A fellow New Hampshire haunter, Eric from Haunted Overload http://www.hauntedoverload.com/main.htm emailed me about another group of haunters in NH, Fright Fest NH http://www.frightfestnh.com/index.htm that are running a fund raiser this weekend.  They’re looking for people to come help out in running this event at their haunt to play the spooks for one night.  I was pleased that Eric had thought of me and sent the email about this, what could be better than Halloween in June?  C’mon, I had to do this!  So tomorrow night 6/15 I’ll be heading up to Nashua NH to see what the Fright Fest set up is all about and find out what I’ll be doing on Friday night for the actual event.  This should be a good chance to make some more Halloween contacts and have some fun at the same time.  I will post again and let you all know how this goes and what the haunt was like.

Please check out the links to these friends sites when you can!  Eric’s setup for Haunted Overload is incredible to say the least!  I can’t wait to see the Fright Fest haunt in person!

See Ya!

Paul

Man I'm really getting sick of the rain we've been having up here in NH.  I haven't been able to get anything started on my dragon prop because of this weather, it sucks!  I have to build a frame for this thing and think I won't have room to do it inside correctly.  So outdoors is the place but it's very wet right now and has been for weeks.  Maybe sometime this Sunday I'll be able to start laying out some stuff and get my lazy ass in gear, before I know it it'll be OCtober and I'll be in the same boat as last year....WAY BEHIND!!

Hope all of you are having a better time at any new projects you have going together!

Spent time this weekend working on my Johnny Appleseed and I am liking this paper maching. I believe I will order me a couple of more skulls and try to create some props for the trail. I plan on putting Johnny near the cook out where everyone can see him. Funny thing happened with my Johnny skull, I kept finding it in a couple of different places while it was drying out. I finally brought it in the house and somehow it ended up on the floor. Tim said, "that SOB is haunted already!" Weird.

Tim didn't get the corn planted and I am very disappointed about that so I have had to totally restructure the trail plan. I guess it is not as much work on me, which is a good thing, but that corn maze at the end would have been awesome! I will just have to move things around and place sites a little differently. I haven't gotten my Ancient Evil mask yet but my 2 Confederate battle flags are in. I was very happy with them. I will have to post them on something this weekend. I hope my buried Confederate uniform is molding nicely. I will see in October. Got the idea off of site Skull and Bone which is a pretty good one to check out.

Work continues to suck. That's all on that matter. Need to go, Tim and I are meeting with Jacob's physical therapist. More later...

Discovered this mask and it ties in with my theme I think, I am buying it today, it will be the last site on the tour:

Fontgeek sent me this info on how to make some invites and I want to save what he said here so I don't lose it. I love his ideas on good invitations:

I would go on a fairly heavy cardstock.  You could do
it with white or even a colored paper, the colored
paper would supply the color for the eyes and
lettering.  You may be better off with using white,
and adding the color in yourself, it gives you the
options to add or use any color in the printing or
painting process.  I would also be tempted to use an
old scraggly looking lettering style to tell the story
you sent me, I would do that on parchment  paper, you
can burn, tear, rumple the paper and edges to give it
some "age", make it look like it was part of a diary
or an old letter or something.  If you can find the
local Native American word for beware, or caution,
something along those lines, you can use it in the
letter, and then use it as a single word on the front
of the card, the reader will know what it means
because it was explained in the letter, and the one
mysterious word for the front of the card, along with
the eyes looking out from the trees will  pull anybody
in.  Then on the inside of the card, you kind of post
your challenge and then the vital party info.  You
don't want to have any of the inside text showing
through the trees, just the eyes.
Brian

Well, I got ole Mr. Thrifty Spider and I was a little pissed at the size, but then I remember Putrid posting on the Forum, "little small isn't it?" so I was mainly mad at myself. It looks GOOD, just not big enough for what I had in mind. I will corpse it anyway and use it somewhere. The skull on the little booger is spooky as hell. I also got in my Vampire Child mask from Fright Catalog and I was also disappointed in it. It didn't look as bloody as the pictures. I will have to make it "wet" looking.  Jacob and I went up what he calls "the Halloween trail" this weekend and I was trying to visualize some things. I am needing the leaves to fill in so I can decide what needs to go where. I am also working on the soldier uniforms, I have one completed and only have MANY more to go. I am definitely not a seamstress but I don't think it will matter in the dark. Damon and I have decided to purchase together the BAD SEED creature reacher. He thinks it will be just too cool popping out of our haunted Pumpkin Patch. I plan on getting that and maybe the Rotting Ralph mask and I will be through buying for awhile. Need to contact Jeff at Frightener's and let him know I want it (Bad Seed)...

Bad Seed

Bought this little booger today and gotta get some gel stain for him. Hope he will be scary:

Ideas for Names for this year's haunt: Undecided at this time but leaning towards   Dark Hollow

Dark Hollow

ScareCrow Hollow

Pinson's Haunted Hollow

Mansfield's Haunted Hollow

The Haunted Woods

The Woods

Site Ideas (order undecided at this time)

Need to create something as the wagon starts up the trail at the log pile. Old Indian? Solider stopping the wagon with warning and then sending them on?

Have red LED eyes to appear in the woods throughout the walk...

Create beside the trail a pile of heads, arms, legs...goes where?

1.  Drummer Boy: corpsed Bart dressed in rotten Confederate outfit. Will be holding a sign at the beginning of the trail. A drum will be near. Michelle H. to make sign.

2.  Monster Dining: Vampire Child mask to be bought from Cheap Creeps. Create body of Union soldier for this site. Group is emersed in total darkness, a horrible smell hits them first (get Audra to get few parts from slauterhouse). They keep walking and come upon dim lit area, monster has his back to them, bent over the bloodied body of Union soldier--eating. It turns to look at them, then jumps...

3.  "Help Me!": Create area that looks like storage of body parts. On some part take plastic and create "Help Me" backwards, in red paint, also hand prints and "bloody" smears on plastic. Someone suddenly shake plastic and scream!

4.  Hosptial/Mad Surgeon:  Would be near the Help Me site, This is an idea at this time, have someone dressed in bloody surgeon gown wielding bloody instruments. Tents constructed everywhere with body parts and occasional scream.

5.  Dark Hollow Cemetary: On side of the trail or down a path of trail, create cemetary (walk through)

6.  SouthernBelle: (can be close to the cemetary?) Lady in rocking chair, dressed as Southern Belle, cover completely in black sheers, rocking back and forth. Looks up, red LED eyes stare back? only rock?????

7.  Haunted Pumpkin Patch: Carve and light many pumpkins, fix scarecrows in and around patch, Pumpkin King (need to find mask, Death Studio one below interests me greatly) comes from somewhere out of the dark for the scare, bloody some pumpkins and area and have wedding prop head and ball gown to be bloodied for sacrifice

8.  Spider:  Buy Spider Thrifty from Buckey's Boneyard and corpse in mahagony gel stain, find a large, ugly spider? do victims wrapped in inside of comforter, soliders, spider webs bloodied (like this idea?)

9.  Battle Scene: take Blue's air cannon and Tim set charges union and confed soliders that are Zombies/ Ghosts are engaged in final battle or do I only want sounds of a battle?

10. Cornfield Maze:

Things I have to be used: small old green trunk, Creeper Mask, 5'7 Bucky skeleton

DARK HOLLOW

            January 1834 John Hastings moved to Mansfield, TN and built a cabin upon the farm the locals called Dark Hollow. In the spring of that year he was working on clearing a field at the top of the hollow when an old Indian walked out of the surrounding woods and into the meadow. John had spent some years out on the plains hunting and trapping so he was not afraid of the giant Indian, but wary. The Indian told John he needed to palaver with him as there were things he felt John should know about some of the land he had purchased. John asked the Indian to supper where they could discuss this strange appearance of the Indian and things he needed to share with John. The Indian told John he must be very careful, that part of the land he now lived on was considered “cursed.” A long time before an evil came upon the local Indians that resided on the land. The tribe would find its members murdered in various ways that was extremely disturbing and because of this war broke out among the tribes. It was during this war a respected Shaman among all the tribes had a vision in which the spirits showed him that the murders were the work of an evil creature. This creature fed off violence, bloodshed and fear. In our world they had no form of their own but could assume the shape of what was most feared in a person’s mind. The only that they could not change was their eyes that glowed red in the darkness. He told John these creatures could be defeated by cleansing the mind of any fear and hatred, and to spill no blood, thus denying the evil any chance to feed. The Indians eventually drove the evil creatures back and imprisoned them on a hill; the top of the very hollow John was working at that morning. They made a great sacrifice so the evil could not escape and hoped it never would unless it was fed.

            John was not a superstitious man but still thanked the old Indian for his warning. The old Indian disappeared back into the darkness of the woods never to be seen by John again. John never finished clearing the field; he never hunted there and never walked it after dark. Thirty years later on October  28,1864 the Civil War came to Dark Hollow. A fierce battle was fought on the hill and John stayed in his cabin listening to the crashing of the muskets and roar of the cannon fire. That night the screams of the wounded and dying was all he could hear. The next morning he helped bury the dead and the ones from the top of the hill were the worst. Some looked as if they had been attacked by an animal and others had not a mark on them but a look of horror was etched in their faces.  As darkness fell John watched the last wagon roll down from the hollow. He turned quickly and peered into the darkness, unbelief washing over him as glowing red eyes stared back, John’s screams echoed through the woods…the evil had returned to Dark Hollow.

I bought a life size skull and and 4ft Bucky today from Buckey's Boneyard; they are having a big sale and I got in on it. I received Dame's story line today and as usual he has out done himself. It is going to work perfectly, just needs some fine tuning and I will add it here. Tim cleaned out the garage and has made me a spot to start working on my props. I love that man! I am going to paper mache the skull for my Johnny and corspe the Bucky for my "Drummer Boy" prop. I have to buy some materials to get started and will do that as soon as I have time. Finally getting started after all these ideas racing around in my head and it will help my stress level. Went into the woods this weekend to start getting ideas for places and scares. Lots to do but still plenty of time, although it always gets here before I know it.

Spent the afternoon, since it was much slower at work than the morning, researching "corpsing" and paper mache. I am going to try some of this for this year. I have copied and downloaded ideas and am going to try to corpse my Big Lots bucky. Damon said he will have his version of the story to me by this coming Monday. I await it with bated breath...

For two days I have been having luck with costume items; a coworker brought in a black trench coat for my Johnny Appleseed and a long black choir robe. Then today I went to visit Salvation Army and was able to get 2 prom dresses and a hat to decorate for a  zombie (something scary) Southern Belle, and 2 blue suit coats and 3 gray suit coats to start working on my solidiers outfits. I also got a good hat I might could use for a man costume for the era. I was wilder than a March hare I was so excited! Thank goodness for thrift store finds, strange things make me happy. Now if I could just start bringing in some ideas to start creating some things as props. I want to use as many props as I can use this year, so I know I need to quit talking/writing about it and get started. I sent a pm to someone on Unpleasant Street forum hoping to find out how to paper mache. I have absolutely no idea how to do it. More later...

Talked with Cousin Damon this weekend and we are finalizing the theme for this year's haunt. He should be getting the story to me this week and when I get that I hope to be off and running. I definitely know "the where" and have a good idea about "the what" (tha Cibal Woah idea) so maybe I can get through with all the planning and start the working. I am going to get my invites ready as soon as we get the theme planned out. That is always a big headache so I want to get it out of the way. I have been standing on the second floor of my house this winter looking at the trail and thinking about it. I have so many ideas but am having a hard time pulling them all together. I had a thread on Halloween Forum that was of much help, lots of good ideas were posted. I do most of my work on the haunt at free time while working and there hasn't been much of that lately at the ole Juvenile Court. Supervising all these personalities is about to drive me nuts. Everyone doesn't understand I need to be in "my happy place" every now and then so I don't SNAP!! Debating on how to do the face of my Johnny Appleseed, going to get busy on it. More later...

Well, since I've seen DeathTouch getting so much stuff done already I've decided to at least get some things into the planning stage.  I have been inspired by some stuff I've seen him do and antoher haunter here in NH.  We have a few somewhat major projects to get going on, new pirate ship area, new UFO, additional walls for the castle, the ever elusive "Pepper's Ghost" and a dragon prop to beat all dragon props this side of Universial Studios...

I have a good idea about most of these and I will start work on them as soon as I can, I will have to in order to actually have any for Halloween 2006.  I will keep you all updated as to the progress, or lack there of...and will definaltey have photos as I go along...