haunt advice/help

[ButcherDave]

Alright guys I live in Indiana and have been working at haunts like fright manor and Fear Fair for 15 years, I love halloween and cant get enough of it. For the past 4 years we are setting up just a small front porch haunt just on halloween, but I want to get bigger and bigger.
I have been planning out a theme for our haunts and just want to get feed back, any ideas, any kind of help at all would be greatly appreciated.
here is a little list that i have put together so far, rooms are not in order or anything.

Hillbilly Hell Haunted House

• Taxidermy Room
• Bedroom- one bed on each side of narrow room
• Church Room-walk in the middle with church pews on each side
• Coffin room
• Cabin Room-entry room/drop window or door
• Bathroom-drop chain in tub
• Black out maze to change from town rooms to house rooms
• Black out Room/garage- car with lights and air horn
• Freezer Room-hanging meat, polished metal walls, strobe lights, ac units to keep cold, circular saw
• Baby Room-plastic dolls with blood all over the walls, crib or small bed
• Meat Market-pigs, chickens, cows, deer, coons
• Hallway of hanging body bags
• Human Slaughter room- air chisel on metal for a loud scare
• Bedroom-Walk to the next room threw the closet with hanging clothes
• Kitchen
• Living room-tv, couch, beer cans hillbilly in cut off overalls and boots
• Outhouses at the end of the haunt approx 5 or 6 and one/two guys come out with chainsaws
• Objects to push people back into single file
• Sinister scents-for haunted house smells

[HordeOfUndead]

Alright guys I live in Indiana and have been working at haunts like fright manor and Fear Fair for 15 years, I love halloween and cant get enough of it. For the past 4 years we are setting up just a small front porch haunt just on halloween, but I want to get bigger and bigger.
I have been planning out a theme for our haunts and just want to get feed back, any ideas, any kind of help at all would be greatly appreciated.
here is a little list that i have put together so far, rooms are not in order or anything.

Hillbilly Hell Haunted House

• Taxidermy Room
• Bedroom- one bed on each side of narrow room
• Church Room-walk in the middle with church pews on each side
• Coffin room
• Cabin Room-entry room/drop window or door
• Bathroom-drop chain in tub
• Black out maze to change from town rooms to house rooms
• Black out Room/garage- car with lights and air horn
• Freezer Room-hanging meat, polished metal walls, strobe lights, ac units to keep cold, circular saw
• Baby Room-plastic dolls with blood all over the walls, crib or small bed
• Meat Market-pigs, chickens, cows, deer, coons
• Hallway of hanging body bags
• Human Slaughter room- air chisel on metal for a loud scare
• Bedroom-Walk to the next room threw the closet with hanging clothes
• Kitchen
• Living room-tv, couch, beer cans hillbilly in cut off overalls and boots
• Outhouses at the end of the haunt approx 5 or 6 and one/two guys come out with chainsaws
• Objects to push people back into single file
• Sinister scents-for haunted house smells

Although it's not my preference I really like your theme! You have a solid list of each area of your future haunt. Here's just a few thoughts of mine on some of your rooms:

1) Taxidermy- tons of great props that are "taxidermy" related available at Fright Props to compliment that room/props, etc.

2) Church-walking through the middle of all the pews is a great feel if you can pull of the room (above and toward what you're walking to) does really feel like a church. Stone vacuform walls? Large old piano or organs whether they work or not. Incorporate a prop controller like 104s (Fright Props) where you could be walking down the middle with ambient "organ audio" and either a step pad, motion sensor, etc, triggers a much louder scare sound of the organs going crazy or something? You could even have it rigged for lights to flicker, fake candles being blow out to total darkness..

3)Meat Market, slaughter room, body bag hallway I think should all be one larger area/room. You can get tons of props like that through many different vendors...FP, Scare Products, Unit 70, Haunted Props and many more. Scent in that room would be what would set it off big time...there's a few disgusting scent cups meant for slaughter rooms...as in almost puke it's so real. Pose the question do you want to clean up puke from guests?!

AC unit is brilliant, keeps the realism going.

4) Baby room could definitely be creepy with the right music.

5) This is just my personal opinion, but I think banging on walls, air horns, and drop walls/windows are annoying and slightly overused. Be creative. Be much different if there are other area haunts nearby.

Good luck!

[Spookyfinder]

Butcher Dave,

I like your theme. You could make a old workshop room (tools, old lawnmowers, fridges, old junk laying around,etc). It would
be creepy if you had a taxidermy cat (don't know if you could find that), and a old, dirty looking guy with a southern accent saying "Wanna pet fluffy" while he strokes it like a real cat.

Hope this helps....

-Fright

[Jim Warfield]

"Stoopid" Is Very Scary!

And may also be a very inexpensive way to go.
The prime example that effected me personally was simply a simple soul in a Halloween costume contest who was seriously compeating wearing a George Jettson mask, one you had to cut out from the back of a box of cereal! Narrow eye holes and all!
He was also wearing a CUBS baseball hat and a big gaudy belt buckle that said, "Elvis" on it!
He claimed his costume was supposed to be that of "Elvis" as in "Presley".
He was dead-serious. Maybe he was daring anyone to laugh? Then he would dentonate the dynamite under his panties!

[Haunt man]

your plan sounds good, one thing you could do pretty much costless is a pallet maze. get as mant old beat up wooded pallets you can get you hands on for free and screw them together and use 2x4s for bracing. Add a red or green light behind the pallets and a fogger, the beems of light will show up in the fog and look crazy creepy... I did this last year, it looked great got some great scares out of it!
PS. get the book "So you want to be a haunt entrepreeur" by Kelly Allen. www.hauntbook.com

Good Luck!
Haunt man

[ButcherDave]

Although it's not my preference I really like your theme! You have a solid list of each area of your future haunt. Here's just a few thoughts of mine on some of your rooms:

1) Taxidermy- tons of great props that are "taxidermy" related available at Fright Props to compliment that room/props, etc.

2) Church-walking through the middle of all the pews is a great feel if you can pull of the room (above and toward what you're walking to) does really feel like a church. Stone vacuform walls? Large old piano or organs whether they work or not. Incorporate a prop controller like 104s (Fright Props) where you could be walking down the middle with ambient "organ audio" and either a step pad, motion sensor, etc, triggers a much louder scare sound of the organs going crazy or something? You could even have it rigged for lights to flicker, fake candles being blow out to total darkness..

3)Meat Market, slaughter room, body bag hallway I think should all be one larger area/room. You can get tons of props like that through many different vendors...FP, Scare Products, Unit 70, Haunted Props and many more. Scent in that room would be what would set it off big time...there's a few disgusting scent cups meant for slaughter rooms...as in almost puke it's so real. Pose the question do you want to clean up puke from guests?!

AC unit is brilliant, keeps the realism going.

4) Baby room could definitely be creepy with the right music.

5) This is just my personal opinion, but I think banging on walls, air horns, and drop walls/windows are annoying and slightly overused. Be creative. Be much different if there are other area haunts nearby.

Good luck!

Thanks for the advice it really helps have soom good ideas in there.

[ButcherDave]

your plan sounds good, one thing you could do pretty much costless is a pallet maze. get as mant old beat up wooded pallets you can get you hands on for free and screw them together and use 2x4s for bracing. Add a red or green light behind the pallets and a fogger, the beems of light will show up in the fog and look crazy creepy... I did this last year, it looked great got some great scares out of it!
PS. get the book "So you want to be a haunt entrepreeur" by Kelly Allen. www.hauntbook.com

Good Luck!
Haunt man

I did actually think about that can pretty much get em for free.