# Haunted house(school) ideas needed



## 2mom (Oct 2, 2013)

Our school does a haunted hallways. I need ideas for "rooms". We have a dot room, a train room(loud noise big light coming at you), a zombie room. We need more ideas though. What has been your favorite scary room? Or your most successful? The parents also are the ones that foot the bill for the props so nothing truely expensive. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!!


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## TheMonsterSquad (Oct 8, 2012)

A good way to do a very cheap and effective complete room is to do a meat locker/body bag room. Doesn't have to be gory either. Stuff a couple garbage bags with trash - newspaper or plastic grocery bags - in the rough shape of a human body. Use twine or duct tape on the outside of the garbage bags to help shape them into a body. Should end up looking something like this:










Here's a more detailed tutorial: http://www.instructables.com/id/Awesome-halloween-corps-for-less-than-3-bucks/

These things can be made dirt cheap, so make about 20 of them, and hang them all over the room. With the right dim lighting having to navigate through a room like this can be very scary.

You can amp up the scares even more if you want, by adding a little weight to the bags (just put a short length of 2x4 in with the body). Then, have a strong strobe light in the room, along with an actor. When the guest enters the room, have the actor move through the room ahead of the guest pushing the bags so that they swing. Its extremely disorienting and scary to try to get through a room full of swinging bags in strobe lighting, and knowing that someone else is in the room with you. The actor can circle around and creep up behind the guest pretty easily too. This might be way too much depending on the age of the kids, but thought I'd put it out there. Its one of the best scares you can put together for probably less that $100 for the whole room.


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## Blarghity (Sep 2, 2012)

Try looking up some Japanese school mysteries. A tradition over there is for schools to have supernatural or unexplained mysteries, many of which involve murder. You could wrangle a few of them together into a ghost story room oriented around one of their school horror stories.


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## 2mom (Oct 2, 2013)

I love that dead body! That would be a great prop in a walk through area. I'm going to google Japanese mysteries, thanks for that lead!


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## Blarghity (Sep 2, 2012)

2mom said:


> I love that dead body! That would be a great prop in a walk through area. I'm going to google Japanese mysteries, thanks for that lead!


If you need help with the Japanese school mysteries, let me know. A few years back, I compiled a list of them for a game book I was writing.


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## offmymeds (May 26, 2010)

a bug room 
clown room
spiders
mad scientist 
nursery, creepy lady holding a skeleton baby


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## Blarghity (Sep 2, 2012)

Warning! LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG Post!

Here's the list of Japanese school mysteries I compiled, mainly collected from anime and manga (Japanese cartoons and comics). Traditionally, a school will have "seven mysteries" and the 7th mystery is usually "why are there only six?"

There are a few that are from more traditional Japanese urban mythology that schools like to pilfer, like Hanako-san (a girl that haunts an elementary school toilet), Kokurri-san (equivalent to Ouija), Kuchisake-Onna (who would go really well with the scissors sound thing in one of the mystery lists below), and Ako Manto (a high school toilet ghost)

Seven Mysteries
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Rental Magica Episode 4
1.) In the hallways of the 4th floor, a woman crawls across the floor every night.
2.) During meals, there will always be one person in the cafeteria who insists he can smell burning rubber. Supposedly, the smell is actually burnt flesh and the person who detects the odor will vanish the following day.
3.) As per 2, except those who are told about the smell are the ones who disappear, rather than the one who smelled the odor.
4.) Haunted Cherry Tree - either bloom perpetually or never even gets as far as budding.
5.) The sound of scissors - caused by the ghost of a student who was murdered in one of the classrooms, stabbed dozens of times. Either one perpetrator stabbed the victim repeatedly until stopped, or in the more insidious version, each child in the class stabbed the victim once, leaving the scissors impaled in the victim's flesh, the corpse found the next morning looking like a pin cushion of scissors.
6.) The Lost Number - an empty desk in a classroom. Usually nothing more than the desk assigned to a dropout or a student that transferred out, sometimes the assignee is a ghost.

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Otomari Honey
1. Will-o-wisp in courtyard
2. Dancing anatomical model
3. bouncing ball sounds from gym
4. Piano playing in music room
5. Hanako-san from the toilet
6. The Leg Pulling Pool
7. Ghost with only legs

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windy staircase - even when all the windows are closed and the doors shut, a stiff breeze always seems to be blowing in this staircase. Usually it blows up the stairs in sudden gusts known to flip skirts. But when the rushed and unwary are on the staircase, the wind suddenly shifts and blows downward in a sudden gale-like gust, often sending those people sprawling down the stairs to serious injury.

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Uta Kata
Mirror - shows the reflection of someone other than the person standing in front of it.

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Detective Conan - The Seven Mysteries of Teitan Elementary School 
the anatomy figure running around, statues appearing to move, dolls showing up in the hall with the students' names, and a missing Vice Principal.

Kindaichi Case Files - "Smoke and Mirrors" The Seven Mysteries of Fudo High 

Legend of the Evil Thirteen Steps
A student was once looking for his friend in the old campus building. As he went down the stairs, he knew that they were supposed be twelve steps. As soon as he reaches the last step, he counted thirteen and found his friend dead.

Abandoned Biology Lab
One evening, a teacher told his female student to change a light bulb at night using a candle as the only source of light. She lost her balance and hanged herself with a part of her uniform. When the professor came to check on her, he only found hanging body illuminated by the candlelight. Unexplainable events happened some time later. When the Biology Lab lost power, a professor that was grading papers lit a candle and saw the same hanging body from before. As soon as the power was back on, the body disappeared.

The Boy and the Severed Hand
In the old printing room, a student accidentally cut off his hand with the paper-cutting machine. He was rushed to the hospital but died at arrival. The school and the police tried to find the severed hand but could never find it. Ever since, it is said that people can hear the sound of a boy crying in pain and see the severed hand crawling around.

The Ginkgo Tree
There was once a student who was being bullied and ended up hanging himself at a Ginkgo with a manji engraved on its bark. It is said once in a while the hanging body reappears and disappears at night.

Goddess of Wisdom
A student was crushed by a tumbled goddess statue. Every now and then, the crushed body is said to reappear at night covered in blood.

Blood-stained Well
A student fell deep inside a well and it became filled with blood.

Bloody Reflection
There was once a music student who accidentally fell into a glass door in the instrument storage room and died immediately. After that, it is said a reflection of a bloody body is shown on the glass door.

The Truth of the Seven Mysteries

In reality, these are fabrications created by a teacher in the school, who used to be a scientist for a drug company. Once, the company acquired six volunteers/test subjects, but their experiment failed, resulting in their death. Panicked, the researchers decided to hide their bodies, but the research building was converted to the school grounds of Fudo High. So, they embedded the bodies in numerous places around the school buildings, and spread horror stories about the locations of the bodies, hoping it would be enough to drive the students and teachers away. A member was sent to the school as a teacher to make sure that the bodies aren't found. The last legend was created ten years before this story, when a girl who knew too much was killed by the teacher. Just as before, her body was embedded into a wall in the music room, and a legend was placed upon the location.

The Seven mysteries were revived when the school wanted to tear down the old building, and fearing exposure of the bodies, the teacher sent a threatening letter to the principal under the guise of "Afterschool Magician." Unfortunately, the Mystery Club, led by Ruiko Sakuragi, decided to investigate the seven mysteries. One night, Ruiko was stayed late at school trying to find more on the seven mysteries. However, an earthquake resolves and the corpse of the missing girl from ten years ago came out from the walls. The teacher, who watches the Mystery Club, saw it and murdered Ruiko. The teacher placed the corpse back again inside the walls but couldn't hide the large hole exposing the corpse. So he placed a poster over it to cover it. Another Mystery Club member, who intended to take the poster off, was also killed by the teacher.

Kindaichi discovered this when he found out originally there were only six legends. The murders are meant to be located in the locations according to the urban legends. But the murderer cannot place his victims exactly where the legend states, as he feared that the cops who investigate the locations might discover the corpses.

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Tasogare Otome × Amnesia - Seven Mysteries of Seikyou Academy

The Ghost of the Old School Building
One of the most direct references to Yuuko's story, this story tells of a ghost who is rumored to roam Seikyou Academy's oldest building. This causes students to avoid the Old School Building, all except Teiichi Niiya, who did encounter the ghost of Yuuko inside one of the rooms of the abandoned school building.

The Hidden Demon
The story involves a game called "Hidden Demon" in which a single player plays a hiding game with a certain entity by using a doll with someone's name attached to it. Losing the doll is supposed to summon the "Hidden Demon" to hunt down the player.

Spirited Away
Although not necessarily a ghost story with definite details, the story of "Spirited Away" acts as a reminder to people who find themselves interacting with spirits. The exact story behind "Spirited Away" remains a mystery, but there are a few versions of the story that persist to the present.

Rock of Curses
According to this story, there exists a rock in which a person can write the name of the person whom he/she hates the most. Any person whose name is written on this stone will be cursed and is doomed to die.

Akahito
The story of "Akahito" is tied with Seikyou Academy's school festival. At the day of the event, Akahito is rumored to wait for his victims, which are usually students who stay inside the school beyond sunset. When he attacks, he often sucks his victims' blood, and this is the main reason why he was named "Akahito" (which means "red man" in Japanese).

Interdimensional 13 Steps
Sixth of the Seven Mysteries, it involves a flight of stairs which has thirteen steps. It is rumored to take anyone who walks down those stairs into another dimension. 

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School Ghost Stories

During the summer, ghost stories are shared by students at elementary and middle schools throughout Japan. Many of these stories use schools as the backdrop, and this sometimes causes a small panic to erupt in the classroom. School ghost stories have been around for quite some time, but they show no signs of falling out of fashion.

Here are a few examples of these tales.

A pupil returns to her elementary school to retrieve something she had forgotten. She climbs a staircase with 13 steps, but when she counts the steps again the next day, there are only 12.

A boy drowns while swimming in the third lane of the school's pool. Since then, those who swim in that lane feel their legs being tugged at by someone.

A man with a pale face is said to stand by the door to the school bathroom. When students enter he asks them, "Do you want a red cloak or a blue cloak?" Those who answer "red" are stabbed and die in a pool of blood, and those who say "blue" get the blood sucked out of them and die blue-faced.

A clown is said to appear in one of the school building's basement classrooms. Those who see the clown must leave the room within 20 seconds or they will be killed.

In 1985 Toru Tsunemitsu, then a middle school teacher, was inspired to compile stories, rumors, and gossip that have been traded among city residents. He started by listening to stories from his pupils after school. To his surprise, he was able to compile over 160 stories in the first 10 days. Even more amazing was that the majority of these ghost and mystery stories revolved around schools.

Tsunemitsu presented his findings to a magazine and rewrote some of them so they would be easy for children to read. This led to the publication in 1990 of Gakko no Kaidan (School Ghost Stories). This book became a bestseller and ignited a boom of school ghost stories throughout Japan, inspiring kids around the country to test their ingenuity in creating stories of their own. The following year the book was serialized, and to date nine volumes have been published. In 1994 school ghost stories were turned into a television series, and in 1995 they reached the silver screen; the fourth movie in the series was released this summer.

These ghost stories are of course not based on actual events, but they nonetheless give kids a nice cold sweat that helps them make it through the heat of summer. 

Gakko no Kaidan was compiled into a series of at least 3 books (in Japanese) as well at least 4 movies by 1999.

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Ako Manto

Aka Manto is a spirit which haunts bathrooms, usually the last toilet stall in the women's/girl's bathroom. Some versions describe him as wearing a mask to cover his extremely handsome face, which had caused him stalking problems in life. When the unlucky victim is on the toilet, a mysterious voice will ask them if they want red paper or blue paper. If you answer red paper, you are killed violently and drenched in blood. If you ask for blue, you are strangled or bled dry, leaving your face/skin blue. Attempting to ask for any other colour of paper will result in hands appearing (sometimes coming out of the toilet you're sitting on), that will drag you into the fires of hell. In other versions the ghost will simply ask you if you want a red vest and will then rip the skin from your back. He could also ask you if you want a red or blue cloak. The only answer that will spare the person is to refuse anything he offers.

Kokkuri-san

Kokkuri is a Japanese version of a ouija board, which became popular during the Meiji era. Rather than using a pre-bought board with letters and a Planchette, 'players' write down hiragana characters and place their fingers on a coin, before asking 'Kokkuri-san' a question. This is a popular game in highschools and, similar to the western ouija board, several rumours and legends surround it. Some include Kokkuri-san only telling players the date of their death, while others say you can ask Kokkuri-san anything but you must finish the game correctly, either by saying goodbye to Kokkuri-san before leaving the table, or disposing of the kokkuri game utensils within a certain time limit, such as spending the coin or using the pen previously used to write the hiragana. Failure to do so will result in misfortune or death for the players.

Kuchisake-onna (Slit-mouthed Woman)

Children walking alone at night may encounter a woman wearing a surgical mask. This is not an unusual sight in Japan, as people wear them to protect others from their colds or sicknesses. The woman will stop the child and ask, "Am I beautiful?". If they say no, she kills them with a pair of scissors she always carries with her. If they say yes instead, the woman removes her mask to reveal her mouth has been slit from ear to ear. The woman—Kuchisake-onna—will ask, "How about now?" Regardless of whether the child answers yes or no at this point, the woman will kill them: if they say no, they are cut in half; and if they say yes, she cuts their mouths to be exactly like hers. To escape the Kuchisake-onna, you can answer her second question with "You're average" or "So-so", and you can escape while she is confused; or you can throw fruit or sweets at her which she will pick up, thus giving the victim a chance to run. One other way is to ask her if you are pretty, she will get confused and leave.

Hanako-san of the Toilet

Toire no Hanako-san is a famous legend associated with Japanese elementary schools. The story tells of an omnipresent ghost who is thought to be the spirit of a student who committed suicide due to excessive bullying or "ijime". However the entity is also known to just appear for no apparent reason. Hanako-san is a popular legend in elementary schools in Japan, and supposedly haunts the third stall of the girl’s bathroom. Characterized by a pair of stark gleaming eyes, the spirit scares any person who sets eyes on it. Not known to be malevolent or vicious in any way, Hanako-san is simply an eerie entity that only serves to severely scare its victims.


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