Ask Slashdot: How Are You Haunting Your House This Hallowe'en? 249
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.
Noose (Score:2, Offtopic)
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I hope her new boyfriend treats her better than the last one--he was an asshole.
But - you were her last boyfriend. Why were you an asshole?
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He's incapable of preventing it. That's why he has to hang himself to end it.
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If only all the assholes did this....
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Re:Noose (Score:4, Funny)
It's a bit like throwing yourself into your hobby, can only do it once though.
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Similar story, equally odd. An older person that lived in the neighborhood used to sit on his front porch all the time. Come Halloween there was a scarecrow in a plaid flannel shirt on the porch. Turned out a day later, the mailman realized he had died sitting in his chair and on one realized. Thankfully found him before actual Halloween night.
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And don't fuckin' hang yourself, you idiot. You think that will end anything?
I am pretty sure it will end your life...
The biochemical machinery that we recognize as clinical vital signs, yes. The abstract nature that is a human being ... not so much. Suicide means that gets stuck in a really awful place to be, plus the clarity to recognize how foolish it was to waste one's life on a relationship like that. Some would call it hell but it doesn't need little red guys with pitchforks, that's just religious fantasy designed to scare you into obedience, as if anything enlightened was done from a place of fear.
Considering
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That's an interesting point of view.
Wish i had mod points.
Geek Halloween Decorations (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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Don't forget Microsoft BOB
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I had to go with something that people have at least experienced.
I'm not (Score:2)
I'm occupying my halloween, and not spending money on corporate nonsense.
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Which is why I am dressing is SWAT gear and beating random passers by and throwing CS gas grenades at the groups.
Trying to be as patriotic as possible by violating their rights!
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CS? No, no, no, that isn't fatal enough - use VX... actually no, what you want the unidentified gas from Return of the Living Dead that raises the zombies. You can't just be SWAT on Halloween, you need to be psycho SWAT.
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On the plus side, if you survive to arrive at a party, you're a shoe-in for scariest costume.
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If you survive *this* year, you could be arrested by the real guys *next* year. It's about to become illegal [prisonplanet.com] to look like a TSA inspector, even for parody.
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The one they would really notice is Christmas.
I don't think they'd notice. You'd have to get a huge pile of people behind you, and even then... enough crazies to ballance it out.
Personally I have nothing against materialism though. Material possessions bring pleasure. Inner joy and love and friendship and all that is great, but so is a new computer. Gift giving in general is also pleasurable in itself.. it's fun to get gifts (suddenly having a possession that you hadn't planned on is fun.. ) and it can be fun to give them. To be perfectly honest, the f
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Or they do understand it, and disagree with you. The old "if people wern't idiots and would only think about this stuff everyone would agree with me" argument is often applied to just about everything and is in most cases wrong. A large portion of people participating in Christmas are intelligent people, many of whome understand the modern reality of the holiday, yet participate anyway... because it's fun.
I was talking specifically about the deeply religious Christians who claim that a book is the unerring Word of God yet contradict some of its more basic premises in the name of that God. The business forces merely saw the weakness of mind this represents as an opportunity to capitalize and so they latched onto it and allied themselves in a secular way with this religious holiday. These are not people who are looking for fun or who have our best interests at heart.
You also have to understand that lots o
Wearing my birthday suit (Score:2)
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...that's guaranteed to give the kids - and their parents - a good scare.
To give yourself a better chance of not being arrested and getting your name on a nasty list, try wearing something like this [bizarrebytes.com] or this [bizarrebytes.com], or even this [bizarrebytes.com]. In some ways, it's even more grotesque than the far-below-average naked body, but probably more legal.
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NSFW! NSFW! NSFW!
WTF? Do you live/work among the Amish or in some wierdo Puritan colony?
All of the people in those photos are decently clothed in a law-abiding fashion (by US and European laws, anyway). There are no naughty bits showing, and probably less skin exposed than by typical office garments.
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NSFW! NSFW! NSFW!
WTF? Do you live/work among the Amish or in some wierdo Puritan colony? All of the people in those photos are decently clothed in a law-abiding fashion (by US and European laws, anyway). There are no naughty bits showing, and probably less skin exposed than by typical office garments.
The first two in particular might look (or be perceived to be) NSFW if viewed at a distance, for a brief moment. The kind of view a work colleague might have by walking behind you.
Same as every year... (Score:2)
...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".
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While I too will be hunkering down, I'll have my bags of chocolate to keep me happy while my cat will sit in my lap keeping me warm.
Ahh, this is living!
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Ah so your the 'jerk who lives in that house'.
That is the way your neighbors see you. Is it *really* that bad to hand out a few bits of candy? Oh I know you can make up your own injustices in the world and solve them from the comfort of your basement.
Want people to stop coming to your house? Its easy give out popcorn balls for 10 years straight. *NO* one will show up.
So ... choosing not to participate in something, without trying to stop anyone who wants to from participating in it ... and wanting basic property rights to be respected in the form of being left alone by vandals, trespassers, and other criminals ... that makes someone a jerk?
What a freedom-loving people we have become.
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Like it our not, one's membership in a community is based on little things such as participation in local traditions. If you live among a group of people but ignore something important to them, then it is completely understandable that they will hold it against you.
This isn't a matter of freedom. No one is proposing locking you up because you don't hand out candy. We are speaking of the opinions that others may form.
Listen carefully to what you are proposing.
Assume I participate in a tradition. Maybe you have a religious reason not to do so. Maybe you don't have the time. Maybe you simply don't like it. What you are saying is that I have the right to impose my will on you and try to coerce you, by using as leverage your good name in the community. That isn't merely an opinion, like when I say in my opinion Linux suits my needs better than Windows. It's pressure designed to get you to do something you clearly d
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Well if you say so :)
I'm a Killjoy, not an a-hole
Police Tape (Score:3)
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.
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Eh. That's what the label the package says. Probably to help hipsters buy them. They're the ones I've found in fun-size packs that'd be ideal for trick-or-treaters... /don't know much about coffee either.
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It's a common product name though.
http://www.google.com/search?q=espresso+beans [google.com]
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How could there not be?
I put roasted "beans" into my coffee machine, I push a button, it makes some grinding and pumping noises , and soon I have 1 oz of espresso.
Sure they can make other things, and if you coat them in chocolate you aren't going to be making espresso with them. But given they are seeds not beansto start with, picking the espresso part of the name to argue over seems silly.
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Espresso has also become a term for an amount of roasting, however it is not a proper term.
In The Not Too Distant Future... (Score:3)
MST3K marathon!
We're the local light show (Score:4, Interesting)
so we do the synced music thing:
http://www.wiltonlights.com/videos/ [wiltonlights.com]
Also on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uEoQImKS9o [youtube.com]
halloween spookies (Score:2)
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.
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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.
Couldn't get Westboro Baptist Church people, either, huh?
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Now THAT would be a hilarious costume. Nobody would quite know for sure if you were trick-or-treating, or protesting.
I'll be celebrating Halloween instead. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not doing anything. My family celebrates Halloween instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween [wikipedia.org]
Please use the preferred spelling.
Re:I'll be celebrating Halloween instead. (Score:4, Funny)
Prefered Spelling!=American spelling
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But that article itself distinguishes that from Halloween.
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Ah, I did assume the poster was in the USA, and slashdot is USA-centric.
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Yes, but the use of Hallowe'en appears to be an effort to be pretentious and that is worth calling out.
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That was my thought as well, the moment I had se'en it. I me'an, I'm not ke'en on all the clever ways to spel'l things.
Where have I be'en?
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The worst part is it's not even correct, much less hypercorrect.
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Ah, I interpreted it this way:
hypercorrect: correct to a degree that makes you an ass
as opposed to
hypercorrect: correct to a degree that makes you wrong
I would have expected to use 'overcorrect' for the second. Like when you overcorrect a turn, you wind up going the wrong direction.
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How odd, you're standing next to him as well.
Video projection etc. (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [apple.com] 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.
Low Tech (Score:2)
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I did that a couple of times. Got a glass of water in the face once. And still did not flinch. Until she came back to see if I was really just a decoration...THEN I jumped and scared the crap out of her.
A giant child-sized bug zapper at the front door (Score:2)
. . . 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 . . .
Giant Floating Head (Score:4, Interesting)
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 what is that (Score:2)
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Share share: what country?
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Halloween... (Score:2)
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.
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Guy Fawkes. Shame they burn him in effigy. He was the only man to enter Parliament with honest intentions.
Crank Ghost (Score:2)
Dressing up as Zombie Jobs (Score:3)
and handing out Zunes to the kids. Scary!
Hallowe'en? (Score:3)
As for what I'm doing, http://www.collegehumor.com/article/6635487/halloween-then-and-now [collegehumor.com] is about right.
Great holiday for DIY electronics (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [horrorfind.com] (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!!
Minimal, if anything (Score:4, Funny)
So the kids miss out, and I don't have to dig out the decorations this year.
Re:Minimal, if anything (Score:5, Interesting)
Awesome she found him.
Where has he been hiding all these years then?
tell her not to celebrate christmas too (Score:2)
christmas is just a power grab to rebrand a pre-christian rite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia [wikipedia.org]
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 obv
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How do you feel about her finding god? /me is not religious, just curious
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Yet another repurposed pagan celebration (Score:2)
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.
Where does the Bible mention All Saints' Day? (Score:2)
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.
I'll be re-playing Amnesia! (Score:2)
Perfect when playing in complete dark with good loudspeakers.
pop-up monsters (Score:5, Interesting)
What I'm working on was inspired by the sculptures Joshua Harris has been building/leaving in NYC [laughingsquid.com] 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.
I'm all set! (Score:5, Funny)
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?
Haunted house... of sorts (Score:2)
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.
Where's my screwdriver? (Score:3)
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
Toxic Waste (Score:2)
Light the thing! (Score:5, Interesting)
Canada: Canadian Haunter's Association [canadianha...iation.com] 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. =)
Just a little trick (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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I did this one year... I didn't put out a decoy ahead of time. Stitched a burlap hood for my head, wore oversized clothes which I stuffed with fabric & rags to give them an uneven look. I went the "entrapment" route, with a sign on my bowl that said "please take only one". :)
One kid approached with his friends, read the sign aloud and said, "yeah, right!" and proceeded to grab a handful. I lurched forward, "Just ONE!" and he began shoveling candy back OUT of his bag and into my bowl, even stuff that
Explain the bible bit to me (Score:2)
...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?
Nothing so fancy (Score:2)
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.
House? (Score:2)
I don't own a house! You meant home?
Standard haunting technique (Score:2)
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).
holding seance to ask Steve about iPhone5 (Score:2)
Somewhat Meta... (Score:2)
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 ou
Spirits (Score:2)
Curmugeon's Halloween (Score:2)
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 d
Talking skulls (Score:2)
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 [scary-terry.com], which is sold as a kit from Cowlacious [cowlacious.com].
Test of my routine during assembly [youtube.com]
Same routine, deployed into the display [youtube.com] (gradual echo effect was accidental)
My display's web gallery [necrobones.com]
I just put up a sign... (Score:3)
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.
Porch dragon scares the kiddies (Score:3)
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 [instructables.com]. We'll see if I can get away with putting out a jar of realistic fake body parts nearby for "feedings".
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...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!
No, you're speaking as an Englishman. We've always celebrated Halloween in Scotland.
The U.S. got their Halloween customs from us.
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Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!
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Really? A DIY thread does you in? This seemed pretty legitimate to me.
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Don't let the door hit ya where Rover just bit ya (Score:2)
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. :)
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Hate to break it to you, but there has been tons of shit on slashdot lamer than this. Constantly for the past 10 years or so that I have been coming here there has been shit.
Thing is if shit doesn't appeal to me, I don't bother myself with shit. You don't have to be in every topic.
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Mostly my approach.. same as Christmas..
I can appreciate that some people have a great time going overboard and nothing wrong with that (well, except these guys who start in July and have ongoing feuds with their neighbours.. they are mostly crazy..), but yeah, I can't get into it.