Halloween Props For The Yard Haunt

Haunted Yards are certainly nothing new in popular culture today, as they have been around for many decades, however more and more home owners are finding the benefits of Halloween yard haunts to be very fun and satisfying to their inner youth.

What exactly is a yard haunt, you may ask? In its simplest form, a yard haunt is typically a small "haunted house" of sorts which is free for trick or treaters on Halloween night. More often than not the average yard haunt consists of a few static (a decorated "set" with no actors or animatronics) scenes and possibly one or two scenes with animated props and/or actors in costumes.

What is the purpose? To have fun, of course! Most people can enjoy a harmless scare, especially on Halloween and it makes the trick or treating journey that much more fun for the kids. Scenes are only limited to the imagination of the home owner and any friends who may volunteer their time to put it all together. Yard Haunts can be as simple or elaborate as the designer wishes, however every die hard yard haunter out there is always striving for more and better looking props. This can pose an issue for those on a tight budget, however don't let that hold you back from making your own Halloween props, which can typically look better than store bought items and at a fraction of the cost.

A good example of this is something we have discussed briefly in our very first blog and the technique is known as"Corpsing" a prop. In this example, the yard haunter (or home haunter) can purchase a very inexpensive skeleton, skull or bone prop and make it look as good as any Hollywood horror movie prop, with just a few simple, inexpensive items. Sheets of hard pink insulating foam (from any hardware store) are very useful for tombstones and cemetery decorations. Packages of inexpensive tin foil from the dollar store are VERY good for sculpting smaller props. You can tape off the final foil sculpture and then use paper mache to finish the details. All it takes is a little creativity.

For instance, our yard haunt has grown into a large event every Halloween, bringing trick or treaters by the car load from as far as 3 or 4 towns away. Each year, we can expect anywhere between 250 - 400 ghouls, goblins, witches, werewolves, vampires and much more to come knocking for a treat on All Hallow's Eve. Our scenes consist of many dozens of props gathered over many years and many "after Halloween sales". Our volunteer staff of actors has grown to over a dozen people. Our lighting and electrical units alone can take up to two days to put up, which includes flood lights, strobe lights, black lights, fog machines, animatronics and much more. Our dozens of static props will take the entire day before Halloween to put in place such as our caskets, skeletons, skulls, dummies, cobwebs, fake pumpkins, etc...

However our yard haunt didn't start this way. It all began with a couple paper mache props and plywood "tombstones" many, many years ago. Our yard is a good example of what a little creativity can grow into. If you have a little bit of money to spend and don't want to start with paper mache, you can always purchase an inexpensive skull, skeleton or bone prop from a website such as ours (http://www.boneshoppe.com/) and go to town on making it look "corpsed" or aged. A great way to create the illusion of two skeletons from one, is to take an inexpensive Bargain Basement Barney or 4th Quality Bucky Skeleton apart at the base of the spine, set the upper half up as though it were crawling out of the ground in your cemetery scene and put the lower half sticking out from under a bush or porch. To your trick or treaters it will appear as though you have two skeletons on display. Pretty sneaky, huh?

The purpose of this article is not to go into detail on creating your own Halloween props, but rather to help you get motivated to do it. Making your own props is a fun and inexpensive way to spend family time. Kids love helping to make props and you'll be amazed at what you can come up with for very little or no money at all.

Our favorite website that is dedicated to the home haunter is http://www.halloweenforum.com/. It's free to join and has thousands of members who are willing to share ideas and explanations on building props, making store bought props looks better and general ways to haunt your home. They also have a very extensive, free online library of "how to" articles and videos submitted by users. Check out their site and make sure to tell them The Bone Shoppe sent you!

Happy Haunting friends!

Jesse

Owner
http://www.boneshoppe.com/