Turn Your Home into the Ultimate Haunted House

Making a really great haunted house takes a lot of time, but can be a great family project that everyone can get excited about. If you want to lead your friends and neighbors on a terrifying tour of your haunted home this Halloween, here are some tips to have your house giving them nightmares for weeks.

Set the Spooky Atmosphere

Make a tape of scary sounds to play on loop to create the illusion there is a lot more going on than is seen.  Have your kids record themselves groaning like ghosts, howling like wolves, laughing like witches, shaking chains and screaming.

Lighting is important, so make sure it is dark.  Use red, or blue light bulbs for spooky visibility, or use a strobe light to limit it.  Get a fog machine to make it feel like your guests are walking through a graveyard.

Make Petrifying Props

Dummies- This is a great way to get kids to rake the leaves. Find some old clothes, fill them with leaves and tie off the ends. Prop the “body parts” together in chairs, corners or hang them from the ceiling. Use pumpkins, hats or masks as scary faces.

Garbage Bag Spiders- Again, use your raked leaves, or some newspaper to fill small black garbage bags. Tie them closed, then use black construction paper to make the legs. Hang the spiders from the ceiling, or have them posted up in the corners of the room covered in spider webs. (You can purchase bags of webbing at the store.)

Tombstones- Use old cardboard boxes, or for you craftier folk, use wood, and cut it into the shape of a tombstone. Let the kids go wild painting them with fake names and dates. Put them in the yard, or prop them up in your home.

Ghoulish Ghosts- Take some old white bed sheets, or scrap white fabric, and hang it from the ceiling. Add a balloon underneath to provide shape to your “ghost.” Have the kids draw on scary faces, or for more fun, hang the ghost with the string through a hoop, so when someone pulls the string the ghosts bobs up and down like it’s floating.

Terrifying Touches

This one is great, especially for the younger ones. Have a table with a few bowls on it and ask the tourists if they want to feel some monster guts. Try these: monster eyeballs (peeled grapes), monster brains (cold, cooked spaghetti noodles), monster fingers (whole carrots), monster fat (jell-o), or think of your own. Do this in a dark room- the less they can see, the easier it is to pull off.

Recruit Friends

It’s not a haunted house if there aren’t monsters and ghosts there to pop out and scare your guests. Have your friends dress up and hide amongst the dummies to scare the tourists as they pass through. You can also have them hide and slam doors, scream, moan and maniacally laugh to add more believability.

Some words of caution:

• Some parents might not be too keen on your bringing their kids into your home, so be sure to ask for permission first.  Or, if the kids are alone, it’s probably best to give them candy and have them go on their way.  Or still yet, you could go even safer and turn your haunted house into a haunted graveyard and set everything up on the lawn.
• Warn your “actors” not to touch anyone- period.
• Have some treats handy incase some little kid starts screaming.  Then remove your mask and explain to them you are just a person.  Kids are unpredictable, and have been known to burst into tears at the sight of Mickey Mouse, so just be ready.