# Haunted House theme ideas.



## Jack Reaper (Nov 19, 2003)

I am kicking around ideas for themes and room ideas, problem is: most have already been done at one time or another. Here are themes I've already done.
1. Dungeon of Terror- Mash of everything from Fankenstein to Chainsaw massacre.
2. Sci-fi theme (i.e. Aliens, Predator,E.T. Gone Bad ect.)
3. Video games gone bezerk (Deadtendo)
4. Carnival of Fear
5. Middle and dark ages
6. Gothic
7. Dungeons and Dragons
8. Outdoors in a corn field
9. Past horrors/ Jack the Ripper, Vlad Teppes, Elizabeth Bathory, Hitler, ect.
10.Haunted forests
11. Haunted swamps
12. Haunted cities
13. Post apocoliptic, nuclear war, bio-terrorism, swarms of deadly insects,ect.
14. Haunted barnyards
15. Nature gets revenge.
16. Terror Beneath the City
17. Haunted Hollywood
18. Terror in the 4th dimention

Anyhow, I have an idea for a type of House to do, but I need to learn how to deal with the red tape and such before I even put dollar one into it.
I am just curious if there are any freash ideas out there.

"The last thing you will hear on your way to hell, is your guts snappin' like a bullwhip!"


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## formalevil (Sep 21, 2003)

> quote:_Originally posted by Jack Reaper_
> 
> I am kicking around ideas for themes and room ideas, problem is: most have already been done at one time or another. Here are themes I've already done.
> 1. Dungeon of Terror- Mash of everything from Fankenstein to Chainsaw massacre.
> ...


Well I like how you didnt go with normal horror themes like jason or freddy but do not do Hitler you will have so many groups protesting and stuff that will not attract bussiness.

~*formalevil*~

DUKES OF DARKNESS KINGS OF HELL!


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## Jack Reaper (Nov 19, 2003)

Believe it or not, we did not have a negative thing said about that. Considering that Hitler was meerly a tortured soul in a Hell Room. We had more concern, many years back because we used live rats. We put them in a custom made, plexiglass coffin with a maniquin smeared with peanut butter so they would look as if they were eating her.

Or the time we took a bunch of baby dolls and made them look demonic, attacking a baby sitter.People thought they were suppose to represent dead babies.

On the flip side, publicity is publicity. We had a church org. that did a Haunted House called Hell House, where they would tell you that you were going to hell if: You practiced pre-marrital sex, used drugs, had an abortion, were gay, ect. They had plenty of protesters outside, attracting attention, and people would pay the $10 just to see what the hoopla was about. They finally crossed the line when they decided to do a reenactment of the Coumbine Shootings. And considering that Columbine High School was only 12 miles away, people did what they should have done in the first place and gave them no attention at all. The following year, the church itself wouldn't let them back. But they did well at first! I am happy to say," They did not get my 10 bucks!"

"The last thing you will hear on your way to hell, is your guts snappin' like a bullwhip!"


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## putrid (Aug 18, 2002)

Jack Reaper, man you've had some cool haunts. How about a church of the dead and demonic? You could put a sign above the door.
'Judge and go to hell like the rest'.

Good ol Christians practicing hate and judgment for Halloween. I wonder how many time they said,
"Your going to hell if you judge others"? 
I stopped listening to Howard Stern because he joked about the Coumbine (Columbine?) Shootings. That wasn't entertainment and his comments went way beyond bad taste.



"It's not the way you scream. It's your phobias that drive me wild."


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## David Knoles (Jun 18, 2002)

And Howard Stern is history now too...at least he's been pulled out of all the major markets he was in. And as far as I'm concerned, it's no great loss.

As that fabulous Halloween superhero, MagicSlider, says; "DEAD GUYS ROCK!"


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## Gym Whourlfeld (Jan 22, 2003)

Stern's TV show was the most boring item to ever be on television, smirking, waiting for something to "happen" doesn't make for entertainment , maybe his original radio show was good, but of course I never got to hear that, so who knows?
Real life and death tragedys involving innocent young people cannot be made and shouldn't be tried to be made into "entertainment".
What is the bottom line of it?, "Ha! Ha!, You're dead and I'm not?"
Implying something superior in the the person saying or acting like this? How simple-minded can it get? Who would want to hear it?

How about a theme of the mind-sucking video rental store that keeps a portion of your mind when you return the movie yet it's an addiction, you need another rental to then imprison more of your thoughts, and pretty soon you are a walking, consuming, zombie plugged into the official line of "buy this", "Do this" as prescribed by the nameless, faceless others who really are in control of what's left of your grey matter. 
Scary.
The next room could illustrate the remaining part of the zombie-life(when your physical "wheels" won't turn anymore) a field full of fence posts , arms out-stretched with barbed wire tacked into the numb arms and chest, holding the fencing 24/7 as bird's poo-poo runs down your face, "Gee, I sure hope that it might rain soon and clean this stuff off of me!"
Following the "Company-Line" doesn't always pay off.

"My Insanity is well-respected, until they wiggle free and become a stringer for a tabloid"


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## putrid (Aug 18, 2002)

This may take some $$$ and a lot of work but how about a swap room. Knurled trees covered with vines and Spanish moss. Use two way mirrors to make bottomless pits and deep swamps. Raise a walk way about 2 foot off the floor to go over a swamp. Hide 'crocodiles' under some of the two way mirrors with lights that come on to show them as TOT's walk over the bridge. If your tree foliage was thick enough you could use can lights to simulate streaming moonlight through the trees. Also a good dose of fog in the air would help the moonbeems show up. I think a FCG would look great in this enviornment. 




"It's not the way you scream. It's your phobias that drive me wild."


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## Atomic Mystery Monster (Jul 29, 2003)

Reaper,

For information about money, red tape, etc. and their relations to haunted houses, I'd recommend going to a website like Haunted Attraction or [http://www.hauntworld.com]Hauntworld[/url] and/or picking up a copy of the book How To Operate a Financially Successful Haunted House</u> by Philip Morris and Dennis Philips.

As for Howard Stern, he got in trouble awhile back for commenting on how he was surprised that the Colombine shooters didn't try to rape any of the girls at their school during the shootings.

Here are some themes that I've always thought would be interesting:

-Dungeon: Scene after scene of moaning prisoners, flesh eating rats, and people being tortured. 

-Time Travel: The haunt starts in a mad scientist's lab where a lab accident forces the patrons to escape throught a time machine. As they travel through time (Depicted via quick bursts of strobe lights between rooms), they have to survive dinosaurs, Aztec sacrifices, a beheading during the French Revolution, wartime trenches, and a post-apocalyptic future area. However, the strobes could be a problem with some patrons. 

-Revenge: Whenever there's a sucessful horror franchise, everyone tries to make their own versions of Freddy or Jason. Usually, these and other movie monsters only get one movie and are largely forgotten about. After years of not getting any recognition, these characters team up to form a house in order to get revenge on the viewing public who ignored them and to get a kill count bigger than those who overshadowed them. Sadly, copyright issues would make this haunt pretty damn near impossible. That, and there's the problem of finding enough forgotten characters to fill a haunt (I can only think of Horace Pinker from SHOCKER and the mannequins from TOURIST TRAP)

-Phobias: This idea is pretty straightforward. It's a collection of scenes based off of people's greatest fears (Rats, spiders, snakes, the dark, death, torture, etc). The linking theme would be a scientist conducting an experiment in fear. For added fun, you could issue fright certificates to those who "survive" the haunt.

-In the Dark: I've heard of a hosue that does this, but I doubt that this idea is copyrighted. Anyway, patrons are given flashlights and sent into a dark house. Whenever a flashlight beam hits a photoelectric cell, an effect is triggered. But there would be problems, like making sure that patrons won't fall or bump into things and hurt themselves. I'm also sure that the fire department wouldn't like the set up. Perhaps this is why there aren't more attractions like this.

-Locked in a house with a killer: You've watched other poor suckers get chased through a dark house by a killer in various movies, but now it's your turn to be the victim. You have to find your way through a dark house while trying to avoid a masked killer and various false scares that many horror movie fans like to call "spring-loaded cats". Sadly, this haunt probably can'tbe done due to the easy potential for injuries (along with possible fire code problems and the cost of all the emergency equipment). That, and you'd have to have a location without any stairs.


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## Jack Reaper (Nov 19, 2003)

AMM, some ideas have been done and you pointed out possible problems with the other ideas.

Problem with public attractions is that they are becoming so, what is the word I am looking for.... ah heck! Redtaped, that is getting difficult to do a great show and make money. After all, we are competing with Hollywood.

When I first started, oh the things you could get away with. Paper machete walls, stairs, moving floors, props carved out of styrafoam, grabbing a patron and so forth.
One year, we had a house that was done in an old barn. A trench was dug from the barn to about 25 meters out. The trench was then covered with plywood and lightly covered in dirt to camoflage it. We built a well at the other end where the patrons entered, down into the well through the trench, and out into the barn where was the actual attraction.
Another year, we had built a ramp and catwalk. In the middle of the cat walk was a small section of thick plexiglass (about two meters). When a patron would step upon this section, a motion detector would set off a light under the floor, revealing that they were standing above a bunch of live rattlesnakes.
These are things that are a big no-no these days.

O.K. the red tape I am studying for, has not alot to do with the standard, safty firemarshall stuff, but more of a zoning/ caberette/ and other legalese due to subject matter.

Most haunted houses would receive a "R" rating due to violence, situations, possibly language. 
The one I am planning would probly receive an "NC-17" rating.

There is one in Vegas that I heard about that would receive an "X". I've yet to actully see an advertisement about it or have spoken to anyone who has seen it. So at this point it is only a legend like the 13 story H.H.

Mine would not be that bad as far as the sex thing. I just wonder how a H.H. with partial nudity would go. I know the age limit thing would come up, so I thought that since the majority of H.H. patrons were teen-agers, that at a certain time of night (mid-nite) it would become an 18 and over show.

Like I said, it is all in the planning stage.

"The last thing you will hear on your way to hell, is your guts snappin' like a bullwhip!"


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## Gym Whourlfeld (Jan 22, 2003)

I have never understood why anyone wanting to run a haunted house would ever want anyone to run while in their place?
I know the holy-god of "Through-put" must be satisfied to pay the bills and keep the customers flowing into the place and keep them happy that they got into the house within a decent time-frame BUT, not many people can actually run safely in a dark, strange atmosphere.
People get hurt when they fall down. there, it's a simple as that.
I sure don't want anyone getting hurt in my place!
"No Running!" reads the signage all over here.

"My Insanity is well-respected, until they wiggle free and become a stringer for a tabloid"


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## Mr_Nobody (Aug 24, 2003)

Here's an idea. What about a Haunted House based on HP Lovecraft works...or if you're not quite sure who that is, maybe people are familiar with the roleplaying series based on his works...Call of Cthulu. I've played two roleplaying games based on the series alone, and with no props, just setting the mood and telling the story, it freaked me out.


Wang Chi: A brave man likes the feel of nature on his face, Jack. 
Egg Shen: Yeah, and a wise man has enough sense to get in out of the rain. 


-_Big Trouble in Little China_


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## Gym Whourlfeld (Jan 22, 2003)

Want to freak people out? Go to a nursing home and hire some old people to work in your house, the work is really not too hard for them, usually.
One time a duo of very popular radio personalitys came here and the next morning on their show told the world how freaked they were when "some old woman just stuck her head into the room, took a look, then closed the door and disappeared!"
The anticipation of seeing her again and the mystery of just who or what she was lingered in their minds long after.
She was my Grandmother. Always a Halloween fan. She was still putting on costumes and being in the local Halloween parades when she was 85!
Once a whole charter bus full of very elderly Halloween fans came here in October. They were the greatest audience! They applauded for everything I showed them or did to entertain them!
Some were using walkers and crutches and wore flimsey little costumes as they hobbled along! What spirit!

"My Insanity is well-respected, until they wiggle free and become a stringer for a tabloid"


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## Atomic Mystery Monster (Jul 29, 2003)

Reaper,

Holy crap! I think that might be one of the most dangerous haunted house stunts ever done, if not the most dangerous.

I found an article on Hauntworld that discusses the rise and fall of an "NC-17" haunt. Although I doubt you'll pull the sort o stunts that this guy did, it's still an interesting read. Also, I still recommend going to the forums on those sites that I linked you to. Well, them and local city and government officials.


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## Gym Whourlfeld (Jan 22, 2003)

I think any kind of haunted attraction that you care to create would have an audience the problem comes from how you advertise what you have to get the word out?
If you could maintain the same location for a few years and do the same show, whether it was NC-17 or what, eventually your audience would find you, but in the meantime, you're working for nothing?
I could see this going over in a college town, but then, all parts of the country are sort of different as to expectations and acceptability, generally speaking.
I am open 360 nights of the year and most Sat. & Sun. afternoons. I see alot of familys all summer long, I don't care for gore and the butcher shop motiff so I don't do it("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!?") I don't do "Hollywood", I don't do what is commonly found elsewhere, but I do show my patrons a good, stimulating time and they return and keep me in business.(17years)
Many variations on "Theme" can work, just go with what YOU believe in and you probably won't go "wrong".

"My Insanity is well-respected, until they wiggle free and become a stringer for a tabloid"


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## Jack Reaper (Nov 19, 2003)

AMM, thanks for the link.
That is what I would like to avoid. I believe in truth in advertising and shall give the audiance what I say.
I think the worst thing that a Haunted Attraction could do is call itself the "Scariest House in Town!" It is rarely true. Plus every house thinks it is the scariest and #1. Here in Denver, we have a glut of haunted houses and all claim they are #1. The Reinke's (whom I work for at this time) only claim to be the oldest. Coming up on our 29th season.

GYM, Do you work at "Skull Castle" in Orlando? If not , what is the name and location of your place?

End note: there was a house out east, possibly Boston, that advertised partial nudity. Does anyone know about this one?

"The last thing you will hear on your way to hell, is your guts snappin' like a bullwhip!"


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## Gym Whourlfeld (Jan 22, 2003)

Ask the Reinke Brothers, they were here at my house about 7? Years ago, I think?
My house is in Mount Carroll, Illinois, it's the Ravens Grin Inn
website: hauntedravensgrin.com
The brothers rode a bus here with Marc Brawner(Little Spider).
We were all eating at a local restaurant around the corner from my place and one of the Reinkes came back from the rest room saying "All right! Who rigged up the vent fan in the bathroom to do the theme from "JAWS!?"
The motor was surging as it ran and it did sound like "Dunt-dunt,..duntdunt,"
I was telling how someone once told me about a terrible rip-off haunted semi-trailer that was just an empty dark trailer(no walls, no displays) just a few pieces of thread hanging down in a few places to brush passed someone's face.
One of the guys in the group pointed to the other guy and said, "That's YOUR PLACE!"

HAHAHAHAHA!

"My Insanity is well-respected, until they wiggle free and become a stringer for a tabloid"


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## Jack Reaper (Nov 19, 2003)

Hey that's cool! You know Greg and Chris! They are the ones' I mention quite a bit as to owning a year around Halloween Store. That is why I asked if yours was Skull Castle. Have you been to that one?

"The last thing you will hear on your way to hell, is your guts snappin' like a bullwhip!"


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## Gym Whourlfeld (Jan 22, 2003)

I once traveled across the country to see "Mayhem Manor" that was in Myrtle Beach(owned by Leonard Pickel).
I really can't leave my place to see and or do much because when I'm not here, it don't happen.
I built my house pretty much in a "vacuum", but a whole lot of people have always thought it was fairly unique and entertaining, so contrary to what might seem to be the popular belief, one doesn't HAVE to travel and see everything that other's are doing to get an idea of what or how to "Do" something.
Some well-meaning souls would tell me that I should go to Disneyland, "To get some ideas!" This always struck me as a tremendous insult, but I wouldn't let on that I felt this way, I would just tell them that I didn't need anyone else's "ideas", I just needed the time and money to build my own (Ideas), thank you very much!"

"My Insanity is well-respected, until they wiggle free and become a stringer for a tabloid"


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## Jack Reaper (Nov 19, 2003)

I used to see other area houses, more to see what they are doing and not do the same thing. That is where the idea for the house I was planning came from. No one else is doing it. At least not around here! My room ideas I kinda keep to myself so they have a chance as to not be tried first by someone who can flip the bill right now. The Reinkes Know, but they aren't likely to try it.

"The last thing you will hear on your way to hell, is your guts snappin' like a bullwhip!"


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