The nice folks at Monster Guts just sent email reminding me it is 6 months to Halloween. I’ve been on hiatus the last couple years but it may work out that I can do a smallish display this year. I may have to tone down my ambitions but we will see. 

My recipe for a quality halloween experience:

  • Fog. Love fog. You have to have some fog. There are a million options out there. At the minimum, you need a machine that has a duty cycle timer on it so that you can let it run unattended all evening — you don’t really want to have to manually control the fog all night. I have about 4 of these. If you want to go bigger, well the sky is the limit. I have a whole-yard water-based fogger that puts out an impressive amount of fog via a 1/4″ tubing distribution network. What I’d really like is one of these babies but that seems extreme. Or a liquid nitrogen based system which is really extreme!
  • You need to have some quality bones and skeletons to spread around. Not the crap sold at the seasonal halloween stores. The 10lb bag of bones at anatomical is pretty nice.
  • Thunder and Lightning. You’ve got to have thunder and lightning. If you don’t do any other lighting, do this. I’ve liked the i-zombie controllers in the past.
  • Ambient music. If you want some music playing the background, it is hard to beat Bach organ fugues in a minor key. Almost any of them will do.
  • Tombstones. You can buy some nicelooking but pricey foam stones at the Halloween specialty stores. And there are a million guides on the internet to making your own out of foamboard. You can whip thru a lot of them in little time in foamboard, I would make your own. And they store easily and are usable year after year.
  • Coffin. Whip one or two up out of plywood, your basic plans here.

If that is all you do, well, you will probably have the best place in the neighborhood. 

Optional but very very good additions to your project:

  • Hallowindow DVD. This thing looks awesome. It does demand a projector and some sound equipment but I love it.
  • Webcasting gun. Simple but makes great webbing.
  • Another simple webbing idea — get some black thread and dangle a bunch of it from the trees over your driveway, etc. No one can see it and everyone feels like they are walking thru spider webs.

I probably won’t get to my more extreme efforts this year

  • Talking animated tree with voice modification box. This has always been a huge hit but it takes some work to set up.
  • Pneumatics. A lot of work to set up and maintain.
  • My full size mausoleum that I built out of foamboard a few years back.
  • Various animated ghosts. Always winners but certainly won’t have time.