# Carnival of Souls 2008 Video and Pics



## Nephilim (Sep 15, 2006)

Howdy. Hope everyone's Halloween was great!

Here at Carnival of Souls, we had our first walkthrough haunted house this year, and it was a huge hit with the kids. It was a design challenge, since the demographics for our haunt has us designing for younger kids, about six to ten. We had to come up with something cool and creepy without traumatizing them, and something which would still please the older kids and stay consistent with the haunt's mythology we're building year over year. And we also wanted to continue our tradition of making our haunt really interactive, so we had our work cut out for us.

The premise is that the visitors are tagging along on the filming of a reality show called "Haunt Hunters" as they enter the Blackwood Cemetery to look for a set of rumored artifacts. What they don't know is that there is a plot to set free the "Dark Powers of the Earth" from their captivity, and the children must use the artifacts they find to keep this from happening.

I've put up a full walkthrough video of our haunt on YouTube, which you can view below. The cool stuff is at the end, especially the fight with the "big bad," so be sure to keep watching. It's shot in night-vision, so the quality is a little low, especially in the beginning. Apologies for that.






Here are some pics, too. First, is the cool "spider queen" puppet:









Next, a couple of screenshots from the "Dark Powers of the Earth" attack sequence:























I'd say that the big hit of the evening was letting the kids cast spells at the bad guys. Some kids would come out absolutely _quivering_ with excitement and energy, and gushed about how they were able to fight off the bad guys.

A more subtle success of the evening was a system we set up to communicate, via in-character dialogue, to the haunt workers whether the kids have chosen a "scary" or "not-so-scary" option for the haunt. By letting kids choose up front how scary they wanted the haunt to be, we were able to both reassure parents about letting their kids in, and also accommodate younger kids than we might otherwise have. If you listen closely, you'll hear the guide cueing the haunt workers about how scary to make the effect that's about to happen.

Anyway, we all had a blast, all the kids seemed to enjoy it, and we got a good number of "That was AWESOME!" exclamations out of the kids, so we're happy. Exhausted from days of setup and takedown, but happy.


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## paralyzer (Nov 3, 2008)

that was great! it is awsome how you had something for everyone to do scary or not. great ideas and great work putting it all together. Seemed like the actors enjoyed just as much as the kids! And it had to be great getting the kids to tell the others in line how great it was to get them all built up to go through the haunt. Again great work!


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## Spookie (Aug 26, 2008)

I can see why the kids loved it so much. Very engaging, nice themes and loved your actors. Hats off!


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## Nephilim (Sep 15, 2006)

Thanks. Yeah, the actors were having quite a bit of fun, and I think it helps add to the fun for the kiddos.

I just wish I had video that could do the haunt justice...


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

Seeing those kids get into the moment was a riot. Great job!


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## Wildcat (Nov 3, 2007)

That was awesome. Great job on all accounts.


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## Lilly (Jun 13, 2006)

That was fun watching it..
seems the kids really enjoyed it ,especially that one boy; he was funny
good job


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## Bloodhound (Oct 16, 2007)

Fantastic! That was fun.


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## The Halloween Lady (Aug 18, 2010)

Nothing warms a hunters heart like the screams of children. ( unless it's screaming adults too!) lol. That was fun.


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## turtle2778 (Jul 9, 2006)

I think you do fabulous work. Great job!! I loved it.


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