Haunted House 2007

Every year at Halloween, Michelle's cousin puts on this HUGE haunted house production in his back yard. It's a tradition that's been going on for something like seven years, and each year it gets bigger, scarier, and more popular. This year his neighbor wanted to participate, too, so they knocked a wall down between their yards, and this thing ran in two back yards. We must have done our jobs well this year, because there were two (that we know of) adult guests that due to fright, spontaneously lost bladder control. Perhaps next year we should hand out diapers instead of candy bars!

Below are four pictures and a video from the event, but we took many many more. Took some daytime shots of the back yard(s), some shots of the characters getting ready, some general shots of family members hanging around, and of course, some shots of the haunted house. To see all of the pictures taken at the event, please click here.

Above is a shot of most of the crew that worked the haunted house. This is all family and friends of family. It was a lot of work, but we had a GREAT time!!!

Above is a shot of Christopher, who jumped out at folks with a running chainsaw and scared the wits out of them!

A happier, not-so-haunted activity. Selling hot chocolate to the people waiting in line. Even though admission to the haunted house is always free, this year we thought we'd try selling hot chocolate to keep people warm. The temps were probably in the high 30s during our lovely little affair. Throughout the course of the night, we estimated 400-500 people going through the haunted house. Because we had three tour guides, and took people through in groups of 4 to 6, a lot of people waited quite a while to get in.

One of the "exhibits" was a funeral scene, where the "dead" person (really a live person) goes from a completely still state, to sitting up and completely freaking people out!

For my part in the haunted house, I played the role of executioner using a guillotine, and my "victim" was Justin. Below is a silly video we shot before the haunted house opened, with me cracking a not-so-funny joke. Justin's timing got considerably better by the end of the very dark night, too, and people were utterly shocked by this effect. We got reactions ranging from stunned silence to spontaneous loss of bladder control to terrified screams. Fun stuff. :-)
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