Content

• To step
• Method 1 of 4: Suddenly pop out
• Method 2 of 4: Looking scary
• Method 3 of 4: Make a haunted house
• Method 4 of 4: Tell a scary story
• Tips
• Warnings

Scaring people is an art in itself. Whether you want to scare the hell out of your enemy in a dark parking lot, or create a particularly spooky haunted house that everyone will talk about for decades to come, scaring people is hard work. While it takes a lot of time and effort to scare your victim, the sheer fear in his eyes will convince you that it was really worth it. Whether you want to scare your friend by suddenly jumping out, wearing scary costumes, a haunted house, or a scary story, we're here to help.

To step

Method 1 of 4: Suddenly pop out

1. Make yourself look really scary. It can be really silly if you jump out to scare someone when you just look like yourself. But if you are all dressed in black and your face is full of fake blood or scary clown makeup, you will be very scary.
   • If you know your target well, you can tap into his worst fear by dressing up as something you know will scare him the most, be it a dentist, a giant spider, or a ghost.
   • While you can still freak out someone if you pop out as yourself, your victim is even more scared if you're dressed up as something scary.
   • If you want costume tips, read on in the next section.
2. Wait until your friend is alone. When people are in a group, they are a bit more brave, so it is easier to startle someone when they are alone. The fear then becomes stronger and more real. There are several ways to do this, but here are some simple examples:
   • Text your friend to be somewhere at a specific time, but get your spooky surprise done instead. This way you have the chance to get ready in advance.
   • Wait until your friend or sibling is alone and not paying attention. Is he / she alone in his room playing games or doing homework? Perfect.
   • If you want to startle your sibling, prepare your spooky plan while he / she is sleeping, and startle him / her when he / she wakes up. Scary.
3. Find a good hiding place. It is best if you create a moment where your victim thinks, "Wait a minute, that looks strange," just before you jump out screaming to startle him. Wherever you want to execute your plan and whatever it entails, it's always a good idea to hide somewhere and wait for the chance to jump out so you can give your victim extra scare at the last minute. Good hiding places are:
   • Under the bed
   • Behind the door
   • Behind a tree or car
   • Underneath the stairs
   • In a dark basement
   • In the attic
   • Just in sight, but in the dark
4. Add some spooky attributes. Think about what gives your friend nightmares and use that to your advantage. This can vary depending on your friend and what he is afraid of, but it is good to do some research to find out what will scare him the most. Consider, for example, the following scary attributes:
   • A fake hose, smeared with petroleum jelly to make it look really scary
   • A rusty knife
   • Fake blood
   • Raw meat
   • Worms or cockroaches
   • Noise from the TV or radio
   • Broken baby dolls
5. Scream and howl like a maniac. As soon as your friend falls into your trap, the action begins. Scream, growl, grab his arm and laugh like a madman, all the while enjoying the sheer fear of your victim. Then run away in the dark as quickly as you can, smiling viciously with your head back on your neck. You can hide from a distance to watch your victim become completely overwhelmed with fear until he finds out that he has been made fun of.
   • You can also play scary sounds you recorded to scare your friend. Put down an old cassette recorder with a tape on which you cough or wheeze, that will play as soon as your friend walks into the room.
   • If your victim is really startled, you may have to stop. You don't like someone to or run the risk of calling the police. Once you've screamed, you've had a blast, and you need to know when to stop.

Method 2 of 4: Looking scary

1. Make you look like you are dead. Everyone is afraid of dead people. They are dead. That's scary. If you want to exploit this fear, you can learn to paint yourself like a zombie with some makeup and other products. Try the following tactic:
   • Wash your face thoroughly and put on some light foundation. You can also use baby powder to get a pale face. The pale complexion of death.
   • Use dark blue or black eyeshadow under your eyes to make them look deep-set, as if you just crawled out of your grave. Let it fade a bit so it looks more natural. Beautiful.
   • Make some fake blood with food coloring and corn syrup, then draw a fake wound somewhere on your body with marker, and let the fake blood run out.
2. Dress up as a scary surgeon. Many of us cringe at the thought of seeing a crazy doctor or dentist. Time to have some fun with that fear. Put on latex gloves, an apron and a mouth mask like a real surgeon, so that only your eyes are visible. You can buy these things at the drugstore or pharmacy.
   • You can even take it a step further and collect some surgical tools to make it as realistic as possible, or at least you can get your dad's drill from the shed. Don't really plug it in.
   • Splash some fake blood or ketchup on your apron and hold a knife and fork in your hands. You look terrifying.
3. Go for the classic monster costume. The classics are classics for good reason. They are scary. Dress up as a zombie, vampire, ghost or mummy. You can also make up your own monster costume to make you even more unique.
   • Watch famous horror movie characters like Michael Myers, Jason, Freddy Krueger or Ghost Face from Scream, and see if you can find a realistic mask.
   • Wearing a mask with your regular clothes can make you look scary, but if you're wearing the same thing as what you wore at school that day, everyone knows it's you right away.
4. Don't dress up at all, but act scary. You don't necessarily have to put a lot of time and energy into a scary costume to look creepy. Try the following:
   • Just sit in a dark room with the TV set on a noisy picture, moving back and forth and mumbling the phrase "They told me this was going to happen ..." before you. When your friends start to worry, start screaming as loud as you can.
   • Walk into your sibling's room in the middle of the night and stand next to the bed with your mouth open where fake blood drips out, while gurgling breaths.
   • Face the wall in a corner of the room. Do nothing. When you turn around your face is covered in fake blood.

Method 3 of 4: Make a haunted house

1. Pick a spot. While this requires more time and work, a scary environment like a haunted house causes a dormant fear to build up in people's hearts and minds as they expect the worst at all times. When creating a haunted house or other scary place, location is very important.
   • A house or barn with scary elements - such as narrow hallways, creaking steps, or a dark basement - is a good start.
   • Make a floor plan for yourself. Make sure people can walk from room to room easily and without problems.
2. Choose a theme. A theme will help you decorate the haunted house and determine which elements to add. For a real haunted house, you can come up with a story about a house possessed by ghosts. Is it haunted because the ghost of an old woman whose husband has suddenly disappeared is still haunted? Or because an entire family was brutally murdered in the basement? Make it at least a little bit credible.
   • An abandoned madhouse
   • A torture chamber
   • A vampire den
   • Invasion of the zombies
   • An evil professor's laboratory
3. Enlist the help of some friends. Making a haunted house all by yourself can be quite a challenge. Rather, have your best friends dress up as scary characters so they can help you decorate the haunted house first, then scare the guests by walking through it. They can jump out, hide in closets, or emerge from coffins.
   • You can also leave some friends on the sidewalk as if they were dead until the guests get close. Then they can jump up and scare the guests before they even set foot over the threshold of the haunted house.
4. Dress it appropriately. Create spaces that build tension, because that's important if you want to give people a good scare. A long, dark corridor that people have to pass first ensures that they are always prepared for the worst. People who are tense and a little scared are more easily startled.Each space should have its own spooky theme, so your guests will be wary of not knowing what to expect.
   • Put a volunteer in each room to make the environment even more exciting and to show guests the way.
   • Each room can have different scary effects, such as a bowl of cold noodles like worms, or a jar of peeled grapes that look like eyeballs.
   • Prepare pots with preparations in which pieces of dolls float in cloudy or green water.
5. Provide scary sound effects. Sound effects add a lot to the atmosphere if you want to scare people. There are a few things you can do to scare your guests to death with just a few sounds. You can try the following:
   • Have a pair of volunteers march back and forth in heavy boots in an empty corner of the room.
   • Put some coins in an empty soda can and tie a string. Have volunteers shake it to make a "rattling" noise.
   • Turn on a sound system in every room with scary noises, such as a woman screaming, howling wind or the sounds of a chainsaw.
   • Take advantage of the silence. Make the house completely quiet every now and then, then the effect of the scary sound that follows is even greater.
6. Create ghostly light. The light also does a lot when you want to scare people. You can create places where it is pitch dark, use a strobe light in one room, or have a smoke machine blow smoke with colored light aimed at it in another room. This confuses the senses of the guests and makes them more likely to be startled. Here are some examples to make scary light:
   • In a long hall, have all guests wear a blindfold - just ask if they are okay with this.
   • Place a spotlight behind a scary fake insect or spider web to create a creepy shadow on the wall.
   • Cover the furniture with black plastic to reflect a little ghostly light.
7. Stay in your role. Always stay in your role so that you keep the illusion. Don't stop to greet your friends. Keep the whole haunted house scary and believable. Stay in your role even when you evict your guests from the house.
   • When your guests later tell you they loved it so much in the haunted house, pretend you have no idea what they are talking about.

Method 4 of 4: Tell a scary story

1. Come up with a starting point. If you're making a movie, writing a horror story, or just going to tell a story, you need to have a good starting point. Whether that's a spider or a dark room where it feels scary, fear lives in your head. Horror movies, scary books or scary stories are all great for scaring people. First, watch some scary movies and read some creepy books for inspiration.
   • Don't make up your story on the spot. While you can improvise, it's important to have your story ready before you begin. If you hesitate as you tell your story, you will lose the attention of your audience.
2. Say it really happened. Even though it's completely made up, you still have to say that it really happened - that it happened in your hometown, years ago, that it happened to your cousin, or that you saw it happen yourself. Saying something is true will get your audience's attention and make your story sound a lot more believable.
   • You can even say it's secret so they can't find it on the internet. Say you found it on a microfilm in the library. Tell them they can check that if they don't believe you - of course no one will, but your story is a lot more believable.
   • Before starting your story, ask, "Are you sure you want to hear this? Pretend the story so it is scary that you do not know whether you should continue.
3. Build the tension. Like the long staircase to the attic leading to the door creaking open, a good scary story should build expectations. Build the tension by pretending to tell a normal story, but with more and more spooky details creeping into the story.
   • Keep your listeners on the edge of their seats by saying things like, "But that's nothing compared to what happened later." Or, "She thought this was the worst pain there was, but it was just the beginning."
   • Talk slowly and carefully. Don't rush to the scariest part of the story. Make every word count.
4. Use footage. Show people the scar from your appendectomy and say you were stabbed there by the killer. Bring some old photos of your grandparents and say they are the victims. If you brought footage with you, pass it around very casually, as if you always have it with you.
   • Garments of the victims with fake blood on them are also always good.
   • You can even use something very ordinary, such as the football pictures of the little boy who has disappeared.
5. Create scary sound effects. Those effects can be very simple. If you talk about someone knocking on the door in the middle of the night, knock on the floor. Have a friend help you make other scary noises, such as a creaking door, raindrops tapping on the window, or the wind blowing through the trees.
   • You can also crumple a plastic bag, which gives a nice rustling effect.
6. Work out the details. Like the scary atmosphere of a haunted house, the details of a scary story should help set the mood. Describe the noises in the abandoned warehouse or tell about the rotting teeth of the murder clown. The more specific you are, the better.
   • For example, "the man with the severed hand" is scary, "but the man with the severed hand that left a trail of blood wherever he walked," is even scarier.
   • Tell when the story happened in history. If it was just before World War II, bring up some details about that period to make the story even more realistic.
7. Keep it surprising. Don't tell the usual details that everyone expects from a horror story. Sure, everyone knows a story of a ghost wandering through the woods at night, but how about a ghost that makes people eat their own eyeballs, or a ghost that resides in the body of a little girl's bunny?
8. Tease them some more at the end. If the story gets really scary, slow down or stop for a moment, as if you couldn't handle telling it yourself. Take a deep breath and wait for people to ask what happened next. Then tell the gruesome ending of the story in an absolutely calm voice.
   • The scariest stories are open-ended. Don't solve the mystery. Make your audience wonder if the ghost or creepy person in question is still around.
   • When the story is done, stay completely silent, as if you yourself were so overwhelmed by the ending that you can't say a word anymore.

Tips

• The right timing is the most important thing. When everything is properly aligned it will work perfectly.
• Make sure that the person scaring you does not have any heart or respiratory problems. Scary and unexpected events can cause a person to suffer from his condition.
• Develop an eerie trait, such as an ominous smile or a devilish look.
• Collect spooky objects and costumes. You never know when you'll need that bloody ax or Hellraiser mask again.
• Practice making scary sounds and voices.
• Try not to offend your victim or the people in his company. It should be fun, but sometimes you go a bit too far and you could insult someone.
• Study the masters of horror and suspense. Read Stephen King's books, watch Alfred Hitchcock's films, or study Edgar Allen Poe's poems.
• Watch scary movies and ask your friends to make a scary movie with you.

Warnings

• When creating a haunted house, choose a location that is structurally safe so that people are not at risk of getting hurt.
• Some people have heart disease, which means they can die when they get very frightened. You may not have done it on purpose, but this could be seen as a crime.
• Unless you're in a haunted house where people expect to be scared, you should no scaring strangers. People may think they are in real danger and may react violently or injure themselves when trying to escape.
• You may be insulting or hurting someone. So make sure you get to know the person a little before scaring them. If the other person doesn't get angry, laugh together at his funny reaction.
• Threatening never someone with a real gun if you try to scare him.