How to Make a Haunted House
Your first step is to decide where your haunted house will be. Outside is usually a great spot if you have enough room. If your doing your haunted house outside you will need a very large tent or at least partially enclosed structure and some heavy blankets. You will want it fairly dark inside the haunted house. The ideal situation would be to have it completely black except for some lanterns strategically placed in places where they cant be knocked down by running guests. One thing you will need to keep in mind is adequate ventilation you don’t want anyone getting over heated.
Now that you have your space picked out, it’s the fun part. Now you get to decide how to scare your guests. One great way to freak out a few people and it’s a great starter is to uses Styrofoam heads found ay most beauty salons and make them into monster. Wigs and make up can turn a few Styrofoam heads into some truly gruesome monsters. Fake cobwebs and fake spiders can be found at your local dollar store and make great distractions. For the smoky and creepy effect dry ice works wonders. Cauldrons with dry ice will bubble up and give off smoke, you can even fill rubber gloves with water and food coloring and float them in the cauldrons with the dry ice. Another idea for lighting is to use Christmas lights. You can control the amount of light with the colors you use and you can hang them high enough so that you wont have to worry about frightened guests running into them.
Next you will have to enlist some help from friends or neighbor hood kids. After all you can’t play all the parts by yourself. Characters from horror movies are an all time favorite at haunted houses. Jason, Freddy, Michael Myers or Leather face can all be running around your haunted house doing things they would normally do in the movies. Make things unexpected . People will be expecting something to jump out from a dark corner but find a way to jump out right behind them and they will really jump.
Here are some ideas for a few great rooms to incorporate into your haunted house. Use a strobe light to blind you guests and you can make it even more fun by tin foiling the walls, it gives the sensation that the walls are crawling. Another idea is to take 1/8 inch plastic tubing and attach it to the walls , attach various lengths to all sides of the walls, then let your guests walk through the hanging tentacles. Something else you can do is have a couple of friends blend in with the crowds as they enter the haunted house. Somewhere along the way have the person get scared and take off ahead of everyone then at the end have him laying down all bloody with one of your movie characters standing over him. This will really freak some people out.
The most important part of your haunted house is the sound effects . You will want lots of screams, werewolf howls, shrieks and wails but what about the eerie music. There are tons of Halloween tapes with scary music but for a real scare try something a little different that most of your guests won’t be expecting. Last but not least have fun and enjoy scaring the pants off of your friends and neighbors. Oh and don’t forget to put up signs or else you won’t have any guests at your haunted house.
