The Abbott & Costello Meet Halloween Haunted House Theme
What exactly is an Abbott & Costello Meet Halloween Haunted House? First, some people are going to have to be educated on who Abbott & Costello are. A&C were the number one box office attraction in the early 40s; a comedy team featuring a not-as-dumb-as-acts fat guy and a not-as-smart-as-he-thinks tall, thin straight man. Their best movies featured them coming into contact with various Universal Studio monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man and the Mummy. (There was an Abbott & Costello meet the Invisible Man, but that was less a spoof of horror movies than of boxing movies.) The team also made one of the best funny ghost stories ever, The Time of Their Lives.
But back to the Halloween party. Here’s why an Abbott & Costello Meet Halloween Party requires some imagination. Since most of their movies-and all of the good ones-were shot in black & white, the first rule is that the entire party must be done monochromatically. In other words, all the costumes must be made of clothing that is black, white or grey. Same with the make-up. Same with the decorations.
Now about those decorations. The theme of this party is to take Universally-recognized monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman and all those other movie monsters and place them into a classic movie setting such as Dr. Frankenstein’s lab, or Dracula’s castle, or the mummy’s tomb. It doesn’t matter which one you choose; whatever is easiest to set up wherever you may be holding the party. But the trick is to set it up so that it looks like it’s in black and white, like the old movies. Obviously, you may not really be able to create this setting entirely in monochromatic scheme, but get it as close as you can. A theatrical supply store can probably give you some tips on how to create effects. And speaking of effects, nothing beats black and white for creating eerie shadows, so be sure to ask how you can enhance your set with lighting effects.
As for the make-up itself, that should be easy enough if you choose to be Dracula, a vampire, Frankenstein’s creature or the mummy. Really, any of those classic monsters should be easy enough to recreate without having to resort to color. Don’t just limited yourself to the big four, however. Don’t forget about the Phantom of the Opera, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Ygor the hunchback, the Creature from the Black Lagoon and, of course, the Bride of Frankenstein! And, while you certainly can’t be invisible, remember that all it takes to play the Invisible Man is some bandages, gloves and sunglasses to go along with your suit. Naturally, no Abbott & Costello Meet Halloween Haunted House would be complete without the duo themselves. If you don’t have short fat guy to play Lou Costello, simply do the stuffing thing.
Now for the entertainment part. Most Halloween haunted houses feature people walking through a gauntlet of sorts with little scenarios playacted out and people jumping at you to put a little fright into you. Sometimes the haunted house will get a little more inventive and actually create more complex “scenes.” But the beauty of the Abbott & Costello Meet Halloween Haunted House is that you’ve got a guides leading the way who can interact with pre-scripted scenes. You can either lift ideas directly from the movies themselves and build your haunted house tour around those, or else you can just take the whole idea of a comedy team running into scary monsters and run with it. It all depends on the level of your own imagination and the resources at hand. The great thing about this Halloween haunted house theme is that you can combine humor with horror in a natural way.
The main thrust, of course, is to advertise this haunted house as though you were inviting people to jump into an old movie ala The Purple Rose of Cairo. In fact, a good way to begin the haunted house tour would be to make a little video that sets up the story of how the Abbott & Costello characters got into this mess in the first place. If you have the ability to set up a television screen in front of the entrance, this can be a truly imaginative way to prepare your victims for the experience of entering a black & white world of old time Hollywood monsters. If nothing else, the black & white motif will set you apart from the rest of the haunted houses out there and if you can do it well enough, it will get talked about.
Which doesn’t mean, of course, that your monsters cannot act a little more 21st century when it comes to putting the fear of God into your haunted house visitors.
