Welcome!

Hello fellow haunters!

Welcome to my new blog, How to Haunt Your House! Over the past few years I've been working on and off on on some tutorials for haunt owners, focusing more on 'haunting theory" than tutorials on specific props (and let's be honest, there are plenty of sites out there for prop-builders if that's what you're looking for). I decided a few weeks ago I decided I'd like to be able to share my ideas about scaring people and creating world class haunts, and it looks like today's the day I'm finally getting around to starting the process (yay!)

Before I get into the tutorials, let me take a paragraph or two to give a little background on myself and my experience with haunted houses. I'm a 16 year old high school student from Lafayette, Colorado. Because of my age, there's not many subjects I consider myself to be an expert on, but believe me when I say that haunted houses are one of them. I've been in love with Halloween for as long as I can remember, I've loved haunted houses from the moment I was old enough for my first one, and I've been creating my own home haunt for six years now (2013 will be the 7th year for me).

Starting in 2007, I began making a short haunted trail in my Dad's backyard. Of course, it feel way short of my elaborate plans (which included an animatronic barrel wall and a lawn-mower repair shop), but none-the-less, it was a start and got me hooked for years to come.

(I started taking pictures in 2008, and select ones from each year thereafter are posted on our website at http://www.creepacres.com/pictures.php)

In 2008, I was able to channel the excitement from the previous year into creative drive and much more effort. This led to better planning and drove me to ask for permission to use the garage for the haunt. This was the first year that I created an actual flow-through path, and was also the first time I made a wooden room (with the help of my Dad) rather than using black plastic walls. I continued with this in 2009, where I was thrust back out into the backyard thanks to a basement renovation cluttering the garage. I made the commitment not to use any black plastic and only wooden walls to make the rooms. Unfortunately, due to poor planning and a massive blizzard a few days before Halloween, I was unable to paint all but one room of the haunt.

2010 saw the start of what, looking back, signaled the first major turning point in my haunting history, and also happened to occur the year I decided to change the haunt's name from the generic "The Terror" to "Creep Acres." I was back in the garage, and made the commitment to convert most of the walls to the standard industry wall panels (excluding one scene from 2009 which we wanted to keep as it was). The main difference between typical wall panels and my wall panels was that I wanted to make hallways narrower that 4 feet wide, so I made my panels 4, 3, 2, and 1 feet wide so I could make more custom-shaped rooms. It was also the first year that I painted (and detailed) all of the wall panels to create more realism. This style continued into 2011, where I finally decided to theme the haunt, selecting "Uncle Bubba's BBQ," a redneck cannibal butcher theme, half way through the year's build as a way to connect the scenes together and create a better flow.

And then in 2012 we bought a farm. My Dad and step mom had been eyeballing a certain neighborhood with 1-2 acre plots for quite some time, and when a 1.9 acre ranchette went on the market the quickly pounced on it. And the best part, at least for me, was the 2300 square foot workshop beside the house. I expanded roughly to a haunt roughly 3 times bigger than what I'd done in 2011. I decided to divide the haunt into 3 rough areas: Uncle Bubba's BBQ (completely redesigned but with the same root theme as 2011), Body Repairmen, and UNEARTHED: Into the Cellar. The renovation to Uncle Bubba's included an all-new slaughterhouse and an amazing outdoor scene with three amazingly detailed facades. Body Repairmen preyed upon the creepy hillbilly motif, and was set in a backwoods repair shop where inbred freaks wreaked havoc on their victims. UNEARTHED, on the other hand, focused on demonic serial killers who made their home in a creepy old basement, making guests venture through old storage rooms, caves, and sewers. Despite our modest turnout (thanks to our more rural location), 2012 was easily my favorite year so far.

Which brings be to the coming season. Today is January 28, 2013. Thus far, I have two custom and all-new scenes being built in the shop: a claustrophobic coffin hallway where the shape of the exit is that of a three-foot-long toe-pincher standing vertically, and a super-gory wooden shed that will house an actor with a skill saw. This is by far the earliest I've started working on haunt sets, and needless to say I'm insanely excited for the upcoming season. I have some awesome plans for this year and plan on pulling out all the stops as it will be my last year before college. For more info on Creep Acres past and present, check out my build vlogs at http://www.youtube.com/user/minimoose1750

So now back to the topic at hand. With this blog, I'm hoping to be able to share some of my experiences and advice about running a good haunted house, anything from startle execution to set design. So pull up a chair, dim the lights, and get ready for a hellishly scary time!

-Collin