How Not To Build Your First Haunt

1979 found me newly married. I operated my own acting schools in Dallas and Oklahoma City. The month is October, one of my favorites, and something new was happening in the area, Haunted Houses. We had several, some good some bad but all in fun. My wife suggested that we build one in the school, something for the students to do and a fundraiser for the school. She created a monster.

*** (the school) was located near downtown Dallas, right on the freeway at a major intersection; a perfect location. We decided to open for the last week plus, Thursday the 22nd through Saturday the 31st. Please remember the title to this article as I describe my first haunt.

I wanted my customers to experience something different. So I went all out not to look like any other haunt. Customers had to remove their shoes and socks and stow all their belongings in a numbered box we provided. Their first adventure was to cross worm swamp. A 2x6 framed pool created with black plastic, filled with water and plastic worms with a black light. Fishing line was hanging in the path and a fan blew air into their faces. For added terror we would pull a garden hose through the water. It worked to well. Imagine your bare feet with worms squishing beneath and then suddenly something slides along your leg, in the dark…

Customers traveled a brief path through hanging carpet tubes. The space was big enough to get turned around in, the forerunner of my tube room turn around. A puppet monster would come down from above in the tubes at random places to nibble on any available heads, yes, we touched the customers.

The school stage became the cemetery, covered with leaves, nearly eighteen inches deep, tree limbs, tombstones, flying bats and a singing corpse rising out of the grave. This was the distraction, the real scare came from the corpse rising behind them, and he would grab an ankle. Many customers fell, some off the stage but mostly into the leaves. By Halloween night our eighteen-inch high pile of leaves was about two inches and we brought in twenty more bags to fill the cemetery again.

They would exit and crawl into a 2'x2' tunnel. We preferred couples and with word of mouth we had many couples. We would get on top of the tunnel, bang on the wood and squirt them with water guns. As they crawled they moved up. They would crawl over an actor padded with a quilt; he would wiggle as they crawled over him. This made for some unusual reactions. Because they were forced to crawl one behind the other, it was easy to separate them. A wall would suddenly appear in the space between them. They were told to continue to crawl. They each made a right hand turn and were told to lie face down. The bottom would drop out and they would land face up together on a large mattress 24" below.

Lady Luck was kind to me. Not one injury, no fire, no emergency of any kind. The haunt had one entrance and exit and was on a second floor. Flame Proofing? Not a clue, What Me Worry? My only fire extinguisher was of the kitchen type. A variety of lighting fixtures powered by an array of extension cords in various conditions were tacked and hanging everywhere, even around the swamp. Cassette players with tapes that had to be turned over or rewound were placed in several locations.

We charged $2 per person and made a little over $600. The haunt was small, but because of the individual attention each group received and the fact that running was not an option, customers felt they got their moneys worth.

The students enjoyed the work and this event became the annual fundraiser of first *** then **** through 1996. I would continue producing the event and would eventually make a few mistakes. I had much to learn, but we were off to a good start.

Next Week, 1980

Mad Hatter

Copyright 1999, All Rights Reserved

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