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.

Home Haunt Spotlight: Maximizing A Small Space

As a home haunter, it's often difficult to create a complete experience for your patrons with the space constraints of a small backyard or a two car garage. With that in mind, I decided to make a list of ways to make the most of a small space.

At a basic level, there are two ways to maximise a small space: either make smaller rooms (and therefore more rooms), or slow people down so the whole experience takes longer. It would be impossible for me to list every possible way to do these two things, so remember that essentially anything that achieves one or both of these purposes will effectively make your haunt longer (in other words, don't limit yourself to the ideas discussed below)!

Without further ado, here's my list of space-maximising techniques.

Creating Smaller Rooms:

1) Build narrow hallways. Granted, if you want to have wheelchair access, your halls need to be three feet wide or more, but there is absolutely no reason to make halls wider than that. The less space any one scene takes up, the more scenes you can have in total. In my haunt, I rarely have hallways wider than two and a half feet, with my average being right around two.

2) Use 2-dimensional props whenever possible. Let me elaborate on that; with a small space you don't want to lose square footage to large props. But then of course, you can't have a good haunt without props. So how do you meet both of these demands? It's simple; you establish your setting using wall-mounted props. Signs, posters, family photos, cork boards, warnings, windows, tool racks, and even some not-so-thick props can all be hung on walls without cutting into layout space. As a general rule of thumb, think of anything that you can draw onto a blueprint-style layout of your haunt as a space-consumer, something that detracts from the remaining usable space in your haunt, and be sure to carefully consider the necessity of all of these pieces. (But on a side note, make sure you do have something other than just walls in your haunt, otherwise it's just a bunch of hallways. I would never argue for anyone to do this, just to remove the unnecessary and space-wasting set pieces.)

3) Take time to paint and detail your base walls. If you're lucky enough to be able to afford wooden walls, don't waste this powerful scenic opportunity! Going off of my last point, if you can establish a setting using the existing walls rather than by adding set pieces that take up more horizontal space, you will be left with more walking space and therefore a longer haunt.

4) Utilize floor and ceiling space. The top and bottom of any scene are powerful but often overlooked canvases for telling a story. You often may find that you can't do much to the floor of a scene without creating a tripping hazard (but if you are in a permanent space that belongs to you, a simple coat of paint can do wonders); however, one should never forsake the opportunities that ceilings present. Of course, you can install a wooden panel and paint it to your heart's desire, or cover the tops of your walls with cammo netting or erosion cloth, but also remember that putting a prop above people will never cut in to your workable space; essentially, the same few square feet can be used both for scenic elements and as the patrons' path.

Slowing People Down:

1) Scare backwards. It is often said in the haunt industry that scaring people forward (or from behind) is the best way to run a haunt, but this is only true when the purpose is to increase throughput by pushing people through the event faster. Of course, in the world of home haunting, the goal is rather to slow people down and make the overall experience take longer, and arguably the easiest way to do this is to put a monster in people's path.

2) Use the sense of touch. Whenever people have to push their way through any obstacle, be it as simple as hanging fishing line or fabric flaps, or as complex as a claustrophobia tunnel or moving room, they inherently slow down. This comes, I think, largely from the fact that touch is the only major sense (excluding, of course, smell and taste) that isn't preyed upon by other forms of entertainment; after all, movies can desensitize people's eyes and ears, but most people will still have hesitations when it comes to touch.

3) Make lots of twists and turns. By making your guests change direction frequently, you can both hide upcoming scenes so the haunt seems longer and slow down the patrons' pace. People can't run around 90 degree turns in a two-foot-wide hallway, no matter how loud the chainsaw is behind them.

4) Employ fog, darkness, and other disorienting effects to confuse people. When people can't see where they're going, it takes them longer to get there, so whenever you can, be sure to block or at least minimize patrons' line of sight. (These effects can and should also be used to hide a scare, otherwise you're really just killing one bird when you could take two.)