# Help with home haunt



## SecondNightmare (Sep 8, 2009)

After years of looking at these haunt forums and reading countless tutorials, I'm finally throwing my own haunted walkthrough in my house. Doing pretty well as far as being on schedule, but I have a couple of questions for you experienced home haunters-

Since my haunt is in my home and not the yard, how do I let people know? I want to build a sign, but how do you word "home haunt" to people who don't even know what that means? I'm really having a tough time with this.

I'd also like to know how home haunters on here deal with ToT's on Halloween. What process do you go through getting people in your house- do you wait outside and escort them in or wait at the door? What do you do?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!


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## Psyc0 Walrus (Sep 1, 2009)

umm make a sign out of foam and make it say the name of your haunt and then haunted house under it.

example: Black Rose Cemetery
Haunted House
Free Admission!!!

haha now that is a really cheesy version of what you could do but hey, its easy simple and to the point haha.. also you could tell the ToTs that if they wanna get the candy they have to make it through your haunt or house in this case... Good Luck! Happy Haunting!


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## Warrant2000 (Oct 8, 2008)

Sounds like fun! You should be careful when planning a home haunt. You would obviously want to ensure your valuables are safe and secure, and any heirloom large items like family portraits are either put away or covered. Most folks would be courteous in a haunt, but there are always those few that would want to ruin or swipe something.

You would want to have an escort for every group for several reason, mainly for security. The escort can be in-character to the theme of the haunt. Perhaps a butler, vampire, distressed person trying to find an exit, Quasimodo, lab technician, mad scientist, crazed super villian, etc. The escort can provided a storyline for the haunt, adding details with each area the group encounters.

That said, depending on the layout of your house, choose the path that they will take, trying to ensure that the guests won't encounter each other - meaning a one way path, possibly from the front door, through the house, and out a side door.

Rooms that they will pass (but not enter) can be set up as static displays that they only view from the door. Or, they enter the room for an interactive activity like sticking their hand into a dark tree trunk to get a piece of candy.

You can also use wood frames and plastic or fabric to create a dark tunnel that leads them from one place to another.

If your path is pretty straight forward and clear of obstructions, you may be able to do away with the escorts and just have the tot's file through on their own. Be sure to clearly mark where they can and cannot go. A chain or rope across a doorway is a pretty clear indication not to enter. If you want them to enter a room, then post a sign to come on in.

Haunting inside a house makes it real easy to have lighting and sound fx since you have nearby electricity in each room.

Do you have a layout sketch of your home with ideas on themes?


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## Jack Reaper (May 27, 2006)

I have to agree with Warrant2000 on alot of things.....
And might I add, bring up some insurance....there are alot of sue happy people out there!
You have more guts than I do!


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## SecondNightmare (Sep 8, 2009)

Thanks for the help guys!

I will have at least one or two actors in the house for a small scare (don't want to be too scary or too kiddie)- and to keep an eye on things to make sure no one messes up or steals anything.

The haunt will be titled "Maniac Manor" so there are plenty of themes to go along in that category. I've added a scan of my haunt layout, so you can use that to follow the themes:

*Dining Room:* So far, just a table dressed to suit the theme. Body parts, cob webs, a few static props seated with some colored lighting.

*Kitchen:* Butcher-themed kitchen. Body parts, a little blood. Various carving tools in the background. There will be an actor imitating a prop to give visitors a little jolt on the way out 

*Hallway:* In the hallway, starting at the kitchen exit and extending to the living room entrance will be a "foggy strobe tunnel." Just going to make a 3' wide, 8' high tunnel made of PVC and plastic. Before reaching the end of the hall, an actor will jump through the fake wall (just a few cuts in the plastic) to jolt and direct the visitors.

For the *Living Room*, I have no idea what to do. It was going to be a torture chamber (I've already built a spinning torture rack from a tutorial on this site), but I don't know what else to put in the scene. I also thought of having a corpse wrapped up in spider webs with a big spider feasting on him with yarn hanging on the ceiling to creep the kids out, but it wouldn't really fill up the largest room of the haunt. I'm looking for any affordable themes/ideas or just cool effects to add to the scene. Would definitely want to incorporate a black light! Love those.

My haunt layout:


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## fick209 (Aug 31, 2009)

Since you already have the torture rack built, makes sense to keep on going with the torture chamber theme for your living room. To fill up space how about trying to incorporate a labaratory theme with it (I've always pictured the mad scientist lab to be in a big open room with torture devices around to use on his "subjects"). The corpse in spider webs would work with that scene as well. Lots of labratory props can be made with stuff you have lying around the house and can look awesome under blacklights.


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## Hauntiholik (May 17, 2006)

For the living room you can add stocks, gibblet, cage and if you're really adventurous...an iron maiden.


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## SecondNightmare (Sep 8, 2009)

fick209 said:


> Since you already have the torture rack built, makes sense to keep on going with the torture chamber theme for your living room. To fill up space how about trying to incorporate a labaratory theme with it (I've always pictured the mad scientist lab to be in a big open room with torture devices around to use on his "subjects"). The corpse in spider webs would work with that scene as well. Lots of labratory props can be made with stuff you have lying around the house and can look awesome under blacklights.


Love the idea! Glad to see I can incorporate the torture prop, the cobweb corpse, AND a blacklight!



Hauntiholik said:


> For the living room you can add stocks, gibblet, cage and if you're really adventurous...an iron maiden.


Great suggestions and those ideas are definitely in my budget range- I'm especially interested in making an iron maiden (using a plywood coffin with hinged door ..and nails).

That helped alot and thanks to both of you!


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## madtinkerer (Sep 23, 2009)

Hauntiholik said:


> For the living room you can add stocks, gibblet, cage and if you're really adventurous...an iron maiden.


Yeah!!! The Iron Maiden idea is great. I really like the torture room idea for the living room. Of course, you may need to remove the furniture from your living room first, to give you more working space and traffic paths for your haunt visitors. You might want to put in some directional aids as well, like some simple cardboard arrows painted with glow-in-the-dark paint and taped to the floor or wall to help guide your visitor traffic through the haunt.

You could build any of the following medieval torture devices:
rack
pillory or stocks
Judas Chair or chair of torture

Here is a good reference website for ideas:
http://www.medievality.com/torture.html

I built a set of stocks/whipping post for my talking skeletons last year, it was a big hit and will make a return this haunting season.

For security concerns, I would suggest locking the doors to any rooms (such as bedrooms) which you want to keep visitors out of, and adding cameras in key areas for video surveillance. You can get those dummy security cameras fairly cheap at places such as Harbor Freight; this would be a simple method of "keeping people honest" and can be mixed with real cameras. I have an inexpensive camera unit with a wireless transmitter and a receiver that you connect to your TV that I use in my garage haunt; it can be connected to a VCR for recording. If you install cameras, I would suggest a simple sign posted in front of the entrance to your haunted house/home informing your visitors that the premises are under video surveillance.


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## Dark Angel 27 (Sep 11, 2008)

very cool idea.

you're a brave soul to do this! 

good luck with your haunt...oh and post videos!


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## SecondNightmare (Sep 8, 2009)

*Pics*

(Check bottom of post for progress pics)



madtinkerer said:


> Yeah!!! The Iron Maiden idea is great. I really like the torture room idea for the living room. Of course, you may need to remove the furniture from your living room first, to give you more working space and traffic paths for your haunt visitors. You might want to put in some directional aids as well, like some simple cardboard arrows painted with glow-in-the-dark paint and taped to the floor or wall to help guide your visitor traffic through the haunt.
> 
> You could build any of the following medieval torture devices:
> rack
> ...


Thanks for the response and great site suggestion! A lot of good ideas there. I'm kinda short on space and time and it's killing me to not do every project I come across ... I like the video camera idea and will definitely implement that. Have an actor in the hallway and one in the kitchen, so I'll set up the camera in the living room.

For the living room I'm gonna have the iron maiden, spider with a cobwebbed human, a "tool table" (for torture instruments) and I'll turn my static prop into Hellraiser.



Dark Angel 27 said:


> very cool idea.
> 
> you're a brave soul to do this!
> 
> good luck with your haunt...oh and post videos!


Thanks! I'm not too worried about lawsuits- I'll post up some rules outside and a disclaimer about "entering at your own risk." I remember some kids throwing a garage haunt that consisted of empty rooms with strobes and tables- all the kids would do was grab and PULL your ankles!

Definitely plan on posting a walk through video the night before Halloween and one video with visitors after Halloween's over.

(Reference floor plans in an _earlier_ post with the pics, if needed)

Today I got busy with my PVC hallway. Took FOREVER (especially since I had no access to useful PVC attachments)...But it's done and just needs plastic.

*Below:* "Plastic wall" separates the hall from the entry. Visitors will not have access- they must go through the Kitchen. The dining room is located directly behind the camera's view.









*Below:* At the end of the PVC hall, there will be a wall of plastic with slits to make it accessible to the actor. Should make for a good scare. Living room entry is on the right.









Ugh, now it's time to tear down the hall until Halloween. That thing was a nightmare to put together.


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## Spartan005 (Mar 13, 2007)

Have to agree with just about everything Warrant said. Home haunts are pretty risky so take a lot of precautions. We used a tour guide but eventually realized that it takes away from the haunt a bit, so instead we had actors hide at certain points to make sure no one was going into areas they weren't supposed to. 

By the way, I really recommend you buy some jute netting or burlap from any local hardware store. It really increases the atmosphere of the haunt and its not that expensive. 

good luck, looking forward to the video


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