Halloween Props: Making Monster Mud

Monster Mud is probably the single most important item for a home haunter to have on hand, if they intend to create their own Halloween props and decorations.
Monster mud is a mixture of joint compound and paint. How to mix monster mud is often done according to personal preference and needs, but the common rule to make monster mud you need 1 part paint, and 5 parts joint compound.
Monster mud can be used in several different ways. It is often used to smooth around headstones, and crypts to give them a really rough stone look, or you can use it to create monsters, which is how it got its name in the first place.
First you create a frame out of PVC pipe, or some other type of framing, and then you wrap chicken wire in areas where you would like dimension, finishing it off by covering the chicken wire with duct tape. You may also create the torso, arms and legs entirely with chicken wire and duct tape. At this point you can duct tape a Styrofoam head onto the neck.
When your frame is complete, you take strips of cloth and dip in the monster mud, wrapping them around your monster until it is entirely covered. If you want to add extra layers you should let the first layer dry before adding more. The process could take several days. Once your monster is completely dry, you can paint him the way you would like and add a coat of acrylic clear coat to help provide some weather protection.
The more you use monster mud for creating your Halloween props and decorations, the more uses you will find for it.

Halloween Haunted House for Kids

Kids love to put on their own haunted house for Halloween, but until the advent of the inflatable haunted house, it wasn’t too easy. The inflatable haunted house can be put up in your yard so the kids can run their own haunted house, or you can add it as an element of your own home haunt.
Many of the people visiting your home haunt on Halloween Night will be there with their kids. We have always made a point of letting parents know that the haunted house, or spook alley may have elements that are not child friendly. In this way they can make an informed decision about if they want their kids to tour the haunted house or not. Some will go ahead and go through it anyway, others will opt to take their candy without entering.
Setting up the inflatable haunted house would be a way in which you can better accommodate your younger ghost and goblin visitors. Another option is to add a small section to your home haunt just for the younger crowd, and incorporate silly props, like funny face pumpkins, silly ghosts, etc.
Adding a haunted house just for kids can help get a crowd to your home haunt on Halloween, and keep them coming back every year.

The Origins of Halloween

Believe it or not, Halloween is actually a very old holiday; even older than Christmas, though it was not always celebrated as a holiday. Over 2000 years ago, Halloween was a very important festival for the Celts. Halloween was known as Samhain, which meant the end of summer. During this festival the people celebrated the harvest and honored the dead.
It was some of the beliefs of the Celts that actually gave Halloween its spooky nature. During this time, the Celts believed that there was no line or distinction between time and space and the dead were free to roam the earth. It was out of these beliefs that the people began to build big fires and provide offers so that they could appease the restless spirits that roamed the earth on Halloween. The Druid customs of honoring the dead was also brought into the Halloween mix, as well as that of the early Christians.
When people of Britain began spread out to other parts of the world, they also brought with them their Halloween traditions. Many of the traditions that exist today can be traced to these early Halloween rituals.
The world Halloween was taken from the words, All Hallows Eve.

Halloween Special Effects: Glowing Water

Glowing water is one of the easiest Halloween special effects there is to create. All it takes is some water, food coloring, or water based paint, and some glow sticks. The type of glow sticks that you use is the same type you can buy at novelty stores, or as necklaces and bracelets. This effect can be used in a water fountain, a bowl of punch, or any small area of standing water.
Simply fill with water, and add the color of food coloring, or paint that you need, and add a glow stick. If possible, use the appropriate colored glow stick to go with the color of water. When you are finished, you should have a liquid that appears as if it is giving off an unearthly glow.
This can work great for a ghostly fountain, a magical potion, especially if you ad a bit of dry ice to it. You can also use this Halloween special effect for you witch’s caldron.

Halloween Special Effects: The Importance of Lighting

The proper lighting of your haunt is a very important aspect of a successful haunted house. Lighting creates atmosphere, and helps to hide imperfections. Special effects, such as lighting and fog, can turn an average haunt scene into something truly creepy.
Imagine setting up your cemetery in the front yard, and then using a floodlight to illuminate it. The harsh light totally takes away from atmosphere. It may appear interesting, but will not be likely to cause anyone to look over their shoulder as they walk away.
By using a few simple lighting techniques you can transform your Halloween Haunted House into something extraordinary.
Black lights, flicker bulbs, and glow sticks are commonly used in lighting techniques, but there are also other types of lighting that work great for setting off your haunt scenes. You may discover that a certain scene works better with red lighting, and of course the ever-useful strobe light.
Try it for yourself; set up your scariest scene, and walk through it. Then do it again with different types of lighting to see which lighting effect best sets off the scene. Not all the time is the best lighting technique the most obvious. By trying out a variety of lighting options, you will better see what type of lighting fits that particular scene best.
In later posts I will tell you how you can use different lighting techniques to help put character into your terrifying scenes. Lighting can turn your Halloween haunted house into something the neighborhood will be talking about for months to come.

Halloween Home Haunt Ideas: The Mortuary

Though the mortuary theme is a classic, it still works well as a theme for a haunted house. Mortuaries still have a way of creeping out even the bravest of people, so it is a very good theme for a home haunt.
Some room ideas for a Halloween haunted house with a mortuary theme would be to have your entry room be the funeral parlor. This isn’t too hard to create, you will need a long folding table, the type that you can adjust the height, and a large black cloth to put over it.
Place your coffin on this table, with a corpse prop inside. Now you’ll want a couple Halloween candelabras to place on either side of the coffin, and some flower arrangements as well. Here you can get creative and use red and black roses. Use some artwork on the walls, such as gothic pictures to help create the right atmosphere.
If you want to get really creative, the corpse you have in the coffin can be animated to where it jumps up as people walk by, or you can place some other type of animation somewhere in the room to provide a good startle to your visitors. Don’t forget to add some cobwebs to this room.
It is in this room that your haunted house guide will begin their tour and start telling your visitors your back-story. Someone in an undertaker’s costume would be best for this roll.
The next room could be just a simple dark hallway, painted black so it appears as if it is a tunnel; add some glowing eyes to the walls.
Now your visitors can step into your morgue, complete with an autopsy room, and a wall full of coolers. This wall can be created with foam board, and some paint. The autopsy table in your haunted house should have a corpse laying on it that is in the middle of being dissected; you can either make this prop, or buy it.
In this room you should have an actor in a Halloween costume to match the character. Maybe they can have a fake scalpel in which they move towards your visitors.
For the next segment of your Halloween haunted house, you can lead your visitors into a body parts room, where there are lots of gory body parts, and you just happen to catch a mortuary assistant feasting on these.
Another section could be the crypt room, where of course you may want a ghost or two present to haunt the living. Exit from the crypt room into your graveyard; where you’ll have some zombie props, and some live actors in zombie costume ready to devour the flesh of your guests.
There are many different ways you can use the mortuary theme, these are just a few ideas, but I’m sure you can find many others.

Halloween Yard Decorations

These days you have some incredible choices for Halloween Yard Decorations. No need for any of those tacky flat headstones and a few hanging ghosts, with the variety of Halloween products on the market today; you can have a real Spookfest right in your front yard.
Whether you just want to add some fright to your yard for Halloween, or you are looking to run a home haunt this year, yard decorations are a must. Especially if you are putting on your own haunted house. Though you can purchase many of the Halloween yard decorations that you need, there are also a lot you can make yourself.
For the home haunter, the Halloween yard decorations that you choose should blend well with your overall theme. If your theme is a haunted house, you’ll want the old cemetery, maybe some zombies, eyes in the bushes, etc.
On the other hand, if you are just looking to jazz things up for the trick-or-treaters, a couple of inflatable decorations, and some witches may be sufficient.
In my opinion, one of the main focal points of the Halloween yard decoration should be the graveyard. This is usually one of the first things we start on every year. The headstones can be created from foam board found at hardware stores, or you can buy your graveyard headstones from a variety of stores that sale Halloween props.
Every spooky graveyard needs a fence, these are also available for purchase from Halloween stores, or you can make your own out of PVC pipe.
Though it’s not necessary, adding a crypt to your graveyard can really give it an eerie quality, especially if you can include a crank ghost, and other special effects that will be seen from outside the graveyard.
Other little additions that can add to the spook factor of your graveyard include, crows, maybe an undertaker prop, zombies, ghosts, and whatever adds to the eerie atmosphere you are trying to create. You probably don’t want to overcrowd your graveyard with props and decorations, as they will ruin the atmosphere, but add enough that the scene is helping to add to the storyline for your haunted house. A fog machine and a fog chiller, hidden strategically within the graveyard can really set off this scene. Ground fog just seems to add that creepy element to cemeteries, and it works for home haunt graveyards too.
If you are talented enough to build an old Victorian style hearse, this would be a great addition to your Halloween yard decorations, but if not, I did notice an inflatable hearse being sold last Halloween.
For the Halloween home haunt, the next important Halloween yard decoration would probably be the façade to your haunted house. This is one of the most neglected elements of home haunts, but it adds so much to atmosphere that if you can make one, I would advise it.
As your Halloween yard decorations are the first things that trick-or-treaters and visitors to your haunted house will see, you’ll want to be sure that they convey the spook element you want to create.