DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME : Our text files and message bases are for INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. DO NOT undertake any project based upon any information obtained from this or any other web site.We are not responsible for, nor do we assume any liability for, damages resulting from the use of any information on this site.
(127 votes) Published: Oct 29, 2007 5:53 p.m. In 10 Favorites Lists Viewed 859 times
Before i get into anything in detail, i have had quite a bit of experience with movie and stage props along with halloween props and illusions. For the past 4 years, i have worked at Spooky world at halloween time setting up illusions and pieces of the haunted houses. For the past 12 years, i have worked on halloween night scaring people and setting up prop ideas and utilizing costumes and the things that i had. My town is 1 town over from Salem Massachusetts which is the halloween capital of the world which is also the home of the salem witch trials and houses 2 of the most haunted places on earth. The entire town is haunted (no joke).
Ok so you are stuck on halloween ideas and you need to do something to spice up your driveway. Most people answer their door with some stupid mask and hand out candy but they are always angered when there is no leftover candy at the end of the night to pig out on. Heres a good way to scare the crap out of anyone who comes near your house...
WHAT YOU NEED:
Fine BLACK mesh screening (10feet to 50feet).
Some old Projector (found at flea markets for cheap)
Fog machine (optional, purchased at wal-mart for $20)
Yard
2 Poles (7 feet high)
Ok so the black mesh screening can be purchased at an industrial fabric supply store or a landscape supply store. At a landscape supply store or home depot, it would be a very fine mesh netting that is used to keep birds away. It shouldnt cost more than $30 for a huge Tarp-Sized sheet of it.
THIS IS THE SAME TECHNOLOGY THAT WALT DISNEY USED TO CREATE THE HAUNTED MANSION IN WALT DISNEY WORLD.
HOW THIS WORKS:
You have a projector projecting out the image of whatever you want. A girl in a white dress, a man walking. You can use some old tape and record yourself then adjust the white balance so that you stand out as a blueish white glow. Set up your 2 poles in your sideyard or front yard area where nobody will be walking or disturbing it. At night, the black mesh wont be visible to the naked eye, just the light bouncing off of it. Shine your projector at it playing your selected reel of film. The projector should be hidden so that it is in front of the spectator facing away from them. Facing towards the spectator works too but the lense can be visible. Shine the projector onto the black mesh which is suspended, have the fog machine blasting fog all around the black mesh to chop things up a little bit and make it look like it has more substance to it. This is a shortcut that walt disney used.
Walt disney would take several layers of black mesh and overlap different parts of images onto different layers of mesh to make a 3D lifelike person. Using a fog machine is a cheaper and easier way of doing it and it looks pretty damn cool.
If you really want to put on a good show, record a video of a ghost man walking around searching for something and manually move the projector while dressing in all black.
This one is GREAT.
These things are great as distractions at a haunted house. The whole thing that makes haunted houses so scary is how they attack you psychologically when you are most vulnerable. They always start you off by walking you through with 1 or 2 scary pop-outs that startle you at first. It gets you used to these predictable scares but then it doubles and triples them up. The overload of paranoia makes any reasonable person become psychologically overwhelmed because they can no longer predict what will happen. "the scary thing that just popped out at them was actually just a distraction for the even scarier thing that is going to pop out in 5 seconds". If you only have 3 people to put on a haunted house, something eerie or spooky that seems unrealistic will distract the victim so that you can compensate for a lack of costumes, props or personell.
I have to say, egging houses, shitting in mailboxes, killing your neighbors cat, throwing toilet paper and smashing windows is a fun way to celebrate halloween but scaring the shit out of the people who those things belong to is even more satisfying.
Oct 29, 2007 6:05 pm - last year i built a big realistic looking foam well in my backyard and made it look like the one from the ring. I made a big circular foam "rock" and leaned it up against it. I took a 2x4 and drilled a huge long hole the whole way through it and drilled tons of holes on the bottom side, i hooked up a hose to it and put it onto my front steps. It looked like Water was pouring out of my doorway all down the front steps, i took a clip from the movie "THE RING" and video edited it so that i had only SOMARA crawling out of the well. Everything else around her was blackened out (took 35 minutes to do) IT is a 6 minute long clip that plays on a loop (repeat). I put speakers down inside of the well which played the sound of water splashing.I put the black mesh right above and around the well and i had it layered with a fog machine as a segway between layers so that i could make smooth transitions when she moves forwards towards the projector. I spent a total of $160 on the foam, paint, wood, movie, projector which i got at a flea market (plugs into PC), fog machine, mesh, and other little things was pretty damn good. I had it 55 feet from my front walkway. Trick or Treaters were DEATHLY AFRAID to even walk up the steps and ring the doorbell because it just seemed so real.
Oct 29, 2007 6:09 pm - i didnt have 1 single trick or treater. I had 2 local news teams interview me on live TV and ask me how i did it but i didnt tell them. I set it up at 7pm that night and had it taken down by 1 am. It is really scary when you make a silhouette out of black mesh screen and hang it with fishing line out in the dark. Have a Strobe light flash once every 30 seconds. IT will just show the silhouette of a dude for a split second and then go away and nobody will be able to figure it out. That only costs about $25 and is a great last minute idea and very easy and accessible to anyone. A strobe light can be purchased for $10 now.
Oct 29, 2007 6:18 pm - 2 years ago, i dressed like a gorilla with red glowing eyes. I used to scare people at a haunted driveway locally. I took a 7 Footby 7 foot by 7foot cage that was actually real and set it up right in the middle of everybody. Nobody is allowed the bring flashlights to the driveway, and you must walk past this cage to get your candy. I cut a 2footby 4 foot hole in the back of the cage and put a black sheet over it. This exit is right out in some really really thick woods. The cage had metal bars along with thick steel mesh all around it. I had 2 fog machines, 8 strobe lights and one spotlight inside of the cage. Im not kidding, this is one of the scariest ideas ive done ever. I went nuts running around the cage just acting like a crazy rampid gorilla. I was foaming from the mouth and my red LED eyes got brighter when i was angrier. The fog machines would go off more wheni was angrier and the strobe lights would flash faster. There was about 30 people swarming the cage watching from the outside. People of all ages. I just ran around the cage going nuts, fog everywhere , strobes just going nuts and so i have everything hooked up to a small black remote control. I chaotic music very loudly. I went nuts inside and then all of a sudden the strobe lights shut off. Then the fog machine shuts off. Then the music shuts off. Then everyone looks around in confusion. My red eyes have dissappeared, im not running around screaming and its PITCH BLACK. Everyone is very confused. Then the spotlights turn on inside of the cage and IM MISSING. Everyone really starts to panic. They were just teasing a gorilla and now he has dissappeared out of the cage. They look around and then all of a sudden, they hear a rustling in the bushes. Everybody FREAKS they just start running as fast as they can out of the driveway and the music and noise just kicks back in again and they just see a black gorilla with red eyes chasing them down the driveway. One person had to get hospitalized from heat exhaustion and mild depression even though it was a 42DegreeF halloween night. They were dressed in a skimpy hooker outfit. It is soo much fun. That year only costed me $300 in total and was 100% priceless.
Oc 29, 2007 6:21 pm - the haunted driveway is a creepy old house (that actually belongs to my friend) and is set back in the woods off of a main road. The driveway is 400 feet long and is gravel and peastone. There is extremely thick woods on both the left and right sides of the driveway. The driveway is only 10 feet wide and its just lined with shrubs and a candle every 30 feet. The driveway weaves back and forth and the trick or treaters have to go in through a small door at the bottom of the old house and go all the way down into the basement "dungeon" and talk a creepy old guy into giving them a big bag of candy.
Oct 29, 2007 11:10 pm - Haha that gorilla things a pisser!
5* as always
Oct 30, 2007 3:17 am - nice 5 man, for halloween pretty much all we do is bash emos, in my town its like a massive riot lol fun my krew are all dressing like the guys from clockwork orange lol
Nov 06, 2007 2:43 pm - Wow dude that is sick. I also live very close to Salem MA and I gotta say it gets nuts on Halloween. I gotta drop by your house next year dude it sounds NUTS!
Edit Page
Message chickgriddles
Add Comment
Add to Favorites
Email to Friend
