Do it yourself

You can do the same effects we do here at Carnival of Souls in your own home haunt. We provide the instructions, you provide the haunt!

Easy effects

These are easy effects that you can do with little trouble or expense.

	Attic Apparitions Make a spooky, ghostly display with a deceptively simple setup.		Piratical Pumpkin Our carving template adds a little piratical fun to your Jack-o-Lanterns.
	Spirits in the Trees Make eerie ghostly spirits to hang in your trees and creep out your visitors.		Tombs for Tiny Tots These Gorey-esque tombstones are easy to make, and have funny cautionary epitaphs.
	Easy Possession Effect This easy but striking trick can be used to instantly change someone from looking absolutely normal to looking possessed by an evil spirit.

Advanced effects

These are more advanced effects that require a larger time, cost, or effort investment, but which also provide your visitors with a more haunting and special experience.

	The Magic Mirror Our signature effect! Pioneered by the Carnival of Souls a decade ago, this interactive digital puppet presented in a facade gives your visitors a compelling and spooky interactive experience on your front porch, at your school's Halloween party, or at your fundraiser. Since sharing this technique, thousands of kids all over the country have delighted in this effect as home haunters everywhere have recreated it for their own neighborhoods.
	The Crypt of the Phantasm One of the staples of the home haunt community is the Flying Crank Ghost. Here at the Carnival of Souls, we enhanced the effect by building a standalone crypt to house one so that she could haunt our front yard graveyard.
	Black light puppetry Several years running, we leveraged black light puppetry to create ghostly shows with ghosts and magic spells which delighted the kids and got rave reviews. Here's how you can do it, too.
	Double-hinged sarcophagus For our 2008 haunt, we came up with a sneaky switcheroo stunt to produce a vampire out of a pile of bones.
	Hurricane Cubes Our outdoor haunt needed indoor locations on a budget. Hurricane cubes were the answer.
	Latex puppet heads For our 2004 events, we made latex heads for our black light puppet show puppets. Here's how we did it.

Hacks

These are "hacks" we've done to the effects presented by other home haunters to change the way they work or make them more effective, depending on your goals.

	Singing Busts Hack In 2006, Target offered talking busts. We build on my-mania's instructions on hacking them to speak based on your own audio source.
	Spookyfire Hack This is our extension to Spooky Blue's "Spookyfire" blobs to make them look like realistic candle flames.