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Ask Slashdot: How Are You Haunting Your House This Hallowe'en?
Hallowe'en is just around the corner. I've spent hours this month poring over masks, fog machines, automated monsters, and sound-activated dancing skeletons (mostly too rich for my blood), and worked with my brother and sister to haunt my mom's house with scary pictures, mounds of spider-webbing, sound effects, strobe lights, stage blood, candles, and rusty knives. Like every year, though, the best laid plans are the ones you come up with after the fact (why do I always plan to build a coffin with Bible-repelling magnetic lid and matching Bible, but never do?), and while our effort was fun and satisfying, it definitely didn't push the envelope. (There's plenty of good inspiration out there, though, for people who do want to go a little crazy.) So I ask: What are you doing to celebrate the spirit of Hallowe'en? In particular, are you using any good stagecraft-style tech to make your dwelling, yard, or neighborhood just a little bit scarier than usual? Any good advice based on previous haunting experiences, either as haunter or hauntee? What effects do you wish you could create, given enough time and money? Do you control any aspect of your display by computer? Think broadly: Links to inspiring commercial haunts, sources of interesting gear, and your favorite house-haunting projects at Instructables are all welcome, as well as relevant advice from the parts of the world where Hallowe'en isn't the major event that it is in the U.S.
After three years of trying I've finally given up. I hope her new boyfriend treats her better than the last one--he was an asshole. I'll just hang myself, then I can haunt my place myself!
Support my political activism on Patreon.
grab some pop corn and look at people going crazy on halloween!
I was thinking I would print up some advertisements for Windows ME and put them on the door along with the regular ghosts and pumpkins.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
I'm occupying my halloween, and not spending money on corporate nonsense.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
*Darth Vader*
WE'RE A CULTURE, NOT A COSTUME
Oh white liberal guilt how I love you.
I'm not. Simple as that.
And just funny enough, here's the captcha: heretics
...that's guaranteed to give the kids - and their parents - a good scare.
...hunkered down in the darkness so the little scrotes don't know I'm here, wishing I had a shotgun to poke through the letterbox.
Halloween seems to give every little thug in the neighbourhood carte blanche to terrorise it, and the ready availability of fireworks thanks to Guy Fawkes' only makes it even more "fun".
I was thinking of setting up a nice Powerpoint presentation with too many cheese transitions, sound effects and generally bad design. Shouldn't be too hard. I'm just concerned it would be sufficiently unique.
So I ask: What are you doing to celebrate the spirit of Hallowe'en?
Visit the cemetery and put flowers on the graves.
Captcha: "serene", how appropriate.
...sign from the local police saying "NO TRICK OR TREATERS HERE" will be going up in the window.
Speaking as a Brit, I feel Hallowe'en here is talked about far more than it is actually celebrated.
Willing to be proven wrong!
I have some POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape. It's awesome. Draw some chalk outlines with loooots of "blood". Anyone actually walks through that, they deserve candy.
This year I kinda want to put up a BEWARE OF GORILLA sign, wear gorilla suit and scare the crap out of the kids.
Also I want to give out some chocolate covered espresso beans... but I've been advised not to do that.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
MST3K marathon!
crazy dynamite monkey
so we do the synced music thing:
http://www.wiltonlights.com/videos/
Also on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uEoQImKS9o
carving a pumpkin, putting a flicker-LED light in it... and then just before dusk, raising the dead with a mad, cackling incantation to swoop upon the innocents. very little tech involved.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I'm not doing anything. My family celebrates Halloween instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
Please use the preferred spelling.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Although this has nothing to do with me I think it's a great example and an awesome achievement!
http://hackaday.com/2011/10/25/singing-house-lights-up-halloween-again-this-year/
Play World of Warcraft and lament the fact that I have no social life. I did buy a package of mellocreme pumpkins, though. They don't mix so good with Mountain Dew but it's important to at least make an effort.
If I had the time and the money I'd cover the walkway to my front door in hanging cobwebs, probably hang a (fake) body from the tree in my front yard, add a couple humorous gravestones... Can't forget the fog machine. Maybe a SFX generator with howling wolves, flapping and screeching bats, a Bela Lugosi laugh...
I'd probably do a CSI-style blacklight setup on my front porch--splatter reactive something everywhere to look like blood. As for me, I'd personally answer the door dressed as Death, with a black face-mask so it would look like the hood of the black robe doesn't have anything inside. Serving bowl would be something cool, too, like a hollow skull or a cupped pair of skeletal hands.
Every year I put up a sign that says "Registered Sex Offender." I figure Halloween is supposed to be scary so this works for me. Also, it keeps away the kids begging for candy.
Instead, getting dressed up and heading to the local zombie bar with my wife and some buds and watch some horror flicks.
This year I'm likely to rear-project their lightning loop near my front door, and run 2 LCD TVs with the eyeball loop in the windows of two separate rooms facing the street. (yes, the house is alive!)
Audio is important too, and once again I'll be running this track through speakers and extra subwoofers (real ones, not home ones) hidden on my property: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/halloween/id289650473 There is no better sound effects package than one made by Hollywood Foley Effects artists. It's fun to watch the parents freaking out even more than their kids are.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Bury a mattress in the ground -- "Quick Sand." Chainsaw sans chain. Pretend to be a decoration, {move|jump|scare} at people that happen by (note: may get punched in the face). Hang fishing line from the trees/eves (feels like cobwebs) Get a ghillie suit, pop out of bushes (again, may get punched) .... Meh.... Google is your friend.
No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.
. . . with lighted neon candy as bait. Dead trick-or-treaters hanging in the wire. Loud, flashing strobe zaps . . . mesquite liquid smoke barbecue aroma . . .
. . . and a big sign stating to fully read the EULA before using . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Get a web-cam, a video projector, and something translucent to use as a rear-projection screen (fake spiderwebs work well). Aim the camera at your face (try lighting it from below with a flashlight) and shine the projector at the screen and you have a giant, floating, glowing, talking head.
Of course, you can add more effects like a sound system, but it is an easy and cheap (if you can borrow a projector) set-up.
Halloween is illegal in this country, thanks to the Catholic church. I guess that pedophile union didn't want any competition.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I'm going to change my name to Oswald McHalloWeany for the day.
- On a more serious note- November 5th (Guy Fawkes night) is only a few days later and is more fun for the pyromanaic.
Build big fires- set off fireworks- build models of Guy Fawkes and the pope and throw them onto the fire... ... Good time for all. Just make sure it really is a Guy Fawkes model you're throwing on the fire- not a member of Anonymous wearing a Vendetta mask... we need those anonymous folks to help overthrow wall street.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
1) Set up a Bobbing for French Fries tank
2) Kids love ice cream, so each kid gets a big scoop in their bag
-it's all about the kids ...
Found many examples online. Basically a low-rpm motor turns an arm that pulls three wires attached to a foam head and wire arms draped in cheesecloth that has been soaked in detergent, suspended under a black light. Looks wild, slowly drifting up and down in the window.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
There won't be any trick or treaters in my neighborhood. So no need to get candy.
My yard is currently full of construction materials. So no room there for anything even if I wanted to bother.
Which I don't. See first sentence.
I wouldn't celebrate any holiday to be honest, none of them are worth the bother.
and handing out Zunes to the kids. Scary!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
What the hell is up with the ' there?
As for what I'm doing, http://www.collegehumor.com/article/6635487/halloween-then-and-now is about right.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Okay, I think this may be it. I'm ready to turn in my slashdot ID. No story has EVER been this lame. Not the dupes, not the slashvertisements, not Taco's marriage proposal. Nothing. This is it. So terrible. I think I'm done. Bye, all.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Before the kids came along, I built a number of fun electronics projects for Halloween. I built a flicker circuit I got off of Wolfstone (a great site for would-be haunters).
Along with a couple of friends, I built a coffin-leaper one year, too. I built the electronics (a pressure sensitive mat that activated a solenoid valve). Another fellow built the pneumatics and another built the actual coffin and dummy. When you'd step on the mat, the dummy would spring up and a loop tape with sounds effect and a strobe would go off.
I also built a lightning/thunder machine using a "color organ" (basically a device that causes different flood lights to flash in time to various sound frequencies) that came from a Velleman kit. I set up an old pair of PC speakers playing a loop CD of some thunder and use that to drive the color organ. I usually get a few good jumps from kids who aren't expecting it.
I have a commercial fog machine that I use with a timer to give my house a nice cloud of low-hanging fog. I built a fog-chiller out of a cheapo foam beer cooler by cutting two holes in either side and running a flexible piece of aluminum ducting through it (with a twist in the middle and holes punched in it to increase surface area). This keeps the fog hanging low. Another tip is to spray down the area with the fog using a garden hose.
I started working on animating a Bucky skull a while back, too. I added eyes attached to a servo and wrote a program in Windows that let you move them with sliders. I intended to animate the mouth, too, but my kids came along shortly after that. I still pull out my decorations every year, but my own little goblins have taken priority over my projects - so it goes.
I'd love to finish the Bucky skull and maybe build a bookshelf where the books pop out on their own (driven by a motor and series of cams). Maybe one day when I have some time to myself again ...
Hope this gave everyone a few good ideas for projects to scare the neighborhood kids -- happy haunting!!
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
meh....happy to say I sold my house....in this economy :P
Invite all of the kids down to your mom's basement. If your neighbors didn't already think you were a pedophile, they will, now!
My wife "found god" in the last year, and has decided that we won't be "glorifying Satan" this year.
So the kids miss out, and I don't have to dig out the decorations this year.
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Perfect when playing in complete dark with good loudspeakers.
I want to dress up as Miyako Yoshika, but I have no costume. ;_;
What I'm working on was inspired by the sculptures Joshua Harris has been building/leaving in NYC that suddenly explode into full size when a subway goes by and then collapse again to look like a pile of debris. What I've finished: electret microphone amplifier, that tells an arduino when someone's within two meters, the arduino then closes a big monster relay, and I've built a couple of monsters using the instructions on destructables.org for inflating sculptures. (Basically cut up a stuffed animal and blow up the pattern design.) Mine are humanoid shapes about 2 meters tall with arms that stick out and a bunch of tentacle-like things sticking out of their faces.
What I'm working on is the inflation system. My original thought was to use a piece of 6" PVC tubing, about a meter and change long, with about 5 atmospheres of pressure in it, and a lawn sprinkler valve that the arduino triggered, so I have a high pressure lowish volume inflation system. I'm finding that's really loud and not fast enough to get the movement I want, which is to have the monster go from a pile of invisible black rubbish to 2 meters tall in under a second -- really, jumping out at people. So I'm playing with high volume low pressure: having the arduino turn on a shopvac with its exhaust inflating the humanocthulhuoid figure.
Unfortunately I've only got a couple days left to get it all working, and I also have a wedding ring to make before I get married in two weeks, and guess which one is being given higher priority by other involved people? So maybe I'll get lucky and get it done, but most likely it'll be next year. Then I'll have time to add strobe lights on the ground pointing at it.
I've also made most of a soliton gun, using a piece of 15" diameter, 2 meter long cardboard concrete form with a constricted front, the intent being that I can blast big puffs of air from a significant distance and hit people with them: just walking along and suddenly wham a big blast of air from nowhere. It might be interesting, especially if I can time it so it hits people at the same moment as the jumpy monster jumps.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
My front yard has three years' worth of overgrowth (one of the bushes has an old saw stuck in it), the lamppost
bulbs flicker, and there are real spiders and crickets and spider-crickets everywhere. Plus, I have a derelict car in
the driveway and the front porch is littered with beer cans and errant cigarette butts. Perfect.
Who wants some candy?
"One day you will be able to hurt your smart phone's feelings." - Mahhshall
I stopped doing basic yard maintenance and I've just been throwing garbage out of the window. It creates a really neat, scary haunted house effect.
Of course, I won't be putting out candy and I don't have any kids, so its really just for the benefit of the community.
I will sometimes wander around with a screwdriver, because everybody knows there is nothing more terrifying than a software engineer with a screwdriver.
Just being myself is usually enough to scare the crap out of people.
...laura
I haunting my house with a TSA agent at the door, an IRS agent at the dinner table, and an FCC agent in the family room for TV time.
Monday Night Football
I'm in the process of getting the site up, but the details of the project (to be finished this week) are here.
If you are looking to visit a haunt, or connect with other haunters for building tips, check your local listings:
Canada: Canadian Haunter's Association US: hauntworld.com/haunted_houses, hauntedhouse.com
My wife and I run a free haunt every year. If you're in Newmarket, Ontario, stop on by: houghtonhaunt.com
Forget jump scares or loud music-- the key to any good haunt is the lighting. You can make any prop, scene, actor, etc look amazing with a standard garden flood light from the local hardware store. I've been to professional haunts that used little to no lighting, and it was a shame. You couldn't see any of the detail work that went into their sets, and usually it was so dark you couldn't even see the jump scares. Just a few extra lumens would have made a world of difference.
I've added a few smoke-and-mirror tricks this year, but what I've learned the most from doing this is carpentry. The first year was drapes held up by duct tape. Since then I've learned about blocking, wall building, power tools, and why duct-tape doesn't hold up walls. =)
UTF-8: There and Back Again
JK - Sounds like you have low blood sugar this morning. Have a Captain 'n Coke or two while you steal something from your nephew's candy bag, and you'll feel the love again. :)
Ghosts of Technology Past, like space stations, Moon colonies, Mars bungalows and asteroid mines! Wooooooohhh scary! Dead corpses from the Space Age, temporarily revived with money from delusional fruitcakes with lucky money, to scare all people with at least high-school level knowledge!!
Right at the end of September I decorated the porch with all the typical fall crap. Pumpkins (fake), hay bales, corn stalks, and a life-sized scarecrow in an Adirondack chair right next to the front door.
The neighbors are all very used to seeing that scarecrow.
Halloween night, I will be dressing as a scarecrow and replace the stuffed one with myself. Subtle movements when the kids ring the doorbell are usually enough to send them howling from the porch, without revealing to anyone farther away that the scarecrow is not as it seems.
It worked like a charm last year, and since then I've moved, which means I get to do it again with no one expecting it ;)
It's not exactly original (I remember getting the idea from some old 80's show), but it's very effective.
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
I won't go on about the historical roots of Christmas.
And there are a few Christian denominations that don't celebrate Christmas for the same reason that they don't celebrate Halloween: because it's yet another repurposed pagan celebration.
...why do I always plan to build a coffin with Bible-repelling magnetic lid and matching Bible, but never do?
Honestly, I have no idea. Am I missing a pop culture reference to coffin-repelling Bibles here?
All Saints' day, a Christian holiday
Where does the Bible mention All Saints' Day? The only holiday instituted by Jesus Christ is the memorial of his death ("this bread represents my body [...] this cup represents the new covenant in my blood [...] do this in memory of me"), or at least that's what my Bible study partner tells me. If you can find something about All Saints' Day in the Bible, please share it so I can trick his treat.
My favorite thing to do is dress up in a gorilla costume, sit in a trash can at the end of the driveway, and jump out at unsuspecting trick-or-treaters.
christmas is just a power grab to rebrand a pre-christian rite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia
the date actually has nothing to do with the actual birth of christ, it actually has to do with the winter solstice
makes you wonder why the early christians didn't similarly rebrand halloween, like they did druid's holy trees (christmas trees) and yuletide logs and other local aspects of culture, in service of an invasive cult
oh, and also: no thanksgiving for you. that is a secular holiday, and therefore obviously the work satan too
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
infra sound from sub woofers with remote controlled volume. Tickle the sympathetic nervous system a bit and stir their guts without most being consciously aware.
Maybe try to find two frequencies which form standing waves in the chosen arena and switch between them at random every few seconds in the hope that the redistribution of pressure knocks things over or makes someone puke.
TMS might be a step too far.
I don't own a house! You meant home?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I just float around, moan, pass through walls, rattle some chains. I draw the line at saying "Boo" though. To kitschy and besides there's an obscure programming language named "Boo." I wouldn't want to be caught dead programming in it (Rimshot).
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
He's busy remodeling Heaven about now.
Instructions:
Purchase at least a half dozen children's full body Halloween costumes (ie spiderman, darth vader, princess, tigger, ladybug, robot, etc).
Set a small table on your front step, porch, or main sidewalk.
On table, place bowl of candy, and large visible sign reading "CANDY"
Take costumes above, stuff them realistically with pillows/towels/other clothing, lay them strategically on ground around table, and douse area with lots of (fake?) blood.
Hide around corner with large (fake?) axe.
You can figure out the rest.
Lots of it.
I hate Halloween . It is one my least favorite events of the year.
I began to hate it when I had to cart my kids around to collect their candy. The evening would always end with sugar highs followed by temper tantrums. It was thoroughly unpleasant.
I grew to hate giving away candy to random strangers. I am completely sure that none of the were the children of my neighbors and friends.
Now that our kids are grown, and have left town, we have found a solution. We take yellow caution tape and tie it across the driveway and walking paths. We turn out all the lights in the front of the house, go to the family room in the back, close the blinds, and watch TV for a couple of hours.
That I enjoy.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
I set up a large display on the front of my house, in what little space I have. But the only real technological bit, other than lights and flickering LEDs, and a Flying Crank Ghost, is a set of talking skulls. I use the "Scary Terry" servo control system, which is sold as a kit from Cowlacious.
Test of my routine during assembly
Same routine, deployed into the display (gradual echo effect was accidental)
My display's web gallery
I have not lost my mind... it's backed up on disk somewhere!
I shave my dog and did weave a cat
I put up a sign "Resident has no homeowner's insurance". Not only is that really scary, I get to keep all the candy to myself.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I've put a picture of Obama on my front door. If that isn't scary enough to every person with a brain that God help us all
Every Halloween I remember back to a cool high school science experiment that sent a smoke ring flying across the room... maybe this year I'll get around to making one and aim it at the front door for when the kids arrive... fun fun fun.
Someone must've done this already... any videos? What about using a projector to put a face on it?
I guess I'm not so lazy as to not do my own search...
this looked fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VL0M0jmu7k
I guess there's no excuse not to do it this year. Maybe if there's no breeze I can have fun outside too ;)
You people and your political correctness. We ALL know that America really is the best. The American spelling is the correct spelling. Other countries should just fall in line.
One pumpkin to rule them all... http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/297622_185412048205907_100002113384042_392869_473037329_n.jpg
Nice line of course ;-) .... but alas if you read the history he just wanted his lot of rich nobility in power instead of the incumbent lot. Tied up with sectarianism (he was Catholic Christian, wanted his lot in, wanted the Protestant Christians out) as we have a nice line in religious intolerance and Catholics and Protestants were taking turns being brutal to each other, not much in there about democracy and human rights and making the country a better place.
Do correct me and educate me if I've got this wrong.
But of course I do like the cheeky line about honest intentions, politicians eh?
No, most of my mates in Scotland don't speak Gaelic so they just call it hallowe'en, some of them samhuinn.
Down here in England there are very few gaelic speakers indeed and so it's just halloween, even those folks who do speak gaelic translate it into English when they are speaking with English speakers so people know what they are on about. Only folk who know their mates are into traditions and are really into traditional folk beliefs and links with Scotland will call it samhuinn, nobody else will know what they are on about.
Can't say what folk in Ireland call it when speaking in English.
"Nothing here, Bob. Let's check further down the street."
"Standard checks. Nothing to worry about."
"All I'm reading is background levels."
with the shades drawn
all by my lonesome self.
What? Americans are really strange
I’m Mexican, and also a Catholic; I can tell you that here we don’t have that kind of religious problems.
Well, actually, there is sometimes a random nutter here and there, but you really never hear of them. And this is coming from one of the most religious countries in the world.
Please mod me down if that was a sarcastic comment and therefore my comment makes no sense.
We might tape a cardboard cutout to a window or something.
But I'll probably walk two or three miles with my nephew trick-or-treating, and then my wife will probably do another mile with him. We have 3 boxes of full-sized candy bars to hand out.
Last year he had so much candy I had to help carry it.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
This one seems custom-made for Hallowe'en
The one time of the year I can go out and not get shot at by the rednecks. So I take advantage of it and mess with the humans a bit. http://www.techwolf.net/d10a32.html
Exodus 32:4-10: The Israelites rebranded an Egyptian practice as "a festival to Jehovah". God put a stop to that real quick.
For one thing, All Saints Day is a rebranded Samhain, and God isn't a fan of rebranded pagan practices (Exodus 32:4-10). Furthermore, the dead are completely unconscious (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10; Psalm 146:4), and holidays honoring "spirits of the dead" run contrary to this.
Can't children have their cosplay parties on some day other than one with roots in Druidry? It's like birthdays and Christmas: neither is biblical, but giving throughout the year is.
For years, Dick Van Dyke has decorated big time for Halloween. Here's a nice write-up of last year:
http://disneytravelbabble.com/halloween-at-dick-van-dykes-house/
XXL Tyvek suit -- all white. Cut open one of the feet and duct tape a powerful fan so it will fill with air. Hide the apparatus in the bushes until unsuspecting visitors approach. Engage fan and watch as massive white bodies rise from the shadows. For extra fun cover "bodies" in glowy green goo found in glowsticks.
you don't eat crackers in the bed of your future--or else you'll get all scratchy
Our front porch has a small crawlspace under it, so last year I planted a subwoofer under the porch connected to an mp3 player loaded with a series of deep animal growls (may have been from Alien / horror movies), separated by about 30 seconds of silence. So, it was silent most of the time, but would periodically catch a kid just has he was coming up the steps. Many of the little ones ran away before they even got to the door, and didn't come back!
Soon-to-be-wife was very displeased, and we had lots of leftover candy. This year the subwoofer will be repurposed to make a sweet Oobleck monster. We'll see if I can get away with putting out a jar of realistic fake body parts nearby for "feedings".
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
We made an interactive pumpkin, using USB modules (RGB led). Anyone can change its color from the web and see the result.
See http://vimeo.com/31240966
Laser Pointers!
Oh of course. The Jacobite rebellion was no different, it was a royal pissing contest between two people who wanted to be absolute monarchs. Took the English civil war to finally limit the power of the monarch and put parliament in charge. Parliament has been supreme ever since.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
No. We didn't make it all festive this year. We had to cut our expenses since the money is hard to come by now. Though we did watched horror movies.