I love to build Halloween home haunts for my neighborhood and family. This channel will share my haunts and how I built them, prop builds, lighting, sound, fog, and any other aspect of making a good haunt. I'll also share how I think about my scares so that my guests are surprised. In 2023 I built my first dark ride in my back yard. I continue to try and improve it and change the theme each year. Welcome and I hope you enjoy the videos.
This is so freaking beautiful man i wish i had the half of your yard to just put some spooky props for each halloween! You should have the luxury and economics to build your own big haunted hayride,i wish you the best of luck having one in the near future!
Yep but worth the wait because it's FREE! We are building a second cart this year so we should be able to do about 100-120 people per hour. We also do a friend's and family night before Halloween so they don't have to wait in the long line.
Hey there! Fantastic work, and thanks for sharing your knowledge. Do you know any cheaper ways to make a laser swamp? Or do you need to buy a super expensive hazer. Does fog work? Thanks so so much
So here’s the deal…this is my first year to try a swamp theme so I don’t have my fog and laser strategy figured out yet. But, I promise I will share what works on this channel. I’m confident the effect can be accomplished with just basic foggers.
With it being so dark and twisting everywhere, did you have any fail-safes in case an actor or person walking through got hurt/anything breaks in the maze?
Great question!! Yes, on this particular haunt there is a deck overlooking the haunt. We had floodlights pointing down on the haunt that could be turned on with an app on our phone. We used it for emergencies, to work on the haunt at night, and to signal breaks to our actors.
Bon, so I did the conversion and I think that is about $125 US dollars. If you are talking about making a whole track for that cost that would be very difficult to do. The cart alone is a couple of hundred US dollars. Most basic animatronics alone in the US are over $100 (US). Now, you could build it up in pieces over time. Most of my stuff is purchased over the course of a whole year (including when I built the track). Also, here in the US I donated plasma and made about $600 which helped fund my track as well. I hope this helps!
Thank you Nikki!! Glad you liked the video and I hope you check out some of my other videos as well. And I'm missing Halloween too....but have lots of things to do to be ready for my haunt. :-)
So I'm not the one who did the re-vamp, that was my friend Eddie. I did speak to him and we will try and put together some stuff about it to share with you. Stay tuned!
Thank you! Yah, I agree…we will spotlight areas better next time. Also, very challenging to capture the haunt in the dark. Thank you for checking out my videos!!
Yep! Building a second cart for this year and then hope to motorize them next year. For now we manually push them. Not too bad but better if they were motorized.
Thank you...great advice and tips. I live in Australia and our family does halloween in June so the kids get the night time scare factor. It's really difficult to find supplies so your ideas with regular easy accessible equipment is fantastic
The track is made of 1 1/2 inch PVC pipe. I made a video on it Episode 3: How to build a dark haunt track for a home haunt. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3QNufSuLnfI.html For now we are manually pushing the cart but if you look up Chamber of Souls he explains how the drive mechanism works. Also was talking to another person that uses wheelchair motors…probably the direction I will go in the future. Thanks for the sub!
I have actually been planning to do a DIY Alligator using foam for Halloween. While I plan to do a much larger version, this was very inspiring! Thank you =)
Hello. Just found your video. I did a similar Dark ride this last year as well based off of Chamber of Souls design. I can send you some pictures and videos of the cart drive system I used if you would like using wheel chair motors. Worked really well and not complicated. I use simple magnetic switches mounted on the track to trigger lights, sounds and scares along with stopping the cart. Great job on your build.
Yes!! I would love to see your pictures and videos. I’m all about figuring this stuff out so anything that would give me more ideas would be great. We pushed the cart last year and plan on doing it again this year but would still love to motorize the cart. You can email me pics and videos at tcoston@gmail.com. Thanks for checking out my channel as well! 😊
Hey actually i would like to see how you fixed your fog machine as well as any other fixes lights animatronics and all this is a huge money saver for us low budget haunters thanks in advance the road to October starts now!
You could use fluorescent paint and black lights on the snakes. I’m lucky enough to live two blocks away from an import business that receives and discards crates every day of the year. I just pull my truck up next to the dumpster and choose the size I need.
Well, this track is located in Southern California. So far only one unruly group but we managed it with no further problems. I just want to bring some happiness to my neighborhood.
@@AotH Cool. I live in Rancho Cucamonga so if you ever need a large amount of crates for your haunt I can get you the address of a business that has them for the taking. Another thing I tried last Halloween was to add free hotdogs to my front yard haunt. The kids and adults loved them and they were cheap to buy at Costco. Also had some scratch off cards for the kids with the best costumes. If their card was a winner, they’d get a Halloween themed gift.
Great tip! It doesn’t show it in the video but I do spray water before I start the foam and then once I’ve applied it. It’s a key point and I should have emphasized that in the video. I wear gloves only because I’m impatient and sometimes touch it before it’s ready and end up getting that stuff on my hands. That stuff is a mess to get off your skin. Thanks for the great tip!
Oo you'll like this one. Just started doing it. Put take paper towel and wet it through with spray bottle and lay it over foam. Omg it's awesome. I'm a toucher too. Lol oh and i always deflate my model such as beach ball so i can keep reusing them. Plus it's fun pealing it away from spray foam. 😁
Yah, it dawned on me on me after I was done with the video that I probably didn’t need to even wrap the inflatable in plastic. I think it would have worked fine without it. And you are absolutely right, I didn’t need to deflate it to get it out. But, exactly why I share this because I learn as I go!! Thank you for your comments, I really do appreciate it! 😀
@toddcoston7498 👍 I've doing this for years. Locktite is way better than great stuff. You get a nice crust after a few minutes with Locktite, then you can shape it. That wet paper towel trick I just started doing and it helps alot so you don't expand over edges.
Hey AOTH, excellent idea, build footage and explanation. Thanks for this and your previous videos on haunt setup - used your parachord ideas throughout our walkthrough walls, as well as your ideas for keeping walls grounded - worked perfectly! You are a great haunter and I appreciate the time you invest in the videos you share.
Wow, thank you so much! Very kind comments and definitely appreciated. It takes a bit of work to shoot and edit the videos so it's nice to hear that you are enjoying them. Also, because I love to build my haunt and literally spend all year doing it, it's fun to share what works and doesn't work for me. Hopefully you can get ideas from what I do or at least enjoy watching the videos while sipping a nice drink! More to come! :-)
Absolutely enjoy and look forward to your videos, which have become more dynamic after your ride accomplishment - congrats on seeing that through, ride system and scares were fantastic, looking forward to more!
For the main coverage before removing the inflatable it was only one can. Because I wanted to shore it up, I ended up using a whole second can but probably only needed half of it. All in all, with paint and eyes…was probably the same cost of the inflatable.
Hi Todd, I am so glad I just found your Art of the Haunt series. Thanks for taking time to share your successes and failures as you continue your home haunting! I love your ambition to create a haunt track. You did a great explanation describing why the track allows for better timed scares, etc... Keep on Haunting! Phil
So a couple of things....first, we have a whole speech we give them when we load them on the cart like stay seated, keep your arms and hands in, etc. Second, the cart is pushed by a human so there is always someone there keeping an eye on the cart as they push it around the track. We've only had one problem last year after a couple hundred riders and it was a couple of teenage boys that were just acting up. We immediately stopped the ride, I gave them a little lecture, and then walked with them through the rest of the ride to make sure they weren't jerks. Finally, very few props are within arms reach of the cart anyway. In my experience, everyone has behaved and are literally trying to hide in the cart knowing the next scare is around the corner.
Great tips and ideas, just subscribed so looking forward to watching all your videos. Here in New Zealand Halloween is a one day thing so pretty much set up and tear down on the same day.
Yah, that makes it tough. Then you are exhausted from cramming it all in. My track is in the backyard so I can spend a month setting up and then tear it down over a few weekends. Glad you subscribed!
