2013-Day 364- An amazing show!

Welcome back Ghouls the day after! I can't even begin to describe the spooktacularness of the haunt this year! I'm just going to present the movie and you be the judge. We had many actors and helpers who did a tremendous job. Special thanks to Dave and John in the Mansion hallway who did a phenomenal acting job. John was the first ghoul you see popping out of the drop panel.  Dave was 'The Count' who gathered the guests and led them into the elevator, unsuspectingly. Steve was the ghoul who was in the elevator already as the guests entered. Dave H was our videographer and 'crypt keeper'. Maddie was our ghost who you get a brief glimpse of exiting the elevator. About an hour before the show I was testing the elevator pulley and it broke, so we had to have 2 guys raise and lower it manually (Thanks Max and Mike) My son Ben and I were 'behind the curtain' as it were. Ben was the crush wall operator. Everyone helped to make this a spectacular show. Thank you all! I will post more images etc over the next few days. And then.....we plan for the Halls of Doom 2013...I mean what else Ghouls!

This is the plan of the haunt. Guests enter the mansion hallway, enter the elevator, go down to  the crypt level, exit the elevator and see the ghost apparition, then enter the crypt and exit out through the end hallway where we had prop heads hanging and actors jumping out. Finally the vortex! Use this map as a reference for the video!

2012- Day 114

The following is a brief tour of the Halls of Doom, again largely left intact due to last year's freak storm. This was unexpectedly creepy going in there to see what we left behind as we begin the journey to Halloween 2012. I may not need any fake spider webs at all! It was very dark in there as you can see.

Day 4- Mansion entrance hallway

This image shows the completed hallway entrance. In the 'walkthrough' parts of the the haunt which this is, we often use these small openings in the wall I call 'hand ports' which can be used by people behind the wall to stick their hands through effecting a simple scare. We also have in the front hall as we showed previously, the drop panel, now complete with overlying picture on the right. When guests enter, a mat switch triggers a sound card which plays a segment from the Disney Haunted Mansion. The sound is directed toward one of those simulated lightning boxes which causes the downlights on the portraits to flicker. All these portrait props are seen everywhere, perhaps overused, but basically to set the scene for the main events later. I would love to build all the sets from scratch but there is no way I can start this thing any earlier than I do!
What is left over the next 4 days is the end hall, the entrance door which can only be completed when the garage is open, a few details in the crypt room, vortex lights and lightproofing, hopefully the cannon (I did get the clamps I needed) and lots of testing. We have Sat and Sun actors and helpers coming for walkthroughs.

Day 6- Some front hall details

The entrance hall is a standard mansion set with the pictures along each wall. Please refer to the plan diagram in post on the right side of this page. Last 2 images show a quick and dirty 'drop panel'. We will have a picture mounted on the black board. The wood is a very dense particle board. I used some aluminum frame pieces from a shower door we took down for the side slots and greased the insides. We will have a ghoul actor stand behind the picture. As the guests go by the latch on the backside of the board is slid over to the left and the board falls with a crash!  The panel can be 'reloaded' using the eye bolt and latch. Very simple and cheap and took about 30 minutes to build. We also have our standard haunted chandelier. I wanted to make one but didn't have time so instead we are using a prop I have had for several years. It does have a shake feature which we will activate using an X10 module.