Customer Reviews

Haunted House Halloween Handbook

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book seems targeted at someone that is planning to help build a medium scale haunted house for a charity event. It does this very well, describing the essence of what is scary and why, as well as all the steps required to create a safe and profitable haunted house on schedule. The author focuses on how to do first rate effects on a third rate budget though the use of innovation and imagination (and most importantly, his experience, which he shares with you). Most haunted houses are just stupid, because the designers build something that sounds like it would be scary, but does not really scare people. This author understands that people going to a haunted house want to be scared and he describes the essence of the subtle differences that transform an effect from eliciting a yawn to invoking a scream.

I have been building haunted scenes in my home for (gulp) thirty years and have produced medium scale haunted houses for charities, but I still learned a number of things from this book. The books includes plans, instructions, parts, and suppliers. The author (I learned after reading the book) builds low cost scary effects where are superior in scare and lowest in cost, of any I have seen. The book does not quite give enough specific information to build these for yourself, but it does cover a lot of other stuff. If you spend more then $150/year of scary stuff then you qualify as a Halloween nut and you should buy this book.

This book isnt (alas) for everyone. This is for true Halloween enthusiasts willing to spend tens of hours, days, or even months preparing for a scary event. If you want tips for making your home a hallmark Halloween showcase, this is not the book for you.

every year my friends and i do a haunted house in our friend's garage. we needed some new fresh ideas and this book helped greatly!! this book is easy to understand but makes it easy to have great professional looking haunted house ... even in your friend's garage :)

I've been building a haunted house with a church group for maybe 5 years running. The youth won't let me stop! Every year I get a call asking if I'll help with the haunted house, both from the participants and the patrons. Everybody loves it!

OK, so the book doesn't provide dimensioned engineering drawings, and it maybe a bit vague. Working with a youth group, it's perfect. They often only need some general thoughts, and they can run with the details.

There are a lot of ideas for content posted to the internet. Chavez does a reasonable job of educating about what to look for in those ideas, so you look for ideas that are safe, provide a reasonable effect, and for a reasonable price.

Very basic book that MAY be helpful to a home haunter, but if you serious about producing a haunted attraction, this book will be of little help to you. The book's drawings are simplistic and the description of props is somewhat vague, however, there are some basic technics that can utilized to create certain effects. The book's discussion of the finances of a haunted attraction is very limited and unimaginative. The use of actors to replace mechanical activation of effects is prominent in this book which leads me to believe that the authors financial skills are lacking( Labor cost & insurance are monumental hurdles in any haunted attraction). In general I would reccommend that you save your money on this one, the internet provides most of information in the book "free for the asking".

The 'HHHH' was designed for haunted house enthusiasts who are brimming with imagination. It's written like a sugar cookie recipe to be dressed up with any kind of toppings or mix-ins that the reader can concoct. If the book is followed step by step it would produce a simple and effective charity haunt, but mix in a healthy dose of creativity and the sky (or grave yard) is the limit. Anyone who can't pull a beautiful haunt from this book is severely lacking in haunt talent and needs to leave haunting to the professionals.

A great book for the motivated home haunter, great ideas and scenes that can be built on a budget. Your not going to put any haunted house out of business, but you will be the hit of the neighborhood. You need to have a creative mind to go along with the concepts presented, this a guide not a by the numbers book. If you are like me and work on Halloween projects all year round, you will enjoy this book. If you want so some cute wood cutouts to put in the yard, this book is not for you.

This book provides all necessary information for people interested in starting their own haunted house or their own haunted house party. The author has suceeded in offering a truly informative reference guide.

This book provides excellent information about operating a haunted attraction. It covers more than just effects. Planning, location, safety, advertising, and other important subjects are covered. The production value of the book is lower than I expected; that's why I only give it 4 out of 5 stars. The artwork is simple but adequate. However, the quality and amount of information makes this book well worth the price.

I just wasted abou 30 bucks on this book. i hope I can getit back too. If you are serious about wanting to make a haunted house that is scary, don' buy this. I think this book is for people that ar trying to make their house look cool on halloween or whatever. It talks about running an actual haunted house event, but like I say, if you are serious, this is just not even helpful. The most important aspects of operating a haunted house are just outlined briefly in the book. Most of the book concentrates on building props and masks. It dosen't even make sense on most of it. Why wouldn't someone just buy masks and create the haunted house like they wanted too? i found ONE idea out of the whole book i liked. As far as knowing how to get one started I'm right where I began. In my opinion, you just have to try to get a haunted house in order by your own insticts, because I learnt the hard way, books can't do it!