Creating the ultimate haunted house is both an art and a science. It takes engineering, innovation, and, above all, a twisted mind. In case you don’t feel adequately prepared to create your own haunted experience (be it house, trail, maze, or otherwise) there’s no need to fret – the V1 squad is here to help. Below you’ll find a collection of tips from our staff, community members, and local or national haunted veterans.

So listen up, spook school is now in session.

 

LOCATION/TYPE
To start things off, you’ll need a location. This bit can be tricky. Fortunately, a big venue isn’t always needed – the focus here should be on quality, not quantity.

• • A location can be key. For instance, the basement of a funeral home or church, an abandoned factory or warehouse, a former jail, and an old hospital are inherently scary.
• • Don’t have access to a house? No problem. How about a series of semi-truck trailers?
• • Several haunted houses have now taken their show to large boats, capitalizing on the effects of queasiness.
• • Drive-ins occasionally re-open for Halloween weekend, screening classic horror marathons, and the most popular ones have actors sneaking up on cars and scaring audience members at opportune moments during the movies.
• • A maze doesn’t have to be corn. Hay bales work, too.
• • Without too much work, a trail (if it’s truly through “the woods”) can be inherently scary. You’ve got the moon filtering through the bare branches. You’ve got the inexplicable creaks and footsteps of small animals. Make sure, however, that it’s not too steep, winding, or criss-crossed by tree roots. You want to attract all ages.
• • If you have a fire pit, make full use of it. Sell hot cider and caramel apples. People appreciate a comfortable, friendly refuge and camaraderie after their harrowing experience. (Establish this off to the side a bit so that the people standing in line are focused on the experience ahead).

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BEHIND THE SCENES
You can have an amazing idea, but unless you understand the scope of the project and how to execute it, that amazing idea is worthless.

• • Have signage before people go in prohibiting things like: running, using lighters, cell phones, cameras, and flashlights.
• • Keep an eye on how long your haunt is, how many scares there are, and how spaced out they are. You don’t want people getting bored. 
• • Make sure you have enough actors and behind-the-scenes volunteers to run the show. You’ll want to have permanent stations so the customers don’t catch you crashing from one scary post to the next.
• • Use walkie-talkies. If there are ample gaps between groups, workers stationed at the entrance can assess the groups’ collective age or sensitivity and recommend a “scare level,” from one to 10. One is a ghoulish smile, 10 is a perfectly-timed grave jump.
  

 

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CONCEPT/THEME
With so many haunted places around nowadays, some places have gotten more creative with the experience and taken it a step further.

• • Some places create multiple haunted locales (ride, maze, house, etc.) to appeal to multiple ages and the like.
• • More and more indoor haunting places are incorporating 3D and glasses.
• • A few famous national haunts have an exclusive sleepover experience including a laid back breakfast with the cast the morning after.
• • Some outdoor haunts include a hide-and-seek kind of experience, in which two villains will stalk and hunt you down, unless you get to the end or compete a goal in time.
• • Some have tried adding a free will dimension in which people receive a map and a “quest” of sorts, leaving them in charge (as well as to blame) of where to go and what to see.
• • Some have made participants take part in the action. For instance, a psychiatric ward admits people as patients and sends them through processing in straight jackets and wheelchairs, helpless to what they see along the way. Another would steal people in the pack, one at a time, and incorporate them in a scene later on for their friends to watch.
• • Some very involved ones have requested audiences wear clothes they don’t care about, because they’re gonna get bloody.

 

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DESIGN/DÉCOR/EFFECTS
Creating an eerie, off-putting mood is key. “A lot of people hate the dark, so having rooms where they have to feel their way around is (always) good,” says haunted house veteran Richie Bennie. “Strobe lights are good, too – anything that will confuse people and affect their vision.”

• • By the time people enter a haunted locale, their hearts are full-on pumping, so building that anticipation more is great. Some places, for instance, start the experience with an elevator or long staircase down to the unknown.
• • Sometimes what you don’t see is scary enough. Noises or little glimpses of something unknown build tension that you can draw out, so long as the payoff comes eventually (think Jaws).
• • Visibility is one of the biggest aspects, so don’t overlook lighting or fog (and, for that matter, don’t over-do it either).
• • Make sure there’s enough light to complete the trail journey. Line the ground with colored mini bulbs.
• • One top-rated haunted house fills a room with “blood” bubbles to the point of zero visibility.
• • Temperature can be great to toy with, like making people enter a meat locker-type environment.
• • Don’t place too much importance on pyrotechnics or animatronics. The more real, the more scary.
• • Tesla Coils and Theremins are creepy.
• • Prison cells and clear walls/floors make for unique design elements, because they provide a safety barrier but also increase visibility.
• • Don’t forget the smell factor. Make-up and spray paint aren’t scary smells.
• • The combination of blue and red light bulbs can create a double-vision effect.
• • Local florists may be able to provide you with dead flowers for decorations.
• • Corn syrup and red food coloring is a classic recipe for blood.
• • If you have a corn maze, some rope, and spare boards, look online for crop circle directions.
• • Dry ice is pretty cheap, and makes a lot of fog. Look for it at Indianhead Foods.

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EXECUTING SCARES
Jump scares are the cheapest and easiest, which is why they’re so prevalent in movies and haunted houses. But if you want lasting effects like nightmares, focus on great make-up and acting.

• • A lot of people are at least mildly claustrophobic, so making them crawl at certain points will make them freak out.
• • Perhaps the most classic laugh-scare utilizes darkness, a quick flash of light, and a mirror in which the image of yourself is what scares you.
• • Minimalism can be good. The more movements and lines actors have, the more they resemble regular people – therefore not as scary. Consider actors that sit down, making sounds that contradict the situation, quick bursts of unexplained action, etc.
• • Not all actors/creatures/villains need to initiate the scares (i.e. jump at people). Consider an action of an audience member that accidentally injures an actor, or a brutally disfigured actor demanding audience members for medical help.
• • It’s the uncertainty of a dark room that makes it creepy, so here’s a classic idea. Make people walk through a dark room filled with things suspended from the ceiling they must nudge out of the way. When the lights flicker revealing actors in body bags, they’ll wish it would have stayed uncertain.
• • For haunted rides (hay, bus, otherwise), making people get off or leave the comfort of the ride breaks down the fourth wall. This can also be accomplished in a corn maze by forcing people to go through stalks that haven’t been made into a path.
• • Take advantage of trees and rig up pulleys, attaching props that you can drop to eye-level in front of people. They’re expecting things to come from the side, so something falling from the sky is a big jolt to their sensibilities.
• • People are willing to wait in lines for a long time if the payoff is big (obviously), or you help them pass the time with things like video projection or trivia with prizes.
• • For a haunted hayride, a popular twist is the driver stopping the engine, turning off the lights, and running into the corn field, leaving the passengers open for creepsters to pop out.
• • You don’t know what’s around the next corner, so use turns a lot!
• • To take a haunted trail to another level, consider building some sort of enclosure, if only for a short span. Example: an above-ground “abandoned mine shaft” with sheets of black plastic covering a wooden framework. String lanterns up on the inside “walls,” change their bulbs to flickering ones, and spray-paint them so they look rusty. You can even simulate an avalanche (noises go a long way). In this type of closed environment, you can create a more intimate experience.
• • Trust is a hard thing to come by, but is assumed when participants join another small group on the way in. That doesn’t mean they can’t really be actors that become zombies or something at a pivotal point …
• • If you’re gonna riff on beloved movie references, be prepared for audiences to be disappointed when you don’t do it as well as the movie.
• • People aren’t ever looking at their feet. Seems like a good thing to take advantage of.
• • If stairs ever come into the equation, it’s easy to have an actor under them grabbing feet or grunting.
• • Actors can easily throw/drop snap pops at patrons’ feet to scare them.
• • A scarecrow alley is a classic outdoor feature. There’s a line of several scarecrows in a row, one of which is an actor.
• • Most don’t like to break the “touch” barrier, but if you warn people beforehand there’s no reason you can’t. (Bonus: Once again subtlety is key, and things like breathing near someone or passively brushing past someone can go a long way.)
• • Indoor mazes can have doors that drop down, leaving people trapped and subject to whatever you like for short periods of time.
• • Build up the entrance to build up anticipation.
• • People will not expect to be scared while in line or afterwards during refreshments, which is all the more reason to consider it.
• • People take solace in having others near, so create something that makes groups split up (but doesn’t force them to) so you can scare them one-on-one. (Bonus: This can also create a choose-your-own-adventure that makes people that like it try every different outcome.)