THE ULTIMATE HALLOWEEN PROPS | COMPRESSED AIR

The ultimate addition to any of your halloween props is compressed air. There are places selling air cannons all over the web for hundreds of dollars. I on the other hand would rather find something much cheaper. Fortunately for me I have access to a large air compressor in my shop where I normally have my haunted house. My air compressor has a large tank that will power all of my air needs. Now I know not everyone has access to an air compressor, but maybe you know someone who has a portable compressor they will loan you. You can also buy small air compressors for fairly cheap, usually around $100 to $150 dollars. You may think that isn't very cheap but you will get years of service out of it so I think it is a fair investment. Other alternatives are cans of compressed air, or portable air tanks(around $30 bucks). I don't like canned air because you don't get much of a blast and they are fairly expensive since you will need a lot of them. Portable tanks will give you the pressure you need but will eventually run out. I still have not found anything that works as good as an air compressor.

The uses for compressed air are numerous. You can use it to add effect to your existing halloween props or as a stand alone trick. A popular use is to build a corpse and mount it on a piston that is mounted in a casket. When someone steps on a switch on the floor or if someone if controlling it compressed air will extend the piston and the corpse will jump out of the casket. Now with the right sound effects and say a strobe light this is a very effective scare. Of course this project is a bit more complicated. I will try to touch on it in another article. I personally get good results out of a good old blast of air. I simply run my air hose around to a good spot in a narrow hallway and cut 2 tiny slits in the black plastic wall. Then someone stand behind the wall with the nozzle stuck through the bottom slit in the plastic. The top slit is for the person to see through. Now when people walk by just blast them with the air. The cold air along with the sudden noise will scare just about anyone. I use this usually in a hallway that is empty or to narrow to do anything else. It works great for filling dead spots. I try to keep the hallway as dark as possible, this makes it that much more unexpected.

If you want to take the above mentioned trick a little further then try this. Take a 16 or 20 ounce water bottle, the narrow ones work best and cut the bottom off of it. You can cut it in half, it doesn't really matter just play around with it. Now slide the end with the opening onto the air nozzle. Make sure the end of the air nozzle is flush with the where the neck of the bottle widens out. Next tape the bottle onto the air nozzle with duct tape. Now take the confetti of your choice, I usually just shred up paper into tiny pieces and fill the bottle. When you blast the air it will shoot confetti all over you victim. This is only one example, PVC pipe works extremely well. The smaller the diameter, the more direct pressure you will get. Another method is to make streamers out of paper or thin plastic and glue to the inside of the bottle. Then just stuff them inside the bottle and blast someone with them.

These are just a few suggestions on the uses for compressed air with your halloween props. Remember just be creative and keep safety in mind so everyone can have fun at halloween.

EASY BUILD CASKET FOR YOUR HAUNTED HOUSE

Every good haunted house needs a good casket. Caskets are one of the most versatile halloween props you can have. They can be used for a good scare or as a piece of scenery. Today I want to show you a very easy design for a coffin that is effective as well as easy to build and will last for years. This coffin is constructed out of 1" by 12" pine boards. Unless you have a bunch of these lying around you will have to by them,
But that is the only wood you will need other than a piece of plywood for the bottom. You will also need some inch and a half wood screws, some small hinges, a piece or 2 of small rope or chain and some stain or paint. This project will require a power saw, a drill with a screw driver bit, wood glue and brushes or rags for your stain.
Now I am not going to post any dimensions because length and width will depend on what suits your own needs. This casket is based on the old toe hugger pine box caskets. I have included a rough drawing to give you an idea of what it looks like, hopefully I can add some better pictures soon. Now once you have your dimensions start by cutting out the two end pieces. Next You will need to cut the sides in two pieces, to make the angles in the sides. Once all of the pieces are cut, join them with wood glue then fasten them with wood screws. Now I use half inch plywood for my bottom. Simply lay the plywood on top of your frame and trace the outline. Now just cut out the bottom and fasten it to your frame with wood screws. Next you are ready to build your lid. I simply take two 1 by 12 pine boards and lay them on top of my frame side by side. Then like the bottom trace out your pattern and cut them out. Next take some of the scrap pine boards and cut out 2 brace for the lid(they are shown in the drawing). Now apply some wood glue to the bottom of your braces and fasten them to your lid with wood screw. I bout three small brass hinges at a hardware store and used them to mount my lid on my casket. Next I took a piece of nylon cord and stapled one end the the inside of my casket and the other end to the inside of my lid so that the lid would only open to a 90 degree angle. The last step is to apply paint or stain to your casket. I used a gel stain in a cherry color to give it an antiqued look. Since pine doesn't take stain very well without preparation it gives it a neat look. Now you have a very nice halloween prop that will last a long time and didn't cost a fortune. If you want to dress it up a little more you can go to a home improvement store and buy some handles for cabinet doors and mount around the sides, or some brass or stainless steel trim pieces. I hope this article inspires someone to build some nice halloween props.

HALLOWEEN PROPS FOR 2008

It's been awhile, but I am back. So what better than to go ahead and kick off the haunting season a little early this year. I will be posting alot of new articles on building halloween props to help prepare for halloween 2008. Be sure and keep checking back as I will be making some changes and adding alot of new content.

ULTIMATE HALLOWEEN PROPS - TWO WAY MIRRORS

If you have never used a two way mirror in your haunted house then you are definitely missing out. If you are looking for one of the coolest halloween props for your haunted house that can be reused year after year and won't cost a fortune a two way mirror is perfect. I purchased a two foot by two foot mirror from a haunted house supplier for about twenty five dollars. I framed it with some left over trim from a remodeling job on my living room. There are just too many ways to use a two way mirror in a haunted house. My personal favorite is to hang it in front of a wall in a hallway. If you don't make your walls out of black plastic or a material that you can cut and get behind this may not work. I try to find a spot with enough room for a person to stand behind the plastic. Cut out the plastic behind the mirror about two inches smaller on each side than the size of the mirror. Now tape the back of the mirror to the plastic with duct tape. I usually tape another piece of plastic or a large trash bag that is wider than the mirror on the back side of the wall. Now get a good flashlight and put on a mask or face of your choice and stand with your face right up to the back side of the mirror. Put the piece of plastic you just taped up over your head to keep the flashlight from lighting up anything else. Hold the flashlight up to your face and wait. When people walk by the mirror just turn on the flashlight and your face will suddenly appear in the mirror out of nowhere. This is an awesome trick because people generally tend to focus on mirrors, and a face appearing in a mirror is usually pretty scary. A good way to use this is to put the mirror at the beginning of a long hallway. Cut a slit in the wall just past the mirror. Leave the hallway pretty dark except for a bright strobe light hanging from the ceiling. Now adjust the strobe light to flash very slow, so that everyone seems to move in slow motion. Now when your victims walk past flip the flashlight on and scare the crap out of them. Once they pass the mirror bust out of the wall where you cut the slit and follow them down the hall brandishing a knife or weapon of your choice. The strobe light will disorient them and make your approach look very distorted. Trust me this will scare the hell out of everyone. This trick works best if you dress like a well known slasher from a horror flick. If you feel real adventurous you can just hang the mirror up and let it be a regular mirror if all else fails. Out of all of the Halloween Props that I have used over the years my two way mirror has been my favorite Prop. It was inexpensive, multi-functional and has lasted for years.

DO MOVIE MONSTERS MAKE EFFECTIVE HALLOWEEN PROPS?

For many years I tried to distance myself far away from using characters from horror films in my haunted houses. I wanted to come up with original characters in my haunt, to be different than everyone else. I thought that using movie characters wouldn't scare people. About three years ago I found out I was dead wrong. I decided to use a few guys from some classic horror flicks. A couple of my friends wanted to be Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. I wasn't too thrilled with the idea at first, but I decided that I would give it a shot. They ended up being the highlight of the haunted house. I have used them every year since, I just find a new place to use them. This made me stop and rethink my whole style of haunting. I guess people can relate better to things they are familiar with. We see these characters in movies and they are scary, but to run into one of them in person. These were two very good characters because they don't speak. They just bust out of nowhere and come after you. People literally went into fits at the sight of them. If you can work these characters and things that people relate to you will have a haunt that will scare the crap out of people. Plus if you plan on running your haunt for several days at Halloween you can always change things if they aren't working, so don't be afraid to experiment.