# Darkness Rising 2010



## Spartan005

Howdy folks,

I figured it'd be a good idea to start a thread about my haunt, since there's less than two months until it opens.
It's been a pretty rough year designing the walkthrough between my family planning to move mid-summer, our complete lack of storage space, and my inability to decide where the hell my life is going after college. The good news is that this year my entire family is fully committed to making this the best haunt yet, mainly due to our new 90% outdoor design (The past two haunts have taken place on the first floor of my house). Anyway, for the majority of you that don't know, here's what happened over the past year:

Back in November, I found an awesome craigslist deal which added a bunch of cool props to the haunt including 3 pneumatics, a few pico-boo controllers, and a bunch of other masks and assorted decorations.





A few months later our house went on the market, which of course, delayed everything. I think it was sometime back in July when our whole family pretty much agreed that it wasn't going to sell. That's when the planning really began, and **** got real.

My dad's company wound up sponsoring the haunt, which means that we'll be getting better advertising, a bunch of donated materials (wood, tents etc.) and a lot of help during the build. We're donating all of the profits to a camp for the disabled called Anchor, in memory of 3 counselors who died in a car accident during the summer. To maximize the profits we decided to do away with the cheesy tour guide routine, which should be able to allow 3 times the amount of guests to enter the haunt per hour. Not to mention the fact that we'll be open for 7 nights starting October 15th.

Quickly realizing that the company's expectations for the entire project were becoming extremely high, I decided it was time to step it up a notch. One of our neighbors made a phone call to a lumber yard a couple of weeks ago and managed to get us 50 sheets of plywood and 100 2x4s delivered to our house, free of charge. Epic win. But this haunt needed more than just wooden walls to come off as professional as possible. It needed something so cool that when people got out they would say "how the hell was that a home haunt?" So naturally, I decided to buy a Ghost Bust Pro from Night Frights.










But how does a 19 year-old afford a prop like that you might ask? Well, I don't mean to brag, but lets just say I work at something of a fine dining establishment.

TGI Fridays.

In all seriousness, Mike from Night Frights, was a HUGE help throughout the whole process. I honestly can't thank him enough for his awesome customer service.... but more of that in another thread.


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## Spartan005

Besides buying the ghost bust, I've been spending hours every week going to garage sales and driving around the neighborhood before garbage day, looking for any old furniture out on the curb. It takes a lot of time but I'm hoping that when the haunt finally opens, the detail will blow people away.

Welcome to the start of the attic scene....

































Building is scheduled to start in two weeks, but I'll have some more updates before then. Stay tuned for more and remember...

When the sun is setting... and night has fallen... come to Darkness Rising!

Was that cheesy?


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## RoxyBlue

Looks like you have a great start to what's going to be an ambitious project. Here's to everything going smoothly and a great turnout for the charity


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## Death's Door

If this keeps up, you're gonna have an awesome set up!!!! Keep on keeping the good work!


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## fearmonger

Wow! Very cool. Love the Sewing Machine, it looks so creepy somehow.

And a Ghost Bust! My dream purchase! Fill us in on your experience with them. That's the thing I'm afraid of most... spending my hard earned cash on a prop when I hear so many horror stories of the big vendors not coming through with the goods, ignoring emails, etc. My wife would never forgive me! 

But you had a pretty good experience with the Ghost Bust folks?

Good going, I wish I had my act together as much as you seem to at 19. I'm a lot older than that and still nickel-and-diming it. ; ) Tell us how it all comes together, we'll be watching. You're a young up and coming inspriation.


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## Spartan005

Thanks for the feedback guys!

fearmonger - Mike from Night Frights was unbelievably helpful. My dad sent him an email explaining the charity and asked if there was anyway to get a discount on our tight budget. We got lucky because he happened to have a damaged bust which he let us have for $300 less than the normal price. If you look closely you can actually see the damage on the right side of the head on the picture above. He sent us pictures without us even asking, and even split the shipping costs with us. Anyway, he really went above and beyond and even responded to a couple of our emails within minutes. The bust itself is awesome too, although I have yet to see it at the exact angle it needs to look perfect. 

Hope that helps!

And by the way, I just got back from another hour of furniture hunting. After driving through half of my neighborhood, I found a creepy, old dresser - a perfect addition to the attic.


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## buckaneerbabe

Spartan, that's a pretty impressive haul you have for your attic. I have no doubt that you'll blow people away! I want to commend you on all the effort you've put into your haunt, great job!


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## Haunted Bayou

Loving all of the old furniture.

I need to leave early on garbage day to find some stuff like that for my haunt.


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## Spartan005

So it’s almost 5 in the morning and I can’t sleep. Update time. 

The ghost bust wound up causing a few problems with the layout. The bust routine called “haunt rules” runs at 2 ½ minutes, while the groups are supposed to enter every minute. The obvious solution around this was to have several groups watch the bust at once before ushering them into the second part of the queue line, similar to Disney’s haunted mansion. This would have worked perfectly inside the foyer, but unfortunately it isn’t large enough to fit both the illusion and the guests. 

The new design is going to extend the queue line considerably, while shortening the length of the actual haunt. It’s the only option I have that will keep the projector in a safe place, and still allow us to send each group in every minute. The ghost bust will now be setup inside our den. Basically, we’ll have a person outside the facade send three groups into the attic at a time. From there the group of people will watch the bust before being moved on to the second part of the line on the lower deck where another staff member will be waiting. The two parts of the layout labeled "window" are where the guests will be able to look inside our actual house where we'll be showing our two main illusions.

I’m hoping that the huge line in the beginning will be a nice build up for the actual maze area of the haunt. Also, having the more detailed sets in the waiting area will force people to take a look around. I hate when people get scared and run through the areas that take the most work. Anyway, I'm tired and going to bed. I'll update again tomorrow or the next day with actual pictures of my backyard so this all makes a bit more sense.


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## Spartan005

So my dad and I got a bit of a head start on the facade today. It's a pretty simple design... just an old shack with an overhang and a porch. We have most of the framework down and just need to find some time to attach the plywood. It's nothing too exciting so I'll hold off on the pictures until there's a bit more to show. Until then, I'll just post this










Jim from our craigslist purchase will be stopping by some time this weekend to hopefully show us how the hell to set up the pneumatics, which we are pretty much clueless about. He also bought an oversized costume called the "wraith" and mentioned stopping by a few nights to help out.

We also decided to donate 25% of the profits to the same local charity we've been working with for the past several years. They have pretty good ties with the fire department so I'm hoping this will decrease our odds of being shut down. Or getting them involved will get us shut down. That would suck.

That's about it for tonights update.

~ Spartan Out


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## Aelwyn

The attic stuff looks AWESOME!!!!! Can't wait to see your set up!


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## Spartan005

My dad and I got the majority of the facade done over the past week. It's not finished yet, but you'll get the general idea of what we're going for.


























My painting skills are far from perfect.... or even mediocre, but I think it will look good in proper lighting.

We're already behind on schedule as our 20' x 30' tent was supposed to be put in place last weekend. Oh well. Thankfully, our volunteers will be showing up this weekend to start putting up walls, and I can start creating the sets. Which reminds me, I'll be getting up at 7 tomorrow to start painting lots and lots of plywood. Yes.

Look out for another update on Monday.


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## grim reaper

wow its looks great so far and sounds like it's going to be an awsome haunt, I love all the old furniture and knick nacks you have for the attic scene.


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## Spartan005

It's been a long 4 days of working...

We only managed to get one volunteer on Saturday and Sunday to help my dad setup the tent and start getting walls up. In the meantime, I dragged 40 sheets of plywood into my backyard and painted from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm when I would leave for work everyday. Hopefully we'll be getting more volunteers in the following weeks because we are seriously running out of time.

Some more progress on the facade...








The 20 x 30' tent that covers most of the queue line

















My family is awesome.


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## Front Yard Fright

Very cool!
It's nice to see another young haunter going INSANE at their parents house!
I'll definitely keep an eye out on your progress - Keep up the amazing work!
:jol:.


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## Joiseygal

Looking really good and the entrance is awesome! I think this is going to be a great haunt for a great cause. Sorry for what happen your counselors.


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## Aelwyn

Looking great!!!!


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## Darkwalker

Looks fantastic!


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## The Rotten Pumpkin

That's awesome!


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## Spartan005

Thanks a lot guys!

We got a pretty good amount done this past week. By "we" I mean me, my dad, and Jim Kennedy, who you folks may know as the craigslist guy. As it turns out, he ran a hugely successful haunt called "Terror on Alexander Avenue" for several years, and is going to be a big part of making Darkness Rising really, really awesome.

Last week, he helped me redesign the layout for the haunt to use up less wood and save more space. By "help me" I mean he asked what rooms I wanted and where I wanted them and pretty much designed the whole thing by himself overnight. Yeah, he's pretty cool. 









Then he decided to redesign his website for our haunt. We're now online at two sites:

www.darknessrising.us

http://www.lihauntedhouses.com/halloween/darkness-rising-home-haunt--ny.html

Other than that, we built the frames for the exterior walls of the maze under a 30' x 40' wedding tent that we got donated to us for the next month. There's not much to look at yet so I'll hold off on the build pics until next week, but until then enjoy these shots from the new website!


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## Spartan005

Now we're finally making some progress. Today we finished all of the frames for the exterior walls and built the majority of the frames for the inside of the maze which we'll have ready for tomorrow. Jim stopped by with a few surprises... like an awesome home made air cannon, and an automatic drop panel kit. We also had 200 2 x 3s delivered to our house in the morning and another 55 sheets of plywood which we picked up from Lowes, free of charge. Our sponsors have really helped out this year... the support we've been getting has been incredible.

After all the volunteers left around 5:00, I decided to keep going and dragged another 50 2' wide sheets of OSB out from under the house. By around 10:00 I managed to finish attaching the OSB to the majority of the exterior frames.


































By tomorrow we plan on getting the entire inside of the maze built. Wish me luck.


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## Spartan005

We had another really productive day. Between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm we managed to finish all of the interior frames and about one third of the walls. We also built 2 tables for the butcher shop, one of which will be used for a half torso effect, and the automatic drop panel.

Some new masks and costumes from www.thehorrordome.com thanks to Jim


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## Front Yard Fright

Be careful when using other peoples images on your site. (Unless of course you have permission) I noticed the skull and cross bone which belongs to http://skullandbone.com/

Other than that it's turning out great!


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## Spartan005

Oh wow, thanks. It's actually not my site... it belongs to Jim, but I'll let him know right away.


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## Front Yard Fright

Oh okay. Well either way... Just figured I'd let you know. I know I chewed out a guy for using an image I created for my website a few years back! Hahaha
.


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## Spartan005

Hey guys, it's been a while. Thought I'd give a quick update for those of you interested

For the past two weeks every hour of every day that doesn't involve eating or school work has been committed to the haunted house. My back hurts, my feet are killing me, and even worse, my parents are going insane due to the stress of the potential thousands of people that will be trapsing through our yard in the upcoming weeks. Speaking of stress, we open this Friday and at the rate we're going, we might not have enough time to finish. We still need to decorate several rooms, adjust the lighting, add the foggers, and black plastic the ceilings for starters. This whole project has taken over my life.

Fortunately something happened today that reminded me why the hell I go through all this trouble in the first place. I decided to do a quick walkthrough of the haunt with the rest of my family to show them everything that had been done. On our way to the facade, we noticed our neighbor from across the street along with one of his friends, and invited him to come along. 

His reaction was awesome. Even though there was no sound, no actors, and rooms that still weren't finished, he managed to have something great to say every time we entered a new room. At the end he shook my hand and simply described it as "unbelievable." 

Let me tell you, after so many weeks of working non stop on this project and losing sleep over stressing out... that felt really good. 

Tomorrow is our dress rehearsal and then the big day arrives. I hope everyone else will be just as impressed


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## Mcnab

Don't give up, I believe you can finish and I really hope you do!


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## Spartan005

I hate giving updates without posting pictures but the USB cable that came with my camera refuses to connect with my computer. Oh well...

Our opening night turned out to be October 16th instead of the 15th. We posted on the site that it was due to "rain and windy conditions" which was partly true, but we honestly needed the extra day. I don't have an accurate number of how many people showed up but my parents guessed around 200 the first night and probably less than 100 the next night. Our second weekend was a bit busier, but still surprisingly slow considering the 20,000 or so people that viewed us online. 

That's okay though, because the reviews have all been great. Here are some from the website:


___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Absolutely amazing experience. The best haunted house I have ever been in. REALLY SCARY. 


If you go donate more than $5. It is well worth it.
Keep it up. 


Going again this Saturday. This place scared the **** out of me. LOL 


this was the most amazing haunted house ive ever been too! i loved it and its a great price! 



This was the scariest house I have ever been to. 


I did not expect the quality of this haunted house. Was way better than Bayville and I paid over $30 for that place. Keep up the great scaring. 


This was great! I am bring all my friends next weekend. Worth $5 and more


All I can say is WOW!!! 


"Looks can be deceiving! From the front it looks like a normal house. This was the most shocking home haunted house I have ever been through. Give this place a A+++++" 
__________________________________________________________________________


Anyway, I'm really happy with the way everything turned out. After this weekend I'll try and get a bunch of photos up along with a video probably sometime late in November


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## hauntgreenacres

Hey spartan005 , did you happen to get pictures or videos while the haunt was running? I enjoyed the construction pictures.


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## Spartan005

Wow, I totally forgot about this thread. Here's some photos

The Attic






I'm trying to find some more pics. I also made a video a few months ago that I sent into a contest which got YES, our main charity, a $10,000 grant. I found out about it two days before the deadline and condensed 6 hours of footage into a 5 minute overly dramatic vid. Well anyway, here it is.


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## remylass

That was a great video, Spartan.


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## Wolf

Looks great! I'm very impressed.


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## Lady Nyxie

How awesome! All your hard work (and that of your sponsors and volunteers) paid off. Score!


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## Eric Striffler

I just noticed you're from New York while browsing the LI Haunted Houses site! I'll definitely come by to check out your haunt this year.


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## Spartan005

Eric Striffler said:


> I just noticed you're from New York while browsing the LI Haunted Houses site! I'll definitely come by to check out your haunt this year.


that would be awesome! let me know what night your coming and maybe we can meet up at some point.


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