Scary Greetings : Do-it-yourself projects, from yard ‘cemeteries’ to a talking dummy, can surprise your trick or treaters.
If blood-drenched “Night of the Living Dead” creatures aren’t yet traipsing around your yard, terrifying the kiddies, you still can make them happen in time for Saturday night. We talked to a couple local “experts” and gathered inexpensive, do-it-yourself ideas with which to haunt your own home--complete with sound effects and lighting. You might already have some of the tools lying around.
“The first step is to take a look at the character of your house,” said Mike Reyes, who is designing the Arts Council Center’s spooked-house production, “The Haunted Center,” in Thousand Oaks.
Consider: Do you have a large front yard? Trick or treaters can be made to step through a zombie-filled cemetery en route to your candy bowl. “Gravestones can easily be made with cardboard cutouts and paint,” Reyes said. “Spread some dirt in front of the cutouts for a freshly turned grave effect.”
The “graveyard” can be made more eerie by grinning jack-o’-lanterns, while zombies unearth themselves nearby. A properly positioned, newspaper-stuffed body part, sticking out from the ground, can suggest “a corpse working his way out of the grave,” Reyes said. Simply attach a latex glove to a shirt sleeve, or a shoe to a jeans leg, and position it in the dirt. From above, however, consider a tree limb, which “might be the ideal spot for a hanging of a zombie,” Reyes said.
If your home features arches, achieve a dungeon-like appearance by stringing plastic chain-link between pillars. The chain-link, optimally painted black, is available at most hardware stores, Reyes said. Fabricated spider webs also fill in spaces and work well with the chain. Then hang from the chain a blood-drenched hand, leg, or a fully outfitted dummy.
Do you have a tunnel-like entrance or walkway? This is the trap for a wet surprise. Suspend strands of black string overhead, wetting them by spray bottle or hose. “As unsuspecting trick or treaters step through the string, it hits their faces and they get a nice, yucky, clammy feeling,” Reyes said.
A dimly lit porch can feature a steaming, bubbling caldron of witch’s brew. Place a small chunk of dry ice into warm water. Greet your sweet-toothed ghouls and goblins by offering them a ladle-full instead of that chocolate bar. Check the Yellow Pages under the dry ice heading for the nearest retailer.
Lighting effects are crucial. There’s no need for extravagance, though. A dimly lit environment can be obtained by switching normal outdoor bulbs with dark-hued bulbs.
Oxnard’s “Heritage Scare!” in Heritage Square has employed some cost-effective lighting tricks worth considering. “We’ve used black plastic on some of the walls. Shining a black light or a strobe light on the plastic works well to create an eerie effect,” said Ruth Bernstein, Heritage Square director of events. She suggested dressing in white, ghostly costumes, which contrast against the black and pick up the black light.
Do you have a slide projector and a white sheet? Shine the projector through a window onto a white sheet hung in a dark area. “You don’t necessarily need shots of spooky things,” Reyes said. “You can have a close-up slide of a black cat. Make it slightly out of focus and now you have a ghostly image of a cat.”
Even the spookiest of all props and lighting techniques are hardly effective without sound effects. This might be the easiest task of all. K-mart, Target and other discount stores sell inexpensive, 45-minute cassette tapes filled with clinks and clanks, thunder and lightning storms, werewolf howls and Dracula on the prowl.
“It works well if you can rig up sound effects at at least two points,” Reyes said. A boombox can be concealed in the yard, while at the door use a home stereo system. To avoid flipping the tape, Reyes suggesting recording the sounds onto an “endless loop cassette,” available at most record stores.
Of course, if your home stereo system has a microphone hookup, recorded effects can be complemented by live voice antics. “Have a dummy sitting in a chair on the front porch with a big bowl of candy resting in his lap,” Reyes explained. Wire a speaker as near as possible to the dummy. Watch through a front window for approaching trick or treaters. In a sinister voice, urge them to come closer. “The littler ones will jump three or four feet in the air,” Reyes said. “But they want that candy, so they’ll inch closer and closer. When they reach for the bowl, hit them with ‘Just take one!’ This method also works well with breathing noises too. It’s a cheap way to get top entertainment value.”
* A guide to the county’s haunted houses: J2
