Carnival of Souls 2008

In 2008, Carnival of Souls hosted its first walk-through haunted house, something we've been building up to for years but never had the resources to pull off.

Staffed by thirteen (!) actors, the attraction was open from 6:30 until about 10:30, making this the longest Carnival of Souls yet. The haunted house took about 10 minutes to go through, and had five distinct areas.

By just about any measure, the haunted house was a huge hit. Cries of "That was awesome!" were heard throughout the night. Our volunteers did a spectacular acting, design, and construction job on this one. They really knocked it out of the park!

Continue reading to see descriptions of each area, video of the entire haunt, and behind-the-scenes information about how we pulled it off.

The Walkthrough

Here is video showing a full walkthrough of the haunt from start to finish.

Sorry for the low quality video, but it was very dark, and the only way to capture what was going on was to shoot it with night-shot.

The Guides

Each group of 4 children (plus parents) were guided through the haunt by one of three distinct personalities:

Harry Potterson, the Adventurer

Harry Potterson, played by Nick, is the Aussie host of "Haunt Hunters," a reality TV show that goes to haunted places and explores them. He's always looking for scary things which generate good ratings. He's a really jovial and upbeat guy, but he does get annoyed when people confuse him with some other guy whose name sounds similar. (You can see some of Nick's performance in the video clips below.)

Madame Sarita, the Mystic

Tracy reprised her role as Madame Sarita, guardian of the veil between the spirit world and the mortal world, who was on hand to guide would-be guardians through the dark world of the Blackwood Cemetery. She received word from the Guardian's Council that evil was brewing, and she needed help to put a stop to it.

Professor Armitage, the Academic

Kurt played Professor Armitage, an academic from Miskatonic University whose researches have led him to believe that there was sinister activity happening at the Blackwood Cemetery. Without his expendable grad students, he had to turn to the available trick-or-treaters to assist him in his expedition, where he could save the world, and possibly even get a good, publishable paper out of it, too.

Plot Synopsis

Here is a synopsis of the plot, and the various areas the children were taken through.

The Line Queue

Before entering the haunt, visitors stood in the line queue. There, they were entertained by the Hurds, who juggled spectral objects in the graveyard while they waited.

Also, the guides would come out and interact with the visitors between groups so they could get to know them a bit before going in. This would also be where visitors would find out that they were going to enter the Blackwood Cemetery and look for ancient artifacts with which to defeat a looming evil.

The Courtyard

Visitors had to walk through the courtyard (our backyard) before they could get to the main part of the haunt. We had dry ice going in the fountain with glow sticks, so it looked really creepy. Some corpses were laid out to look as if they were trying to reach the fountain, but never got there.

Once through the courtyard, the visitors would walk up to the entrance to the Blackwood Mausoleum, which was lit up with a spooky blue light and a lone, faintly-flickering lantern.

The Mausoleum Entryway

The first room of the Mausoleum had nine crypt doors on the far wall, and the visitors had to reach into them to look for artifacts.

Inside the crypts, they found four mystical swords that glowed with a spectral light. With them was a scroll which read:

The forces of darkness rue these blades
To make their evil power fade
Point at them to make them weak
And aloud the word "Expello" speak

Indeed, the visitors had found the mystical swords of power, which could be used to fight off the forces of evil. After some practice to make sure the children knew how to protect themselves with the swords, by pointing them at an enemy and shouting "Expello!", they moved on to the next room.

The Crypt of the Vampire

Beyond the crypts, the stalwarts encountered their first challenge. They needed to find an artifact in the sarcophagus of a long-dead vampire. Their guide had them hold their swords at the ready, and opened the sarcophagus quickly to see what was inside, and then shut it.

Thankfully, inside, were only long dead bones. They could examine the sarcophagus at their liesure, so they re-opened the sarcophagus, only to discover that it contained a real and very much alive (well, so to speak) vampire!

With a shout of "Expello!", our adventurers defeated the vampire, causing it to drop its amulet of power!

The Hall of Heads

The group emerged from the crypt into a sinister-looking courtyard littered with pumpkins, skulls, and marble busts - the "hall of heads".

At the far end of the courtyard stood a gypsy woman who challenged the adventurers with a riddle to see if they were worthy to proceed. The answer to the riddle was "spiders", which was telling, because the gypsy informed them that they would have to brave the Bower of Spiders to reach their goal, and she motioned a silent guardian to stand aside from a stone archway leading into a dark keep.

The Bower of Spiders

Beyond the Hall of Heads, the Bower of Spiders was a twisting maze of web-choked passages crawling with spiders of all sizes, from tiny to as large as a labrador!

But after the final turn came the greatest shock of all: a giant spider, large as a grown man, hanging from the ceiling and menacing them less than a foot away!

Thankfully, the spider was a wise creature who understood the dire situation at hand - the dark powers of the earth were preparing to break into the mortal world. The spider gave to them the four stones of power which they would need to restore the altar of warding in the temple beyond the bower.

The Cursed Antechamber

Entering the temple, the heroes entered an antechamber beyond the spider cave. There, they found a wounded monk who begged them not to continue, warning them of the grave dangers they were about to face, but there was no turning back, so he advised them to use their swords, but be willing to give them up as well should the needs of the moment require.

The Temple of the Guardian

Emerging into a large stone room, they saw a massive stone altar that glowed with mystical energy. Beyond was a huge, circular pit that had a warding spell over it.

To either side were great stone arches beyond which the group could see furtive shapes crouching and darting about.

Placing the amulet of power in the center of the altar, there was a sudden booming noise! The seal on the pit had been broken - the vampire had tricked them into breaking the seal! Immediately, the dark powers of the earth rose up out of the pit and floated toward them!

At that moment, shambling zombies lunged out of the alcoves and attacked! Only by their brave use of their swords were our heroes able to fight them back, chanting "Expello! Expello!" The creatures of darkness screamed and darted away from the onslaught.

But they would not be gone for long! They placed the stones of power onto the niches on the altar, causing great rings of mystical energy to form between them and the dark powers. Still, it drew closer, hungry for their souls! Zombies attacked again and again as they worked to restore the warding symbol.

Finally, the terrible decision: to seal the pit once and for all, they had to insert their swords into the altar to lock down the mystical energy. As the final sword was set into the altar, the dark powers howled in rage, and were pushed back into their pit, defeated once more...at least until next Halloween!

Behind the scenes tour

Here is yours truly giving you a morning-after tour of the haunt, showing you the behind-the-scenes scoop on our haunt.