Haunted house and Maze decoration ideas

[turney31]

Ok, I was reading spookwriters thread and he needed ideas for haunted maze. My DH and I are hosting a costume party for halloween. We could use some fresh ideas also.

Some things that were cool in our past haunted houses:

Army zombies- all dressed in camo- 3 or 4 in a group

Large hog trap- with wild man- chain on neck to rattle on wire- very still until someone approaches then goes crazy.

Scary jester or clown

Blood cafe- set up the room as a cafe- creepy as possible, raw meat on plate, at the table- misc. body parts hanging - uber creepy waitstaff.

ghoul cemetary- Have a person dress like a grave robber scary mask- various head stones and markers - fog machine. Dh would bury a plastic skull and then dig it up and carry it around. We generally had this where the line to get in was and he would walk, sneak and torment the people waiting.

Bloody Mary- We had a large tri fold mirror in an area. We would write Bloody Mary in lipstick on the mirror 3 times. In a corner across from the mirror, behind whoever is in front of the mirror, We hung black plastic and our Mary, dressed in a wedding gown- very bloody would sneak up behind the people with them seeing her in the mirror. This almost always was a favorite.


Please let us know any things you have done and how. Thank you!



Micah

 

[HarlansHollowFarms]

Quote:
Now this is a corn maize....Billings Montana

Lots of fun!
This one was last years maze.

 

[turney31]

Thats amazing!

 

[HarlansHollowFarms]

This is a better pic of the maize....

This is this years maze.

 

[herfrds]

Last year the haunted house had a lab area set up. Had a couple people laying on tables. They didn't do this for the little kids coming through, but for the big kids.
The people on the tables would suddenly sit up and be waving organs at them. Had a mad scientist there.
Had a witch behind a jail like door that would suddenly come open.
A person laying in a coffin who would grab the person closest to them.
I missed one part because i was being shoved out the door by the girl behind me.

 

[Ferrret]

Warning: Wall of Text! There's a pic at the end too.

Well my family has been putting on a Haunted house longer than I've been alive.

It's main part is on our front porch so we build everything up there and around it.
I can recount as many themes as I can think of for you.
Zombies - built a special raised mound that we covered in astro turf and had a zombie pop out.
Aliens - Crashed a saucer into the roof (well half a saucer) and had aliens all over like there was an attack, and one was in a containment cell made of clear shower curtains and coated in unset jello.
Addams Family - Well kind of self explanatory really.
An Exorcism - I was possesed, my dad was the priest trying to remove the demons. We set a bed up on springs so it would shake when I moved around. We also hung small toys from fishing line to make it look like they were floating.
Werewolf in the woods - We used a lot of dead branches and fake foliage to make a forest and had a werewolf and a torn up camper giving out candy. A friend showed up in a ghilie suit and helped scare people.
Pirates - The only theme we've repeated twice in a row, but it was so darn impressive we had to. We turned the house into a pirate ship, the first year we spent so much time building the ship we didn't get much of the inside decorated. The city got a lot of calls asking what we were doing.

They had to tell people they didn't know, that it was getting close to Halloween and we don't tell people our theme. The second year it was easier to build the boat, because we saved it in sections. We white washed it and added cannons, and we had a lot more people available to be pirates. We lit smoke bombs from the cannons and had sword fighting in the front yard. Our actors on the inside of the ship were dressed like the Pirates from Davy Jones ship in Pirates of the Caribbean. We had a Bootstrap Bill that looked dead on for the actor and even a Davy Jones.
Zombie Castle - We used the platforms from the Pirate Ship to build a castle with a bridge and made it so people could enter on one side of the porch and leave on the other. That helped a lot as we were getting quite congested when crowds of people showed up. We made stone walls out of foam board and had a monster under the bridge that would reach up and zombies were hiding every where.
Jurassic Park - One of the biggest prop builds we had. We decked out the house like an abandoned warehouse and had painted up a Jeep to look like a Jurassic Park Jeep and had that parked on the lawn. On the inside we had raptors that popped out and pterodactyls that were overhead. We had a warning alarm going off outside and inside we had raptor calls sounds of people being attacked. We had a girl on a special track that bungied her backwards when the release was pulled. She sould hand out candy and then get pulled away supposedly by raptors. At the end we had a couple dilophosaurus (spitting dinos from the first movie) with their calls. The middle was the main area though. We had a near full sized Tyrannosaurus Rex head that was puppeted to lunge forward and bite at people. His roar was so deep that it shook the speaker mounted in his head! It was finished and installed on Halloween day. We didn't let people on until an hour after Trick or Treating started, and the most amazing thing? Kids lined up to wait. We heard several kids tell their parents to take younger siblings to other houses, and that they wanted to hit our house first. By the time we opened up we had a line going around half the block!

We've helped out a community haunted house for several years (people's attitudes got in the way and it shut down) and we did small rooms like a graveyard, a haunted theater, a creepy attic, a Willy Wonka tunnel ride, an Aliens (the movie) room, a Ring room with a girl climbing out of a tv, A trolley ride into Hell, a zombie rave, and many others I can't remember.

This year should be big. I can tell the theme here because, well no one here knows me.

So you won't spoil the surprise.
We're doing Alice in Wonderland as a theme and implementing some new things. We'll be telling people break up into small groups of 6 people maximum, with optional guides to take you through. If too many people go through at once, things get backed up and the haunt is kind of ruined. We're also building a 'vortex' tunnel which should be fun. A vortex tunnel is a tunnel that rotates slowly while people walk along a pathway on the inside. It's disorienting but fun and should be a hit. We will have signs up warning of things like motion sickness and that strobes and fog machines will be in use.

Here's our Rex peeking out!

 

[turney31]

Wow. Great ideas! Thanks.

 

[Spookwriter]

Turney, I appreciate this thread and all the replys. I'll print
everything out and take it with me to discuss.

Our Haunted Corn Maze is put on annually by and for our
local volunteer fire department. Generally it is one of the largest
fundraisers that we have. Bean dinner and ice cream social following.

Tomorrow, even with the other things I've got going on, I'll
be with my friends as we begin the process of setting the props
in place. Laying plans.

I don't know just what I'll dress as yet. Most years, we trade off
on different nights. Depends on shows up each night. (weekends
only)

As I've said before, I live in a small community. And I'm proud of
this little town. One of the most important things I can do is to
support my own community : to be a valuable part of it. And instill in
my own daughter the value of being part of this town. Not just living
in it, but being an important part of making it a wonderful place to live.

Last night, as she and her friends played in our little park, I walked around
picking up trash, checking the equipment and such...just a few minutes, and
another father joined me. We don't have a parks department here. It's up to
us.

It's our town.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Did a haunted trail for a few years.... Clowns are a must. We used a bungee cord an a harness under clothing an had a girl commit suicide by hanging... Jumped out of a tree. Hard to set up safely but effective.

Muzzle loader full of flash paper works good. We used lexan as a invisible shield an just used black pouder. That scared people before they even got parked... some got out heard the gun an left.

We cut the top off a car an flipped it to look like a convertible roll over. Tires were turning, lights on, stereo blaring. Door open with bloody teen girls under it. One screaming, trying to wake the other. I built that one an it freaked me out to see it.

Built graves that people were crawling out of.

I could go all day.

 

[turney31]

You are welcome spook, I too was raised with " you are nothing, if you do nothing, for your community "

Rebel- great ideas, the real looking ones scare me the most.