a vampire, ghosts, witches, etc. A big pot with some dry ice in it for a smoldering brew.
Posted 3 years ago by Stubbys Momma in MO #
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When I was in college we were once in charge of the haunted house. We got the theatrical white makeup that glows in the dark and black lipstick and nail polish, and heavy black eye makeup, and it looked pretty creepy. We dressed in black and jumped out at people as they came through. We also had "witches" with the dry ice cauldron.
(I must add, it went well until the very end. Somehow we had a casket and had a "funeral scene" set up where my friend was in the casket and then she suddenly "came to life" and jumped out at everyone. Right at the end of the evening, she caught her foot as she was jumping out and fell head-first, cutting herself badly below the chin. We ended up in the emergency room - all of us still wearing our makeup! What made it bad was that it was not Halloween yet, it was the weekend before. We got some VERY strange looks. We still laugh about that one.)
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Ginny, I was a special effects make up artist for 18 years for two different haunted houses. Yeah, I can help with ideas. The best way to get a scare is to employ various distraction or bait and switch tactics. Have the victims oh I mean patrons walk through the middle of the scene. Have something in the scene that obviously gets their attention so they are focused in one direction. While they are distracted someone from behind either crashes the door open behind them with a loud bank and jumps at them, or makes some other noise to scare them from behind. Over the years we found that clowns are scary. Especially clowns with chainsaws. (chains removed obviously but under the strobes you can't tell there is no chain) We even found that jumping out at people with leafblowers can scare the pee out of them. Make it DARK with strobes, make it loud enough that they can't hear themselves think and do high contrast makeup to distort the faces. Alos have someone tease and spray everyones hair. Monsters do not have nice hair. Two last tips. Once the greasepaint goes on, powder it in. We used baby powder put into the toe of a clean white tube sock. Powder until the greasepaint feels dry. This means your actors will sweat through the paint and it wont come off on everything and wont get into their eyes. Remove the greasepaint with suave strawberry essence shampoo. For some reason it works best. I learned this last thing from a Ringling Bros. Clown. You scrub it on their faces like cold cream. Undiluted. Scrub the make up to loosen and then use lots of paper towles to wipe the grease paint off. then they can go to the sink and splash their faces to get the rest of it off.
Posted 3 years ago by KYKAT 12 23 #
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We did our costuming from the thrift store. We bought lots of suitcoats, oversized dresses, etc and splashed them with red paint, slashed them up and daubed them with brown stain to simulate dirt. We found a cool wedding dress and tuxes one year and had a zombie wedding. The wedding was the distraction and the wedding guest screaming "I Object" with a bladeless skill saw was the scare! We had operating room scenes, haunted graveyards with bodies rising from the grave, and many many different mazes over the years. We had the advantage of having a permanent structure that we could work on over the year and perfect, but there is a lot that can be done with pipe and drape. Biggest rule of thumb. DO NOT TOUCH any of the patrons. Touching is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Remind all patrons to take big earrings out of their ears and tuck necklaces into their clothing and cellphones in pockets. Your monsters wont grab them but their friends might in panic and fear.
Posted 3 years ago by KYKAT 12 23 #
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Fake blood: 1. Kayro Syrup, 2. Red Food Coloring 3. Hershey's syrup for depth, texture and taste. Or you can buy professional fake blood, make-up and other supplies from:
Bobby Weiner is a hollywood make-up artist who developed her own line of special effects make-up and it is the best in the business. Trust me I have tried them all.
If you want to do any latex work, let me know.
Posted 3 years ago by KYKAT 12 23 #
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Research these guys. I've seen them demonstrate some pretty amazing but simple stunts on talk shows before.
Ideas should abound
Posted 3 years ago by ailuromaniac #
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OH - this sounds like so much fun!!! I really miss Halloween over here. Oh sure - people do celebrate it in the UK, but not like in the U.S. I did get my fix one year; we went to the mother of all haunted houses - Salem, MA. in October! That was great fun!
Posted 3 years ago by Rubia in CA, 4/28 #
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The set up is easy, but the sounds are what makes it. Think about it. Turn off the lights and play spooky sounds. It's what makes the whole thing glue together.
If you have an Android phone (and maybe they have this for iPhone too - not a fan), then for 99 cents you can get a haunted house sound machine that plays random sounds - really eerie and spooky sounds - for real. It's called Halloween Screamy on the Android Market and I think they have a free one (Halloween ScreamyFree) you can test out (but it shuts off after a few minutes - not great for long all night sessions). Anyway - for 99 cents - I got 30+ sounds and no time limit. I'd recommend it to make any setup you come up with a success. Good luck this year to all - we have a HUGE setup in mind - now using part of the forest behind the house too. I'm thinking we'll need waivers soon! Tj
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