If you were...

If you were going through a haunted house, What would scare you the most? Would there be anything you would lookout for?


I'm pretty new to the game, but every October I run a haunted house for a weekend at my job.  We're currently in the planning stages and would like outside ideas. Here is out last years website that includes pictures of past years and our dates this year (which should be updated soon)
www.brookdalehauntedtheater.com

Give me some ideas, and they could possibly be used October.

I'd be really scared of that girl from the ring crawling out of a well or a T.V.

God, I watched that movie with a friend around 3am... i made him stay up with me until sun up... of course, sun up was around 6am, and it wasn't up "enough." He went to sleep then... it was 8 am by the time the sun was up enough for me to sleep xD

I am scared of nearly everything in a haunted house, but I find that things that pop out and are around corners freak me out the most.

Things that imply creepiness, but don't show anything really, like a mangled up tricycle, or a single child size shoe, laces torn, dried on mud and covered lightly in cobwebs...  maybe a family album where all the pictures faces where cut out, or violently scribbled over. A pile of clipped up newspapers. A groundskeeper with large rusty clipping sheers, dressed all sceevy like, with black teeth, who is simply working but occasionally stops abruptly and stares at people passing by in an awkward way, maybe flashing an creepy grin.

For something more supernatural, a dusty baby cradle, that is slowly rocking, but its empty... although a real faint cooing can be heard. 

James has it  - there's basically two kinds of scared.  Creepy, and Startle.

One of the best ways to spook the everliving crap out of someone is to do both at the same time.

Having a bunch of "bodies" on the floor (well-disguised dummies, or even actors who can be very, very still) that are motionless for a long, long time.  The victims will see them, and probably think they might move... soon... well, they didn't yet, so they must be dummies.... OK, it's safe.... HOLY CRAP!  The same can be done with things like hands in jars, etc. if rigged up well.  Just trigger them after the person looking at them thinks they are safe.

This also relies on the victims not seeing the faces of / being able to recognize the actor that is going to move at some point.  If I see Jenn posing as a corpse, I *know* she's going to move.

If you're doing teams / couples, make sure you time it so that the audience doesn't know the other person is around until it's too late.  I was on a hay ride when a witch (Amy Inglis) said "My husband will be home soon..." and I spun around to see him (Chad, her husband) trying to sneak up on me from the other side of the wagon.  The look on his face when I spotted him was priceless.

A couple ideas that my crew and I have put together so far has been separation of couples, (boys one way girls another).  Another one was a dead fantasy forest, which could easily be made over for a kids friendly tour.  We've put together a few ideas, but nothing too big so far that would give our "tourist" a scare.