Scare or Detail

[drfrightner]

Ben,

Your thoughts are dead on...I will be the first to admit that I've had other haunters in our area throughout the years come to our haunted house on a Saturday and say "everyone says our house is the scariest in town'.

I usually then ask if it's so scary what are you doing here? You should have lines wrapped around teh building. YOu would think huh?

Fact is a haunted house with small crowds have the inside advantage and should be able to do a better job and scaring people. It's those haunts who do the big numbers who must entertain guests in all sorts of ways because it's harder and sometimes impossible to scare people especially on a busy Saturday night.

Detail or eye candy is very important to any attraction that brings in the large crowds.

Fact is I think almost everyone who starts off starts with a scary haunted house lacking much detail. I know thats where I started with a very small, cheesy but very scary haunted house.

As you grow you learn more often than before you can't make everyone happy all the time but you can make a lot of people happy most of the time.

Larry

[John Coen]

Then, a boxload of ping pong balls dump onto your head while a Moose laughs at you.

[Jim Warfield]

"Kids" stay up all hours to watch cartoons so why not be in one?

[Ben Fox]

If I bcome a cartoon can i blow myself up with things that arnt suposed to be flamable(add to the hilariousness of it all)
You always have to wonder what kind of drugs the cartoonists are on to come up some of the idea that are out the now.
Actually give some of what he is smoking. :twisted:

[Jim Warfield]

Alot of strange and goofy things get said in forums like this but what follows is not one of them, it's the truth (just for anyone's "education")
I have never done any drugs in my life.
There were countless opportunitys, growing up as a teenager and being in the class of 1967 in a town with a liberal arts college next door.
I saw drugs do destructive things to bodys and minds, setting some on a life-path to never recover.
I never thought that I was blessed with an over abundance of brain cells , so I figured that I had better try to preserve the few I was born with to help myself to more successfully negotiate this "Life" and "Living" experience.
To make oneself prematurely senile or befuddled would not be where I would want to find myself, at the mercy of handouts or instituitions, this happens plenty soon enough from 75 years of normal living on up for us.
Using certian drugs seemed to free up some people's imaginations to begin with but the confusion and destruction of ambitions that came later was not worth the fleeting advantages, real or imagined, as far as I could tell.
I eventually got very tired of telling teenagers touring my house that I did not ever use drugs. They would see my old paintings on display upstairs and make such comments. I finally made a pointed joke out of all of this by saying that I had used drugs and that I was their "real" Father!
(Would you want to think of your Father using drugs and then creating you? I think most really would not, life is a big enough "Crap-Shoot" anyway , without drugs.
We all make our choices in life, this was and is mine, so now everybody reading this knows. thank you !

(Mr. Tuxedo and his catnip is another matter, but then I do end up carrying his load around here, you know!)

[jason]

i believe that you must create an atmosphere for the customers before the scare happens. people seem a little distracted as they look at a non-scary prop that is an eye-catcher, then WHAM-O out comes the scare. my point is they feel relaxed/a little scared then scared when the scare happens and only if it's a good scare. their heart rate is all over the place!!

strong set design also comes in handy for those of us, as customers, who are not as or not scared at all at haunted house attractions. they can at least enjoy the detail to rooms (and their scared friends screaming and acting stupid). i don't know about you but black walls are rather dull to look at.

[Jim Warfield]

You don't appreciate "Black Walls?"
There is a cult and a movement that is all about propagating black walls.
These walls see you as very interesting, with your colors of skin tone and clothing, they are working to absorb you as we speak.

[jason]

lol if these black walls offer me kool-aid while i'm in a haunted house..i'm out'a there.

[HauntedWebby]

Re: Scare or Detail

What do you think is more important. Scare or detail. Last year we went for the scare. People liked it.

I think a balance of both.

It's kinda hard to add lots of visual detail in a black out maze, but a library full of detail of books, desk, lamps, ect and nothing else is not very scary.

[Empressnightshade]

HAUNT "to visit or inhabit as a ghost; to stay around or persist ;
to appear habitually as a ghost" Merriam-Webster Online

In that definition is there no mention of "eye candy." However, in order to make your place believable as a haunt, some eye candy is a must.
I'm one who is just beginning as a Pro charity haunt and our budget is next to nothing. So, our "eye candy" won't be nearly to the standard of others. However, I know something about human nature. And the fact is, if you show them details at the very beginning, they will continue to see detail even though there is none.
For example:
If you have a hallway that is suppose to look as though it is made of stones. To start the wall off with detailed stones carved from styrofoam or what have you for several feet and then taper off to only drawings of stones on the walls, the audience will never suspect or notice the difference. Why? Because you have established yourself from the very beginning. This is our intentions this year. The first few scenes will be quite detailed w/scares and the rest will be moderately detailed w/powerful GOTCHAS!

[Spookyfinder]

Im going with Joe on this one... 75/25 with scare as the more important. Don't get me wrong, great detail is important... But it's the overall "scarefactor" that seperates good haunts from great haunts.

BUT!!! I have also toured attractions with normal people that I don't know and heard them say "Look at the detail on this wall, it's amazing!". So, some people actually DO care about detail more than the scare. But the majority will only care about the scare and won't notice a hint of detail. That's my .412589711..55 cents worth. Happy Haunting. -Tyler

[Empressnightshade]

Nightgore,

I agree. There ARE those who pay great attention to detail. Last year, a man, his son and another young man were taking forever to go through our small little haunt. I mean FOREVER! I asked my sister to go in and see what was going on. When she came back, she said the father was pointing out to the other two all my detailing. It rather unnerved me a bit that someone would do that. It made me feel as though my scares must have been a complete failure.

[Jim Warfield]

Maybe thinking in these terms could explain the difference. There are haunt customers then there are tourists. Tourists spend money to see something, take pictures, pick up brochures and tell their friends and neighbors about it once they return home. tourists visit general Grant's home in Galena, Illinois. Tourists also visit the above ground graveyards of New Orleans, the physical act of just being someplace is what it is about (or seems to be?) for alot of these people, now they can say they have been there.
Buildings, objects furnishings, location, there you go, much different from someone looking for a possibly emotionally stressfull "Boo! Gotcha!" Experience that leaves them with an exhillerated heart rate.
A certain percentage of your haunt customers will be tourists, curiosity seekers who want to have "Been there, seen that".

[scrymnstr]

need a good split

[Spookyfinder]

I will keep my thoughts brief on this subject because last time I posted on scare vs. detail I got bashed.

We believe we produce one of if not the scariest haunt in the Detroit Metro area. Our customers have agreed with us both years and have told us so. Many of them come back several times per season. They say that they will come back every year to see what we can through at them. They love the fact that every room is different each year. They tell us if they want museum quality sets they rarely change each year they will go down the street but they come to us to get scared. We hear every night that this or that house looked really cool but they had no scare factor. Many of them say they felt like they got ripped off. Most of the fancy haunts are charging $15.00 - $20.00 to get in. We have kept our prices fair and provided a huge scare factor with some good detail work as well.

Don't get me wrong. I don't believe in haunts that are nothing but dark halls and black walls. That shows no creative ability or pride in your show. Even haunts who can't afford expensive props can still find great things to add by even just garbage picking or building the props themselves. Our first year we did not have a huge budget so we made it as detailed as we could with in our means. Last year was even more detailed, and this year is by far the most detailed haunt I've produced in my 19 years in the business. However, we have always prided ourselves on being the scariest haunt around.

I don't care how detailed your haunted house is if you don't have good actors and it's not at all scary you will probably not get many repeat customers. #1 reason in a poll we took for going to a haunt is to get scared, #2 is to have fun. If you can accomplish both you are in great shape.

I have been told by other haunt owners that because we are not a "Family Friendly" haunt that we are losing out on the family dollars. While it's true we don't see a lot of children through the door, we do see a larger volume of teens and adults who come to us for our special brand of scare the crap outta ya, in your face haunting. Michigan has one of the largest amounts of haunted house in the nation. There are about 50 attractions with in 40 miles of us. The last few years a lot of the haunts have turned to contests and gimmicks to try and get customers to their show. We decided right from the start we would never go that route. Instead we aimed for providing Michigan with something different from most of the other haunts. High impact, old school scares. It has worked out great for us! And our customers seem to appreciate the effort we put into fright level.

Our first year we had great attendance. We increased that last year by almost 2000 people mainly from word of mouth. This year because of word of mouth and the great media attention from the past 2 years it has helped us pick up some huge sponsors. With help from our sponsors we will be doubling our advertising budget from last year which we believe will increase our numbers once again. So, we must be doing something right.

Bottom line is to deliver on what your advertising. If it's a family style attraction great! But if you are promoting that you are the scariest haunted house and your customers don't get scared you will lose them forever.

Sorry, I guess it was not as brief as I thought it would be. Just my opinions.

Hope everyone has a great season,

Howie "Slobber" Erlich
Deadly Intentions Haunted House
www.deadlyintentionshaunt.com