Content

• To step
• Part 1 of 3: Forge a plan
• Part 2 of 3: Creating a spooky atmosphere
• Part 3 of 3: Using props and actors
• Tips
• Warnings

Making your own haunted house is the perfect way to celebrate Halloween and scare your guests. It takes some creativity, hard work, and planning to turn your home into a blood-curdling haunted house, but it's worth it to hear your guests scream with joy (and fear)!

To step

Part 1 of 3: Forge a plan

1. Set a date. Halloween (October 31) is the perfect day for a haunted house, but you can choose any day. A day somewhere in October is of course ideal. Make sure people know the day and time you planned your haunted house several weeks in advance.
   • If you want to plan your haunted house for Halloween, start your preparations several weeks in advance.
2. Create a setup that works for your guests. Think about who will walk through the haunted house. Will there be many small children? Or mainly adults? This will also determine what exactly you put in your haunted house. If the haunted house is mainly for adults, you can increase the amount of blood and scare tactics. If it is mostly children, pay the most attention to the design and add a few mild scares.
   • You can give children a prize at the end of the haunted house, such as a bag of candy or something else fun.
3. Plan the route. Before you redecorate your home, you need to decide what your guests will see. Will it mainly be about the outside of your house, or will you focus on the inside? Are you going to decorate all the rooms in your house, or just a few rooms and hallways? The haunted house can be as big or small as you want.
   • You can also choose to turn your house into a maze, this can be done with general things, such as painted boxes and cloths.
4. Think of the intention of the haunted house. Once you have planned the path, you need to consider what the intention is. Is your haunted house meant to make people laugh, or should it scare them? You can also do a bit of both, if you don't want to make your haunted house too scary.
   • For a lighter, funnier atmosphere, you can get someone mad scientist play, who is acting silly while working in his lab. Or let typical scary monsters, like Frankenstein, run into things and make fun of them while trying on your guests anxious to make.
   • For a scary atmosphere, create a shock moment in every room, have an actor scream or hit something when it is quiet. Dim the light to spookier the atmosphere.
5. Come up with a theme. The more specific your haunted house is, the scarier it will be. Decide whether you want a traditional haunted house, whether it should be a serial killer's house or even an abandoned madhouse. Perhaps the previous occupant has died and now lives as a ghost in your house. Your theme will determine how you will decorate your haunted house.
   • If you want a real, authentic haunted house, come up with a story that explains why the house is haunted. For example, the ghosts of a family who were gruesomely murdered in the basement of the house wander around. You can tell your guests the story as they enter the haunted house.
   • For an unexpected twist, you can make the decor look cute and sweet, with hidden sinister details like dead people or scary noises as guests walk around the house.
6. Ask your friends for help. It's nearly impossible to make a haunted house on your own. Your friends can help you decorate, but also guide and / or scare your guests in the haunted house. Here are some things your friends can do:
   • Your friends can dress up as ghosts or gnomes and frighten your guests by grabbing, screaming and making loud noises when they are not expecting it.
   • They can help move your guests through the different rooms accompany and can organize various activities or games.
   • If your friends don't want to participate, consider hiring actors.

Part 2 of 3: Creating a spooky atmosphere

1. Create a creepy effect with lighting. Don't put too much lighting in your haunted house or people will be too relaxed. They will then also be able to see where your ghost friends are hiding. When it is dark, they are tense and will enjoy themselves more. Make sure your guests have just enough light to walk around the house safely. Here are some ways to use lighting to create a spooky effect:
   • Consider placing your guests in a very dark room and providing them with a flashlight to help them find their way out.
   • Replace the lights in your house with dimmed green lights.
   • Line ordinary lamps with spider webs and stick rubber bats on the insides.
   • Place a spotlight under a spider web or fake creepy insect to create a scary shadow.
2. Use special effects such as strobe lights and a smoke machine. Try to use mirrors, black lights and smoke to confuse your guests. The special effects will scare your guests more and continue to frighten them. Smoke machines and strobe lights are classics when it comes to special effects for haunted houses.
   • You can buy a smoke machine in a party shop for about 30 euros.
   • Use strobes to create a dramatic effect in a room.
3. Make scary noises. The sounds in a haunted house will scare your guests and keep them alert. The key is to time them perfectly and not use them too often or else your guests won't be spooked anymore. Here are some tricks for scary sounds:
   • Use a separate recording of a scary sound for each room. You can use the sound of a chainsaw in one room, while using the sound of a woman screaming in another room.
   • Your volunteers can run from one side of an empty room to another to create a scary sound.
   • Put on a soundtrack of soft, scary music.
   • Use silence to your advantage. Pick a few key moments when the whole house is quiet, so that the next noise will startle your guests even more.
4. Create a maze for your guests. A maze is a great way to guide your guests through your haunted house, be it in a house, apartment, or garage. You can stack boxes and cover them with black cloth to make them look like walls. Plan the maze carefully and start building your haunted house at least 1 week in advance. Decorate your maze with scary props, lights and characters.
   • Make sure the way to the exit is clear to your guests.
5. Decorate based on the chosen theme. If you've opted for a fun, kid-friendly theme, avoid using bloody limbs and try to make the decoration fun and only mildly frightening. For example, use bats, friendly-looking ghosts, or cartoon-like monsters. Use decorations like fake blood, skulls, hazmat suits, head in a jar and bloody bodies when decorating for an adult audience.

Part 3 of 3: Using props and actors

1. Scare your guests with the help of your volunteers. Props are important, but it's the characters that make a haunted house really scary. There are several ways your friends can scare your guests. Here are some of the things they can do:
   • After a period of silence, a scary ghost can pop out to startle your guests. Try to make the ghost jump out of a closet.
   • Have a volunteer grab a guest's shoulders. Make sure he does it slowly so that the guest initially thinks he is a different guest.
   • Take your guests to a dark room. Have the volunteer turn on a flashlight under his face and laugh like a maniac.
   • Have one of your volunteers follow a group of guests and wait for them to realize he's there.
   • Have one of the guests dress up as a character from a famous horror movie, such as Jason or Freddy.
2. Add some gore. There is often an exaggeration with the gore, but it can be effective if applied effectively. For example, place a victim, pretending to be dead next to a bloodstain, or make it up victim in such a way that it looks like he has a terrible infection. You can also place a bloody brain on a table or next to a victim.
3. Have scary activities to do. If you want to make your haunted house a little less scary and more entertaining for your guests, especially the younger ones, you can organize a spooky activity in any room. Some activities you can try include:
   • Place a tub of water with fake hoses in it. Put some coins on the bottom. Tell your guests not to continue until they reach into the tub and get a coin.
   • Instead of apple bites, you can cut the apples in the shape of skulls to make them skull bites!
   • Peel the skins from a number of grapes and place them in a bowl. Cover the bowl and let your guests put their hand in it and tell you what they are feeling. The correct answer: eyeballs!
4. Try the mirror trick. Have your guests walk into a room that has nothing in it except a body-length mirror covered with spider webs. Have them look in the mirror for a few seconds and then have them startled from behind, or from behind the mirror, by a ghost or goblin.
5. Use scares. Scares are very effective if you want to make the guests scream in your haunted house. Create a room with a closed coffin in the center. Keep the guests in the room busy with some activities or surprises. Then, just before leaving the room, have the guests startled by one skeleton from the coffin.
   • You can also make the characters jump from behind things in different parts of your haunted house.
   • If you have older guests, have them chased by an actor with a chainsaw that no longer has a chain.
6. Place some dolls in your haunted house. Your guests will get used to the dolls as they walk through the haunted house. Then have one of your friends pretend to be a doll, who suddenly jumps up when your guests aren't expecting it. This works exceptionally well at the entrance or exit of a house.
   • You can make your own dolls by filling clothes with newspapers and placing a mask over a balloon.

Tips

• Create a gory effect by dripping some fake blood on mirrors, or by dripping red candle wax over mirrors or white candles.
• If you go for the theme abandoned house, then cover your furniture with white sheets and stick fake ones planks on your windows to give the impression that they have been boarded up.
• Before buying props or decorations at major Halloween stores, check your local grocery store for affordable decorations and quality props.

Warnings

• Avoid using real candles in your haunted house. Remember that the element of surprise is part of your haunted house and that if your guests are really surprised, they may run into candles that can set your haunted house on fire.
• Prevent pregnant women, the elderly, very young children, people with heart conditions or people who get scared easily from entering your haunted house. Your haunted house should be fun initially and shouldn't cause anyone to panic or cause a worse condition.
• Make sure your neighborhood or apartment complex doesn't have a problem with your haunted house if it gets noisy.