People Aren't Paying You to Scare Them

The haunted attractions industry is a business built on the premise of fear. An industry widely understood as a service of scaring people, it relies on throngs of teens and young adults who turn out annually to pay gobs of money for us to scare their pants off. But there's a problem with this way of understanding our art: it's wrong.

Fear is without a doubt a negative emotion, one that no person in this world would willingly subject themselves to. And yet the goal in the back of any good scareactor's mind is to do just that, scare people. As such, haunted houses create quite the interesting paradox of fear-thirsty scareactors battling it out against fear-weary patrons. And this is where the question arises: Why, then, are haunted attractions fun?

Western psychology is getting there with an understanding of that question (try a Google search for opponent process theory of emotion if you want to learn more; I'm not going to delve too deeply into it). For the purposes of this post, the idea is much easier understood through the ancient Chinese concept of yin and yang, which describes, in very general terms, that in order for darkness to exist, there must also exist light. Yin and yang have been used to describe just about every aspect of human experience that any person has ever lived, but today I might be the first to apply it to the science of haunted attractions. (If at this point you're feeling skeptical of this post because of it's reliance on eastern philosophy, I assure you that Western psychology says practically the same things. I'm just referencing yin and yang instead of the opponent process theory of emotion and motivation because I think it's something that, as a whole, is easier for most people to understand. If you'd like to brush up on the western perspective on the subject, you might try the Google search above or read these few Wikipedia paragraphs to give yourself a general sense of the topic.)

Yin-yang is a concept the Chinese ancients liked to apply to everything. In psychology, it reasons that we only understand feelings because of their opposites. For instance, we only have a standard for pain because we have an understanding of pleasure. That's why, in remote, food-deprived corners of the world, children are ecstatic to receive an extra serving of rice, while at the same time gobs of fat Americans throw tantrums when restaurants serve their cheeseburgers with the wrong damn toppings. Likewise, we have a standard of relief thanks only to our experiences of fear. This, not surprisingly, is where things get interesting for us haunters.

Haunted attractions not only provide fear, they are roller coasters that drive patrons into deep intense fear before whipping a rapid U-turn and dropping them promptly in the pleasure of relief.

By creating a temporarily high standard for fear, haunted houses are able to make patrons feel a rush of relief and pleasure upon returning to what were (earlier in the evening) merely their everyday lives. To further illustrate this point, let's talk about cocaine. Drugs function similarly, but oppositely to haunted attractions. Let's imagine you've just snorted a line of cocaine off a prostitute's buttocks (bet you didn't see that one coming). Your body's going to do two things: 1) Give you a brief high that lasts between 15 and 30 minutes (according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse), and then 2) because of that high, create an inherent low that, for addicts, is characterized by withdrawal. Interestingly enough, haunted attractions create this same process in reverse, and without the health risks of drug use. First, haunted attractions immerse their patrons in a scary (ideally, terrifying) environment, then supply fear's pleasurable counterpart in the form of relief. Often, haunters do this without even knowing.

Even more interestingly, haunted attractions function as more than just a twenty-minute-long low followed by a high; they're actually composed of a series of miniature lows and highs within the whole, each playing out in its own scare or scene. For more on this, check out this video I filmed earlier this year comparing haunts to roller coasters; I think it really helps reinforce the concept from an interesting perspective:

To close out this post, here's another great thing to compare haunted attractions to: jokes. When walking through a haunted attraction, we are always on the lookout for the next actor that might attempt to scare us. Furthermore, we often find ourselves hoping that an actor won't jump out and scare us! Yet, a haunted attraction would be as useless without its pop-out scareactors as a joke without its punchline. Here, let me tell you a joke: what do vegan zombies eat? What if I just didn't tell you the answer? Wouldn't that suck? Here you are all built up and prepared for me to make you laugh, and I give you nothing. The tension you experience waiting for the punchline of a joke is almost identical to the tension haunted attractions' patrons experience as they anticipate a startle. It's the startle itself that actually causes an onslaught of pleasurable relief.

The joke's answer? Grraaaaiiiiinnnss. See what I mean about relief? I bet you feel so much better now!

And as always, Happy Haunting!

-Collin

Creating Walls on a Budget

Saving money is one thing that just about every haunter, on any level of professionalism, likes to do. So with that in mind, I've compiled a list of wall construction techniques for new haunters and veterans alike! Keeping in mind that with increased quality comes increased increased price, I'm going to TRY to organize these ideas roughly in order along that spectrum.

LOW PRICE - LOW QUALITY

Caution tape and stakes can be used to create an outdoor path through a backyard or a patch of woods for virtually nothing. Don't waste your money on the decorative crime scene tape; in the dark, yellow caution tape looks identical to 95% of your patrons and you can get a massive roll for 6 or 7 dollars.

Black plastic walls, construction stage, The Terror, 2008

Black painter's plastic is the cornerstone of just about every infant haunted house there's ever been. Much like every great CEO starts out as an intern, every top haunted house starts out with black plastic walls. This extremely versatile material is perfect for creating quick walls by hanging it from the ceiling of a garage or from ropes strung across a backyard.

Old bed sheets can be hung just like black painter's plastic to create a scene specific to the color of the sheets. White sheets splashed with fake blood can create an easy butcher or asylum scene!

Painted cardboard wall, The Terror, 2008

Cardboard is often underestimated as a haunt construction material for no good reason at all. True, it's not all that sturdy, but when attached to a solid frame it can be painted and detailed just as you would detail a wooden wall.

Landscaping fabric, which can be found in convenient four foot wide rolls, is the perfect material for a transition from black plastic to more detailed wooden panels. If you can build four foot wide frames out of 2 by 2s and staple on the fabric, not only can you paint the fabric much better than black plastic, but you can also reuse the frames in future years with plywood or OSB instead.

Scrap wood walls, The Terror, 2009

Old scrap wood is extremely useful for creating a farm or hillbilly atmosphere and can often be found for free if you're feeling resourceful! Pay close attention to neighbors remodeling their homes or replacing their fences (there's nothing better than the look of old weathered cedar in a haunt).

Pallet wall behind shelves, Creep Acres, 2013

Pallets can often be found for free but take a good deal of effort to find and move to your haunt. It takes time to find businesses with a few spare old pallets and even more time to move them to your location, but the payoff can be incredible and often cost you nothing!

Cull lumber facade, 2012

Facade in action, Creep Acres, 2013

Cull lumber can be found at the back of your local Lowe's or Home Depot. When these stores find pieces of lumber that are warped, smashed, or dented, they tag them with spray paint and sell them for dirt cheap prices (my Home Depot sells cull lumber for $0.51 a piece). You can often find cracked fence pickets and dented plywood pieces that look perfect in a haunted house!

A behind-the-scenes look at wall panels, Creep Acres, 2013

Panels can be made by building modular (usually 4' by 8') frames out of dimensional lumber and then screwing on OSB or plywood. OSB is the cheaper option, though plywood soaks up less paint and ultimately can be made to look more realistic. Once you have a set of panels, modular walls are easily created by screwing together the panels in any configuration you can dream up.

Walls in the garden shed, Creep Acres, 2010

Exit of the BBQ shack, Creep Acres, 2012

Modified panels can be made out of any material you can find to help make a scene more realistic. Want an old shed? Perfect, throw on some lattice! Need a wall to look like the front of a building? Easy, cut a window in the sucker!

Custom-designed repair shop facade, Creep Acres, 2013

Non-modular walls are one of the final stops for high-detail haunts. While panels limit you to formulaic structures, building your walls from scratch for each project allows for near-infinite creativity. Of course, there's a downside that these walls cannot be instantly re-purposed for future years, so one should always consider carefully the costs of building sets this way.

HIGH PRICE - HIGH QUALITY

Increasing Startle Effectivity (Part 2): Startle Timing

In part one of this article, we discussed the components that made a startle scare successful in the instant it takes place. Now, it's time to take a step back and look at how we prepare guests for the biggest reaction possible using startle timing. This will be a shorter article that the first, but just as important.

Scare actors in haunted houses most frequently jump out at the front of the group; after all, it’s the most convenient place from them to leap out at. But is this really the most effective scare tactic? Most haunters agree, it is not.

Imagine yourself in a group about to enter into a haunted attraction. You’re reading about haunted house scare tactics (you little nerd), so we’ll assume you’re more familiar with haunted houses than most. As such, you’re the most courageous member of your group, so you get nominated to take the lead. Conversely, imagine that there’s also a blonde, teenage girl (not to stereotype) who’s more scared than anybody else in the group. Logically, the group suggests she hide in the middle of the bigger, tougher members. Let the monsters either leap out in front of you or trail behind the back of the group; either way she’ll be safe. This scenario happens with virtually every group who enters a haunted house; it is practically human nature to shelter the most scared group member within the fearless, experienced members. And this is where we get our first theory of scare timing.

Scare the middle is the tactic that emphasizes directing actors’ scare efforts more often at the middle of the group, where its most frightened members are often hidden. This tactic preys upon the contagious nature of fear; if a person in the middle of the group becomes terrified, everyone else will either scream too or laugh (and laughter is a good thing too), but if the tough, unwavering group leader doesn’t flinch to a scare, then nobody in the group will. Of course, this tactic has its limits; if every actor jumped at the middle of the group, things would get a little stale for those on its outskirts. However, until actors start showing the same natural initiative towards targeting those in the middle as they show to those on the periphery, it will be up to those who train them enforce that they do indeed scare the middle.

The second tactic of timing, developed by Leonard Pickel, is what he calls scare the gap. Its principle is simple: rather than targeting one patron or another, target the space in between them. According to Pickel, both patrons will react nearly identical to the way they would had only one of them been targeted. How Pickel discovered this tactic, I’m not sure we’ll ever know; yet it does prove itself surprisingly effective. Patrons, unsure who exactly the monster wants, feel almost the same fight-or-flight simulation as when the monsters jump at them and them alone.

Some of My Old Haunt Writing

Over the years, I've done lots of various writing on the concept of creating and improving haunted attractions for anything from Yahoo Answers to blogs like this one, so I decided it might be nice to archive a few of these long-lost pieces for the general public of haunters to have access to. I've formatted four of these articles into a document on my Google drive for easy access. I'll keep this short and sweet; not everything up on this page is complete or well-written, but there is some good information especially for new haunters and those looking to gain a wider breadth of knowledge of the craft. Without further ado, here is the link for your reading pleasure!

Old Haunt Tutorials

Happy Haunting!

-Collin

Speculating on the Future of the Haunted Attraction Industry

         The days of the small-scale, family haunted attraction are quickly fading away. With the increasing design quality audiences expect, haunt owners more and more frequently are taking one of two paths: rocketing ahead of the competition, or being left in the dust. With the line between successful and out-of-business growing clearer and clearer, trends are surfacing that can easily predict the future forerunners of the haunted house industry. Want to get to know the industry a little better? Well jump on board; you’re in for a hell of a ride.

For today it seems that the haunted house market is still one that is relatively open to new attractions, but in 20 years all that may change. To me, the scariest thing about today’s haunt industry is the fact that one core team now has the ability to operate different attractions all across the country. Going back to the nineties, there has always been Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando and in Hollywood, but thankfully for independent haunters, Universal was limited by its existing theme parks and was unable to expand beyond them. Six Flags, too, runs its annual Halloween Fright Fest out of most of its locations, but for the most part keeps it a side event to the roller coasters and thrill rides. But now a new competitor has emerged on the national scale, and it’s potential to dominate many of the nation’s important haunt markets is astounding.

As a Colorado native, I’ve witnessed the growth and expansion of the 13th Floor franchise firsthand. I remember visiting their now-sister haunt Asylum back before it was anything special and then watching the growth of what has arguably become the influential company in the haunted attractions industry. 13th Floor truly was a marketing masterpiece from the start: owners Chris Stafford and Warren Conard took the ever-present rumor of the 13 story haunted house and preyed upon the mobs of patrons the tagline was sure attract. The concept had even been proven already; Cleveland’s 7 Floors of Hell was a thriving haunt drawing tens of thousands of unsuspecting patrons who had grown up hearing about a mythical 7 story haunted house.

13th Floor opened its doors in October of 2008, with tremendous success. Stafford and Conard never looked back. Over the next 2 years, they expanded both of their attractions in the Denver market, moving both to larger, permanent locations. Then in 2011, everything changed.

Through a partnership with the dynamically creative House of Torment in Austin, TX, 13th Floor multiplied. Two locations popped up in San Antonio and Phoenix (both cities without major competition) in a single season, drawing massive 13th Floor-sized crowds to each. Now, these two small teams of haunt owners had five locations spread across four cities and three states, and on top of that, each haunt was split into the main attraction and a separate pre-show haunt. These haunts became powerhouses; when the new locations opened up, they fed off the budgets of their already-profitable parents in Denver and Austin, and now after only two years  they have established themselves as the kings of their respective markets. When somebody in San Antonio or Phoenix wants to go to a haunted house, they want to go to 13th Floor.

The franchise is becoming so huge, it’s beginning to exhibit some clear qualities of typical big business. For years, Denver was home to Primitive Fear haunted house, which was run with its sister haunt by an independent group of haunters and for many years was a highly respected Denver area haunt. So while visiting Asylum during the 2013 season, I was shocked to see the logo for Primitive Fear next to that of Asylum; it was now the smaller pre-show haunted house  for Asylum itself. But had the sets come with the name and logo? Well, I had never visited Primitive Fear in its days of glory, but from what I could tell, the sets were mostly the same as Asylum’s 2012 zombie themed pre-show. Asylum and 13th Floor had eaten Primitive Fear alive, now all that remained was its name, drawing its once-fans to its gravesite in hopes of turning a little extra profit.

And it’s not just the 13th Floor folks expanding their creative domain beyond a single attraction. Savvy hauntrepreneurs across the country are taking hold of their local cities and dominating the surrounding markets, like Larry Kirchner in Saint Louis, Todd James in Dallas, and Randy Bates in Philadelphia. Each of these three began their career running a single attraction but as time passed, expanded his control over the local haunt market to include 2 (James and Bates) or 3 (Kirchner) separate events. Worse, these monopolies seem to have has a profound effect on the surrounding markets; just this year, Mr Bill’s Thrills outside Saint Louis and The Haunt House outside Dallas closed their doors for good. Arguably, it just isn’t possible to compete with a haunt powerhouse that’s able to control the whole marketing scene of a city. When a patron at Todd James’s Cutting Edge is offered to buy a combo ticket to Thrillvania at a reduced price, why would he ever go to The Haunt House?

Undoubtedly, the future of the industry is headed down this path. After all, haunted attractions are indeed an entertainment industry, and entertainment industries easily fall victim to monopolies (just think of radio or film). However, there is hope for the up and coming haunter (and this is the takeaway point): the change has not happened yet. The examples I’ve cited thus far are the forerunners in the haunting community, but are certainly not the trend. In 20 years, everything could be different, but for now the young haunter has hope. Here’s how:

First and foremost, the progression to monopoly is happening gradually, and this era in haunting’s history is just the start. That means that there’s still plenty of room for newcomers to take stake in the industry and become one of those forerunners 20 years from now. We just need to be smart about it.

Second, haunted house trends spread in a certain way, and understanding those trends can be key to timing a new arrival in the industry. Twenty years ago, the top haunts in the nation were clustered around its biggest coastal cities: New York, Orlando, and Dallas pop into my mind. Over time, as haunted houses became a new mainstay of the American October, their grip expanded inward from the coasts, taking over less populated and more conservative states like Illinois, Missouri, Louisiana, and Utah. As Hauntworld Magazine noted in 2009, the Bible-belt states of the South were “not the place you usually think of when a discussion of haunted attractions breaks out,” but it went on to commemorate the success of two phenomenal Alabama haunts (Armstrong). Over the past 5 or 10 years especially, haunted houses have spread like wildfire across the Deep South; as some traditional haunt hotspots began to fall to the market dominance of one particular company, the southern states like Alabama entered into their prime.

So where is the next haunt hotspot? Well, to answer that question, we have to ask another. Where haven’t haunts been yet? Internationally, certainly, but I’m not about to move to Constantinople to scare people. Within the states, it’s the northern midwest that has yet to taste our scares when October comes. It seems like crazy talk to think about setting up business in North Dakota when Fargo, its largest city, boasts a population of just over 100 thousand, a third of that of Saint Louis and a mere sixth of that of Denver. But look at your competition. Hauntworld.com, which offers haunt patrons a place to search by state for haunted houses, has a poll on most of its state pages asking visitors to rate the top local haunted houses. On the North Dakota page, it asks “What is the scariest haunted house near North Dakota?” Burnsville, Minnesota. Columbus, Minnesota. And Rapid City, South Dakota. The best haunted houses in North Dakota, aren’t even in North Dakota. But if so few haunted houses exist in North Dakota, why the Hell would now be a good time to open one? And this is where our friends at the Census Bureau come in handy. From 2010-2012, North Dakota saw the greatest percent increase in population of any state (oil boomers, anyone?), with a whopping growth rate of 4.02%. At that rate, it would only take seventeen and a half years for the population to double. Now I bet Fargo is looking a little more attractive to you, eh? Where people go, haunts follow.

And it’s not just North Dakota. The western and southwestern states are seeing massive population booms too. With Texas, Colorado and Arizona the 2nd, 4th, and 8th fastest growing states, respectively, it’s no wonder the 13th Floor guys are doing so well! Stafford and Conard struck gold when they took the old tagline and flipped it on its head; sure, if you build it, they will come, but why not build it where people are already coming? Detroit, often toted as the haunt capital of the world, has one of the highest densities of haunted houses per square mile anywhere on Earth. But Detroit’s population, as I’m sure you know, is plummeting. When the recession hit, it went from 900 thousand to 700 thousand residents in just a single year. Many of those left in Detroit, the haunted house capital of the world, don’t have money to spend on haunted houses. But when states and cities are growing in population, there’s obviously money attracting people there. And those are the kind of people that are going to be willing to toss out 25 bucks for a haunted house ticket.

So if you’re in the business of scaring people, what’s the number one thing you can do to set yourself up for success? Beyond all the snazzy set decor, marketing techniques, and business planning, you have to set up shop in a place that will let you flourish. Philadelphia, Dallas, Detroit; they’ve already fallen to the local greats. But places like Spokane, Santa Fe, and Fargo; these markets are the future of our industry. And these are the cities that will boast the next generation of top-notch haunted houses.

The Flow of a Haunt

A few years back, I created my own model for what the flow of a haunt should look like, in other words, the ordering and purpose of certain scenes. Now, I've gone back to that model and beefed it out to include more specifics to better describe the process. As always, remember there is no right or wrong when it comes to haunted houses; haunting is an art first and a science second. So be sure to read what I'm writing with a skeptical attitude and form your own opinions on the subject.

To get us started, here are my 6 basic stages of a haunted adventure:
1) Detailed opening scene
2) Disorienting scene(s)
3) The meat (body) of the haunt
4) Climax
5) Relief
6) Final scare

Now let's zoom in and take a closer look at each of those.

1) Detailed opening scene

At the beginning of just about every successful haunt in the world is a high-detail entry scene, acting either as the first room of the haunt or as an interactive queue line. The purpose of this set is to establish setting and storyline before guests get into the meat of the haunt. But what does that even mean? Well, looking at a haunt as an adventure film instead of a horror movie (because haunts always have happy endings) in which guests overcome a great evil to get that huge endorphin rush, we need to take the time to establish their enemy before their heart rate gets racing to the point where they can't think these things through. So with this first big scene, our goal as designers is to tell guests as much of the story as we can to ensure that they go into the rest of the haunt knowing they'll be facing a grave danger.

2) Disorienting scene(s)

As soon as possible after the opening scene, our goal is to disorient our patrons and get them completely and utterly lost in the haunt's hostile environment. When I go through a haunt, I find myself considerably more lost in the settings when I can't figure out in what direction the haunt's entrance is. I think this comes from the primitive notion that if you know where safety is you can eventually reach it. But when you're disoriented to the point that you cannot name the direction you came from, you're completely immersed in the environment. So as haunters, we should strive to achieve this state of disorientation as early in the experience as possible. Some of the easiest ways to do this are to implement lots and lots of dark twists and turns and to make corners that aren't at 90 degree angles. This stage of your haunt is also an excellent time to use effects such as vortex tunnels, claustrophobia tunnels, and laser vortexes. Remember, the goal is to immerse guests in our world, so anything to take them out of their comfort zone aids in that purpose immensely.

3) The meat

This is the body of your haunted adventure, where 70-80% of the action happens! This area is comprised of a series of buildup, payoff, and relief cycles, each cycle usually taking one scene to play out. Now, let's take a more in-depth look at these cycles:

1. Buildup is the increasing tension in a scene of your haunt. The music is pumping, the lights are dim, and it's about time for something to move in the shadows. During this stage, guests' adrenaline is pumping; they are primed for fight or flight and now their reaction to that actor in the corner isn't going to be a flinch, it'll be a full-blown scream.
2. Payoff is the scare itself, in which the actor(s) pounce upon the guests! There is a ton of info to talk about with the startle, so rather than trying to cram it all into a small paragraph I'll just refer you to my post about startles.
3. Relief is the state in which a patron is able to let their guard down, if only just for a minute before the next scare hits them. On a side note, this is where it comes in handy to incorporate empty hallways into your haunts rather than just room after room after room. Just as a movie has rising and falling action, this stage is absolutely essential to maintaining the cycle of a haunt; without it, patrons become numb to the screams of the monsters and never experience the true release that a haunted house offers.

Throughout the meat of your haunt, thoughtfully incorporating this cycle into your design can allow for a much higher scare factor for your guests.

4) Climax

When haunters take surveys of their patrons, time and time again they find that the most memorable scenes in their haunts are their first and their last. This is why, as you've seen, I devoted a section entirely to the opening scene, and is also why, as you'll see, I'm devoting three to the finale scene.

Just by glancing at the titles of these final three sections, you may be wondering why I chose to separate them. Isn't climax and relief just a bigger version of the buildup, payoff, and relief cycle? Well, to an extent, yes. But when that chainsaw final scare comes blaring out, you want your guests to have something big and memorable to back it up.
          "How was the haunted house?"
          "They had a chainsaw at the end."
          "So nothing special?"
          "Yup. Nothing special."
Don't get me wrong, a chainsaw is an amazing final scare for any haunted house, but what it isn't is a climax. Don't waste your chance; give people something to talk about!
          "How was the haunted house?"
          "Oh my God! They had this crazy chick come flying out over us on a zip line, I thought she was gonna land on us dude! There were zombies crawling out of everywhere! This wall started falling towards us and a semi truck charged out from behind a corner and stopped right in front of Corey's face!"
          "Wow! So it sounds like you had a good time!"
          "It was so awesome dude! You need to go some time."
Here's the point to remember: give them something big before the chainsaw, or you're losing a key opportunity for word of mouth. Every haunted house has a chainsaw at the end. Make your haunt into something special.

5) Relief

So now that you've got your climax, it's time to let guests think it's over. Bigger than any of your relief stages in the meat of your haunt, this is the time when guests are able to see the outside world and believe that they've reached safety. Remember, your final scare will only be as effective as your relief stage before it.

6) Final scare

So you've given guests a memorable finale, gotten their guard down, and now it's finally your chance to break out the chainsaw! The purpose of this scare is not to be memorable, it is merely to scare guests one last big time. I've been referring to this as the chainsaw scare, but in reality any scare, no matter how small, can be an effective way to take advantage of guests' perceived safety at the exit of the haunt. In 2009, back before I used saws in my haunt, I would often leave my post as the greeter actor, go stand beside the exit door, and bang a shovel on the wall as guests left the haunt, and this worked brilliantly for a quick and easy last scare.

10 Last Minute Details for Your Haunted House!

With Halloween rapidly approaching and deadlines closing in on home haunters, the time has come to finish up with construction and get on to the final details of our haunts! So here's a list of 10 cheap and easy ways to add some immense detail to your haunt this year.

Fake electrical, Creep Acres, 2013

1) Add fake electrical.
Walmart sells switches and outlets for under a dollar a piece and covers for under 50 cents. With their help, you can add detail and realism to any wall in just a few short minutes! To take it even another step farther, you can get cheap pipes,

2) Use scents.
Froggy's Fog offers scented cologne sprays for $11.99 which can be used to add an immense layer of realism to any haunt, regardless of all other factors. Remember, even if the visuals in your haunt are cheap and cheesy, attacking a sense other than sight can take the realism to a whole other level. (On a side note, I ordered my scents on a Tuesday and recieved them in the mail the following Monday. So there is still plenty of time for you last-minute home haunters to order scents!)

3) Make yourself a good soundtrack.
Again, even if your visuals are absolute crap, attacking a different sense can truly sell the experience. I'd encourage any serious haunter to put in a few hours searching YouTube and i-Tunes for some potential tracks to send shivers down the spines of their guests!

4) Make a thrift shop run.
Grab $20 and head out to your local secondhand store and you never know what you'll find! All it takes is a creative eye and you'll be able to find plenty of props to fill the shelves of your haunt.

Creep Acres 2013

5) Put in fake vents.
As with the fake electrical, you can easily find cheap air duct covers which can be added to walls for that extra layer of realism.

Mine shaft with pipes, Creep Acres, 2013

6) Make pipes.
Any industrial scene would be incomplete without a few rusty pipes, so why not create a few of your own!? With latex gloves, smear spray insulation all over sections of PVC pipe. Let dry, spray paint a rusty orange color, and screw into place!

7) Create realistic blood.
Spray a roughly 2:1 ratio of red to black spray paint into a small cup or spray paint cap, and splash onto a wall for a super realistic blood splatter! (Using only red paint will result in too bright of a finish, so be sure to include the black.)

8) Remember fog and lighting.
Even the cheesiest haunts can become terrifying spook houses given the right combination of lighting and fog, so be sure to leave yourself time to tweak them!

9) Make clacker gloves.
Buy a pair of cheap work gloves and glue washers onto each fingertip. Now when your actor smacks his hand on a wall, the sound will be louder and more frightening!

10) Make your finale something truly memorable.
Don't have a chainsaw? No problem! Unscrew the blade from your circular saw (you know, the one that you built the place with?), save the bolt that'll hold it together once you're through with it, and you've got yourself a finale scare! As always, exercise good judgement and common sense when scaring with a power tool.

Happy Hauntings everyone! I hope your Halloween seasons are filled with fun and fear and I will see you all on the other side!

-Collin