Grim Hollow 2008

Halloween Night

So it's 1 o'clock in the morning and I just got done breaking everything down and put into the garage... man am I tired. It was worth it though. Had a really big turnout and everyone seemed to like the display. Even convinced a few people to start their own haunts from the sound of it. The kids seemed to like it, some laughed, some cried, some laughed at others crying. The only thing that broke was the ankle blaster that was built into the candy trunk, I think I blew the solenoid in it. It worked fine up until that point though and scared a lot of kids. I was a hooded ghost looking creature, similar to the two ghosts I have in the setup, only a different color. I had fun scraping a shovel on the driveway and shaking this little rattling thing I made at people when they walked by. I'll probably post more tomorrow, but for now I'm going to kick back and see if any scary movies are on. Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Halloween. Changed the color of all my lights to amber tonight and put the finishing touches on most of everything. (The yard is not lit up this bright really, the camera makes it look brighter than it is).

A co-worker stopped by last night and I was telling him about the "Lost and Found" box that I was planning on doing with an ankle blaster inside. He said "You should put the candy in that", and I think that is what I am going to do. That way every trick or treater will have to walk up to it (I only plan on using the ankle blaster on the TOT's I think can handle it, no young ones). Same goes for the rest of my pneumatic props, I only use them on older kids or the ones who seem like they won't mind too much, like big groups of kids. I guess I just want everyone to enjoy the haunt.

Hope you all have a Happy Halloween and good luck with your haunts!

Grim Hollow Video

I had a few people wanting to see some of these props in action so I made a little video. I didn't know that the quality would suffer so badly when I sent it to YouTube, but you get the basic idea. The credits at the end, which are hard to read even if you watch it in full screen mode, are basically thanking my son for standing out in the cold wind and operating the switches for me while I made the videos. You can see him jumping up and down in the background on one of them. I think that was from a combination of being cold and being excited that he got to operate the switches. The music on this video is by Igneous Flame.

Scarecrow's Sign

I also re-worded the sign that my scarecrow holds the other day. I confused some people, because I had my original "Beware of Bumps in the Night" sign up for a few days then chaged it to this. People were asking "Didn't that say something else the other day?". It felt good that they were paying that much attention. I am planning on putting a light in the head and adding a little "Up-lighting" today (I should probably be doing that now instead of being in here on the computer).

Another Coffin

Here's what I did with my third toepincher coffin. It has an air cylinder inside that opens the lid so that this guy can say hello to everyone. This one is also controlled by a switchboard and will be activated as people walk by. I had to put this one behind a fence where little hands can't reach, because the lid slams shut rather fast and loudly... not that any hands would probably be reaching in there, but you never know.

Column Pop Up

I used this last year but didn't take any pictures of it. The top of one of my fence columns is hinged with an air cylinder attached that lets it pop open as people walk by. It is controlled by a switch board that I use to control three other pneumatic props that I have. I think my favorite thing about this prop is that when the lid is going back down, it makes a long creaking sound, much like you might think a big door would sound in a haunted house. The lid takes a couple of seconds to close, which I think is perfect. It doesn't make any other noise other than the hissing sound from the air line, and it is simply a skull with a green light shining on it.