Halloween Discussion Forums, Costumes, Horror!

I have a confession to make. I don't really care for haunted houses. I want to, I love the ascetic of Halloween, the spookiness, the darkness, the unseen. The problem is, I hate it when people get into my personal space. When I go to one of these things, and I have gone, I want to know what's the story they're telling and how are they using the props, actors, and costumes to tell it. Haunting as a theater critique, I know. But that's what I'm there for. And then there's some guy ruining it by trying to get me scarred. And I know, it's what they're there for, it's what everybody else is there for, and I'm the one not playing the game right. In one haunted house I was in I saw a prop I particularly liked and turned to the actor and asked him if he knew where they got it. I did it totally without thinking, I wasn't trying to be a smarta$$. Here's this vampire trying his hardest to scare me and I'm asking him decor questions. I'm just not playing right. The only haunt I ever asked to go to was a werewolf themed haunt. I dig werewolves and you don't see many werewolf themed attractions (the only other one I know of is in Texas, many states away from me) so I wanted to check it out. I spent most of my time studying the costumes and how they had the forest set up. When I left the haunt I told the werewolf manning the back gate that I thought they should find a way to selectively light some of the static elements because they got lost. Again, not what the werewolf was after.

Now the reason I'm rambling on at length about my haunted attraction deficits is this year I'm thinking of doing a haunted hay-ride since they have less opportunity to actually get into your face. Has anyone had any experience with these? Are they more distant or do they climb in the hay wagon with you? Also, does anybody have any suggestions for anything I should check out or try that I might enjoy? I watch plenty of horror movies during Halloween (and the rest of the year too) but I'm attracted to the live theater aspect of most haunted attractions. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Our local Department of Parks & Recreation does a haunted hayride every year, and I usually go with one or more of my kids. You will get chased by people with chain saws, etc., and sometimes they will get really close to the wagon, but they don't climb in. The more screaming the passengers do, the more they will play it up.

People sit on hay bales around the sides of the wagon, so you will have your back to part of the display at all times. They will direct your attention to some scenario, and then someone will most likely come out of the dark to surprise you from your off side.

Ours changes a little from year to year, but the various scenes don't have much to do with each other. You might see something like the girl from the well out of The Ring, and then the next scene could be an insane asylum or slaughter house. You could see people masked as animals, like werewolves or minotaurs, or they could be mad scientists or escaped convicts. You get the idea.

One year I went through on a wagon that had the son of one of the men doing the haunting. He made sure our wagon got lots of attention that night!

In 2016 we are doing a unique hayride using sound that is brought in via wireless units per scene. Each area we drive the train into will blend in with each one but in answer to your question, its unsafe to bring in the actors too close to the ride. The ones I've work with over the years allow the actors to jump up on the back of the wagon and some times cut through the wagon if it is wide open enough to get a actor safely through the middle of the wagon without hurting anyone or themselves.

Main thing, from experience, keep the actors away from the wagon at all costs. Many years back, a young kid was scared enough to have punched a spook cause he thought they was attacking the other friends of his. After that, I've always recommended never climbing on a wagon. just get close enough to scare and that is it. If you do it right you can scare the wagon people with peops and scenes as we are planning to do at ours in the coming years. I've been working on our hayride now for about 2 years on paper and bulding all the wireless units for it and doing all the scene programming, so it should rock when it is done. That is how we plan on scaring our audience. But do whatever works, theres no set how to plan to use. Find what works for you and is safe and go with it.

If you have questions drop them here. Thanks!

Will