Prop Builders' Page

Aluminum Foil Room
A strobe light placed in a room completely sheathed in aluminum foil is one of the earliest Hades tricks. The flickering lights disorient while the walls look as if they are crawling. Removal of small portions of the material and blacking out with a flat black or better black velour gives the wall a weird third dimension.

Idea from Haunted America

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Laboratory Effects
When you are painting with fluorescent water colors, you can save the left over water and place it in a jar for a laboratory scene. Why? Because the left over water glows...

Idea from: ~Miscellaneous~

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Rolling Specters
Take four very athletic and dedicated actors, add roller blades and create a moving haunt. Used at a current Haunted America attraction, the specters swooped, dodged, and weaved around walls, through doors, and popping up in the most unexpected ways. Separation between audience and performers was vital as a clear set rules on bladers' traffic patterns. THIS IS NOT FOR KIDS. The potential for cracked skulls are high except for experienced skaters. Ramps should be long and gradual for skating control. We used them in black light, which allowed the actors to have clear visibility.

Idea from Haunted America

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Lettering Tombstones
Here is an idea to get better looking tombstone letters. Pick out a fancy font on your computer that would look good on your tombstone. Then open up a program (like Word for Windows), select the font, jack the font size up to about 200 or so, and print out each individual letter. If you make stencils out of your printed letters, then you can easily spray paint beautiful letters on.

Idea from: ~Miscellaneous~

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Eyeball Lights
Buy a whole bunch of ping pong balls and paint them up like eyeballs. Next, drill small holes in the backs of all of the ping pong balls. Grab an old set of small Christmas twinkle lights (green or red ones look creepy) and insert them into the backs of the 'eyeballs'. You now have 'eyeball lights'! They're great for decorating bushes or hanging in lonely rooms.

Idea from: ~Miscellaneous~

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Zombie Clothing
This technique was supposedly used in the original "Thriller" video to distress the zombie clothes. The idea is simple: Drano, bleach and old clothes combined together in an artistic way. The chemicals eat and fade the fabric, leaving a horrible mess which fits the style of the living dead. However, unless you wash these clothes thoroughly, live actors should not wear them.

Idea from Haunted America

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Blood Formula
This blood is the most delicious of all if you have a sweet tooth. The formula is Karo Syrup (clear) and red food coloring. Add just a touch of blue until you get the desired color. It's a sticky mess, but it sure looks cool. For a little easier clean I have heard people putting in Era laundry detergent instead of the blue food coloring. Not as tasty though, so watch the vampire act.

Idea from Haunted America

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Money Spending
Before you spend much money on props, or supplies to build your own haunt, go to stores such as Target, Walmart, the Dollar Store, etc. And look at what they have available that you can adapt for your haunted house. We had taken someones idea to build bones from spray insulation foam, $5-12 per bottle which makes about 8-10 good bones (counting mistakes). But we also found a bag of bones at Target for $4.95. Especially after Halloween, you can buy that $50 prop for about $20 or less. The best places are the seasonal stores, right around the 1st of November, they have to sell everything before closing up.

Idea from Greg McAteer

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Large Test Tubes
Have you ever seen the 'Whale Bone' drinks that the restuarant Red Lobster offers? Get a few of these glasses, fill them halfway with water and add 4-5 drops of food coloring, coloring it to your liking. (Green works best) Then, drop in an eyeball, and you now have simple, but effective, laboratory props.
Click here for a picture

Idea from Igor

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Jason Vorhees Dummy
Make a frightful dummy, for a prop, by using plaster of Paris in a skull mold, and paint it, and put a hockey mask on it - ala Jason Vorhees! (The mold was from a latex mask that glues onto your face.)

Idea from Caviar60@aol.com

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Body Parts in a Jar
Pickled pigs feet, which can be purchased at most grocery stores, can make a great addition to a laboratory display. Just stick it in a jar, pour in some liquid, and you have an awesome prop! (And it looks so real!)

Idea from Handlery

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Stumpers
This is a very useful technique for outdoor displays, especially cemetaries. It gives the effect of a 'ground breaker' prop with much less hassle. If you have a tree stump in your yard that comes about a foot or so out of the ground, take a mask, stuff it, and place it over the tree stump. Next, take an old shirt and put it over the dummy's head as if it had a body and was wearing the shirt. Stuff the shirt with leaves or other things and put some fresh dirt around the bottom and.... Eureka! You have a zombie coming out of the ground that is actually hiding a dangerous tree stump! (hence the name - stumpers)

Another great idea that goes along with this prop is to take the same shirt that the 'zombie' is wearing and tear one of the sleeves off. Tie one end of the sleeve closed, stuff it, and tie the other end. Then, stuff a glove and put it on the end of the sleeve. This makes an arm for the zombie. Place it about a foot away from the body so it looks as if he has managed to get one arm out of the ground. Bury the one tied end with leaves or dirt and now you have an even better stumper. (If you bury the original zombie about up to his shoulders, this technique will look very good.)
Click here for a picture

Idea from Igor

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Blue Glow
One idea that we found worked out nicely was that if you are using a blacklite and need something to "glow" you can use Woolite (yes, the laundry soap) as "paint". It seems to give everything a "blue glow".

Idea from Pam

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Lasting Blood
You know how when you make fake blood it tends to just drip away and then the leftovers turn pink? Well we had a few cow skulls we nailed into trees at the entrance of the graveyard and I wanted to have blood running off of them AND have them lit, well a simple red candle does the trick, so on the other places that I needed blood I dripped red wax onto it and it was the deepest red, stayed where I put it, and it never deteriorated.

Idea from Bridget Taylor

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NOTE: Miscellaneous ideas are ideas that have somehow found their way to this ideas page, but have no real owner. If one of these miscellaneous ideas are yours then send an Email notifying Igor. Again, Igor takes no credit or responsibility for any one else's ideas.

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