A Halloween Scenario with X10!

Halloween is the time of the year when we’re allowed to let our hair down and have a little bit of childish... ahem... child-like fun. That means dressing up as your favorite superhero, or movie character. You get to put on costumes, dress up, eat lots of junk, and nobody thinks twice about it for that one day. It’s also that time of year when you get to go all out with decorations and scare tactics. So in this How2, we’re going to show you one way in which you can create your own haunted house.

The haunted house is the most popular type of scare to pull off, so we’ll get you started on your own that will wow the neighborhood. We’ll focus mainly on the outside of the house, but in the upcoming How2s, we’ll add more details on how you can fix up the inside of your house as well, all with state of the art screams.

First off, a good haunted house needs a graveyard. After all, what’s spookier than a graveyard?

The best place to set up this graveyard is in your own front yard. This way your trick-or-treaters will have to come right down the middle of it to get to the house.

For your graveyard, some pretty realistic Styrofoam tombstones can be purchased at your local costume/party store. You can purchase as many or as few as you want, but be sure to pick up a good mix to make the graveyard look realistic. Set the tombstones so that they face toward the walkway to your house, creating a pathway down the middle to the house.

Behind the tombstones, you can set up some strobe lights. These can be purchased at your local gadget store in the mall for around twenty dollars. Place two or three of them randomly behind some of the tombstones. Set them to a slow flash, and at separate times from each other. You can also add some colored lights behind some of the other tombstones. By using just enough light to highlight the tombstones, you can fill in a little and enhance the ambiance.

Place each of the lights on an ActiveHome Lamp Module. By running all of these lights through ActiveHome Lamp Modules, you have total control over every one of them in one shot via your ActiveHome remote control.

Now if budget permits, a good fog machine can add those finishing touches to the graveyard, just like in the movies.

There are many things you can do with the front porch of your house, depending on time and budget, and we’ll go through a few that should be good for both. A very simple way to decorate the front of your house is to purchase a generous amount of fake spider web spray or netting. By placing this liberally around the front porch, you immediately give the house that "deserted/haunted" look.

In the window, place a candle lamp so that it looks as if there is a single candle burning in the house. Then cover the window with a strong black cloth to hide the light inside the house.

Replace the porch light with a Socket Rocket, and put in a dark black light bulb. Keep the light bulb around forty-watts, so that it’s not too bright.

Hook up the Socket Rocket to an EagleEye motion sensor. Once the trick-or-treater approaches the porch, they will trigger the light to go on, bringing up just enough light to cast an eerie spell over them.

Also, make a tape of a wolf howling, and repeat this several times. Place your tape in a regular "boom-box" type player. Then hook up your tape deck up to an ActiveHome transceiver. (Make sure the power is "on" and the "play" button is pressed down.) Set the boom-box and the Socket Rocket onto the same house and unit code so they will interact with the EagleEye. As the trick-or-treaters pass the EagleEye, it will turn on the black light and set off the wolf or wolves howling. That’s your cue to open the door.

When you open the door, be sure and wear your best Igor outfit.

Here you can set off RoboDog, and act as if you’re wrestling with him while you try and open the door. Put up a good fight, but finally subdue him, and open the door for the trick-or-treaters.

Inside the house, place white sheets over all the furniture and black cloth over the floor.

Use more spider webbing, and lots of fake dust.

Near the front door, set up a large trunk that may be big enough to be a coffin and fill it with candy.

Take a pair of pants and a shirt and stuff them with cloth so that they look real. Set them up on the sofa looking toward the entryway. Take a hollowed out pumpkin and put a wig on it, and paint it to look like a face. Place it in the lap of your dummy so that it appears as if this headless person is holding his head in his lap.

Hook up the XCam2 with battery pack inside the pumpkin, and camouflage the camera with some form of dark cloth that blends in with the head/face. Behind this headless person, leave the television on.

Remember that the XCam2 does require some light, so hook up a couple of lamps near the entryway so that it will illuminate the faces of the trick-or-treaters. Lamps with red-green-and blue bulbs create a feeling of mystery. You can also purchase rather inexpensive spotlights at your local gadget store, and place gels in front of them (a gel is colored material that goes over such lights) to create the mood as well as focus the light specifically where you want it.

As the children enter the house, they will see the head, and they will see themselves looking back, and think the head is watching them.

Creepy crawly things always work as well when it comes to scaring someone. Little rubber snakes, and mice and spiders should have a good effect. Put them up on your wooden crate. The bigger the better, as that is what makes them scarier.

Take some more of the fake dust, and place it on top of the trunk.

Inside the trunk, along with all the candy, place several more creepy crawly things. As you open the trunk you will have to move aside these creature as you fish for the candy. Make sure and do it in a very big way, so that the trick-or-treaters can see you.

So here’s how the evening will go. The trick-or-treaters approach your door. As they near the door, they pass the EagleEye motion sensor, which triggers the Socket Rocket. The light comes up and the wolves start howling. Once the wolves howl, then you set off RoboDog and make your Oscar-winning performance of trying to subdue the dog. (A word of caution though, some people, children especially, are terrified of dogs, so use discretion. You know your neighborhood best.)

The door opens... The assumption is that would be you... and in your best Igor impersonation you welcome the trick-or-treaters and take them into the room designed to look abandoned or forsaken.

As they enter, the XCam2 sees them and posts their pictures up on your television.

You reach the trunk, and push off a large rubber snake lying on top of it and knock on the lid. (If you want, you can push the snake toward one of the trick-or-treaters. Use your best judgment here.) With your ActiveHome remote you could cue up a sound-effect over the stereo of a snake hissing, and a coffin creaking open. You could also cue up a sound effect of hideous laughing.

When you pull up some of the candy, big ugly spiders or mice or rats come up with the candy clinging to their booty. You shake them loose back into the trunk and give the candy to the kids.

Then Igor/(You?) leads/lead the trick-or-treaters back out of the house.

And there you have it, one idea for your haunted house scenario. And it won’t take anything but a few X10 products, and a little imagination.

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