Portal of Correa's 2012 Haunt

What started 17 years or so ago as a typical halloween decorated yard has grown over the years to an obsession that takes my family and several friends 8 to 10 weeks to build, of course that doesn't include side projects we work on through out the year. Most of the pictures you are about to see were taken during the day, night pictures are generally to filled with flashed fog to do any good and despite numerous attempts with different video camera's we were unable to get useable footage

Step 1: To the entrance

The past few years we have had large crowds on multiple nights so we set up a que, the front yard is decorated pretty much like the average home. Leading up to the Haunt entrance are several projects. props or decorations I'm not sure what they are considered. We have a couple of lolipop ghosts, my dragon and several mini haunted houses I created from discarded doll houses

Comments

[cdawisconsin]

Amazing. I want to come next year. Love the mini haunted houses, that crazy refigerator, and the black room with the hidden guy.

[l8nite]

Thank you cda ! We change everything every year but I'm sure we'll use the kitchen stuff in another scene. The "black" room and its actors costume where covered with fluorescent paint squirted from the tube but it doesn't show in the pics, it was the best scare of the season and we're trying to figure out how to change it and yet keep it the same, one idea is to use a bunch of identical masks painted different colors and hung at several levels with the actor wearing one.
The mini houses didn't turn out as I intended, I was going to print out scenes and mount on thin plastic sheets in the "windows" then back light it all but I ran out of time. The houses were still a big hit with customers of all ages and now I have about a year to change them up !

[geokaren]

Holy cow!! How long does it take you to set all this up and where do you store it all? This is amazing and it's no wonder you have people lined up for days! We will eventually build up to something more elaborate but the weather here in Saskatchewan does not lend itself to outdoor interactive displays - it's way too cold for that! Thanks for sharing!

[l8nite]

Here in Florida we worry more about it being too hot for our masks, we were lucky to have several cool evenings in the 70's for the Haunt.
The actual build this year took about 7 weeks of parttime work by my son, his business partner, my son in law and occasionally one or 2 other friends, decorating took another 3 or 4 days and then a couple days for detailing and tweaking.
As for storage we have a 12x12' shed and the 20' box truck seen in the swamp ape scene, everything except the kitchen appliances, bathroom fixtures and fence panels get stored in those.
15 yrs ago we used a single 10x20' portable carport cover for the haunt (about the size of a single car garage) and it was pretty cheesy with mostly store bought decorations and it has morphed over the years to the monster you see here.
With the creativity you showed in your haunt you are well ahead of where we were as beginners and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do for 2013.. HAPPY HAUNTING