HauntedHeadquarters

As we're mid-way in the hallowed month, most of us that do so have begun dragging out the Halloween Yard decorations from the basement, where they sit alongside the Christmas and Easter decorations in perfect harmony. Halloween decorations are the only decorations that seem to get better with age - that splotch of mold, those dings and chips on the Styrofoam tombstones - well that just makes them more authentic.

At the Hauntmaster household, we're minimalist, as opposed to overtly guady. We shy away from Strobe Lights, which add nothing more than nausea to the haunt - but we're big fans of fog machines.  The problem with fog machines on a cold Halloween night is that the fog comes out of the fogger at a high temperature, which makes it go right up into the sky.  The yard looks more like a Roman Bath than a creepy graveyard.  The fix is to cool the fog - which is easy enough to do by taking flexible plastic drainage pipe or a dryer vent pipe and filling it with ice and piping the fog through it.  A $10 fix (including ice) for what normally costs $70.00 - though by all means by the $70 fogger if you'd like.

Lighting is also key - the more subtle the better. There are these small flickering Tea Lights that are no bigger than a quarter - and cost less than $5 for a package of two.  These are great to put in front of graves as some ambient light, as well as to put them in little plastic pumpkins which can line your walkway.  There's always the dramatic tiki torches that you can pull out of summer storage - nothing says you're burning off the plague at the graveyard like some roaring tikis - just keep them up and away from where your visitors will walk.  I like a nice charred corpse as much as anyone else, I just don't want them to be friends and family.

If you're a big fan of Jack-O-Lanterns, learn to embrace the synthetic pumpkins that you can buy at your local craft store.  With a nice stencil and a sharp exacto blade, you can create a marvelous grinning pumpkin (or munkin, as the 2yr old Hauntlet says) that can be used year after year with no wear and tear.  Obviously, you'll have to put a flickering light stand in the munkin, as a real candle will revert us back to the charred corpse scenario.

Don't waste your money on Halloween sound effect CDs, log into ITunes or search public domain MP3s for your own Haunt Soundtrack.  A desktop computer with its speakers pointed out the window will suffice just nicely - though be certain to have a nice mix of Haunts on your PC, as repition will drive your visitors and more importanly yourself mad.  Unless that's your goal, then by all means, listen to the Monster Mash fifty times.

Finally, do take the time to purchase fine quality spider webs - do NOT get the ones that feel like the innards of a pillow - you want the synthetic stretching web.  The more places you stretch it across, the better it looks - if you put the web on three points it's going to look like someone threw white pantyhose on your bushes.  Stretch it out - and keep it away from the Tiki torches!