Need Scary Tale Suggestions

[PeeWeePinson]

After having to pospone my big haunt until 2010 bcause of son's surgery I am now able to start planning for this year. Decided on a previous theme I wasn't able to complete which is Scary Tales and am needing some advise on the scares. I am dividing each "tale" into sections or big rooms and have some ideas but need more on how to make the scare work. Just wanted to hear any ideas you guys have:

Malice in Wonderland- I am buying the big Peter Rottentail costume
Little Dead Riding Hood- I know I want a werewolf but how could I do this one?
Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater-I have the Bad Seed mask and costume, not sure how to use
Mary "Had" a Little Lamb-going to use a little girl dressed as Mary with lamb on a shepperd's hook
Snow Fright- I have a Meat Eater mask with a Snow White costume
Hansel and Gretel-having little boy and girl in a dog crate in a gingerbread house with a witch

HELP!!!! Where would the scare come from with these things? Thank you!
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[grantbrott]

This completely reminded me of the McFarland Twisted Fairy Tales product line http://www.spawn.com/toys/series.aspx?series=270 if you have not seen them before they really fit your room ideas so far and has some creepy images. Just having scenes like these with live people playing the different characters would be pretty creepy in my opinion.

[fontgeek]

for Malice in Wonderland, how bad do you want to scare people?
From the simple things like the Cheshire Cat's smile that has a nasty set of fangs that float in mid air. to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum munching away on a fresh cut of leg of Alice, or maybe the March Hare on a spit. The Mad Hatter can be offering candy.
For Little Red Riding Hood's wolf/werewolf how about the four poster bed with Red being shredded on the bed next to the remnants of Grandma? The werewolf can be mimicking LRR with a cynical tone and growl, you can have the remnants of the hunter scattered by the bed too.
You can use the same wolf for a Three Little Pigs scene too.
For a carnival type spot and a bit of humor you can have someone large behind a curtain with a bucket of KFC and a sign out front for a 250LBS maneating chicken.
For Hansel and Grettle you can have them caged with the Witch firing up the old cauldron with a large cookbook open to a recipe for them, you can be as creative as you want on the recipe, and if you want to play it with more humor have a TV going to the Food network with a "Cooking Show" showing the proper way to prep and cook kids. You would need to make the video, but you can be as creative and humorous as you wish. Maybe a "Bobby Flayer" showing how to properly debone or flay the kids?
How about the 7 Dwarves sitting down to have Snow White for dinner?

[nixie]

Our haunt has a twisted storybook theme. We just expand on the same theme every year, it's a really fun theme to work with. This year we are (hopefully) expanding our Alice in Wonderland scene, putting a giant dragon on the roof, creating a Three Billy Goats' Gruff scene, and adding a Washington Irving tombstone with a Headless Horseman statuary. Our haunt is no-gore, but I think it's still pretty creepy. The original (pre-Disney) versions of many fairy tales are plenty creepy as they are, so we just try to capitalize on that feel.

You can link to our haunt website in my signature. The home page is set for the "off season" right now, but our haunt page is still there in the menu on the right. Maybe you'll see something you can use.

[nixie]

By the way, did you know that Little Dead Riding Hood was an early Tim Burton story concept turned down by Disney? Foolish Disney mortals... Just a fun bit of trivia for those who didn't know.

[Ryan Wern]

Malice in Wonderland- Why not a castle-themed room with a drop panel with a nasty, rotten zombie Queen behind it holding a severed head "Off with their heads!"

Little Dead Riding Hood- Werewolf lying on a bed, jumps up and lunges at ToT's and says "The better to eat you with"

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater-Trash can trauma-type prop

Mary "Had" a Little Lamb-I like your idea

Snow Fright- A few undead dwarfs eating Snow White

Hansel and Gretel-A witch stirring a pot filled with limbs would be a nice prop, then maybe a headless Hansel or Gretel can pop out from somewhere

I don't know, I'm tired and this is the best I can think of right now

[Papa McCain]

LDRH room. Plywood cutouts of trees and bushes throughout. Dead Red facing away from audience turns and reveals her mutilated zombie face. With everyone's attention there, the werewolf jumps out from his hiding place near the front close to the crowd roaring loudly. I guarantee there will be screams, and probably a few emptied bladders.

Pumpkin eater room, black with a hoarde of blacklight illuminated pumpkins, some hanging in midair, some sitting close to the audience path. Your mask on an actor otherwise dressed in black at a distance that blends with the floating pumpkins suddenly jumps out at crowd when they think it's just a lame pumpkin display.

Mary had a little lamb, for dinner... rather than on a hook, if you have a young or at least small actress that won't get bored and wander off (like mine last year) blood on the lamb, blood on her mouth, some drops on her costume. She can be eating the lamb raw as folks come through, give them a growl or snarl and turn, protecting her meal and continue eating.

Just had a thought for another room, the Miss Muffett room. Props are a small stool, wooden bowl and spoon dropped on the floor spilling oatmeal (I've tried finding curds and whey at Albertson's), a little girl's shoe. As the scene is understood, a prop man behind the scenes drops the biggest spider you can find (something that could handle a great dane with ease) or if you're into pneumatics do a search for pneumatic spitting spider, an awesome prop!

Good luck!

[trentsketch]

Little Dead Riding Hood - I think the obvious choice is a werewolf with tatters of red fabric hanging from its mouth prowling through a picnic basket, but that might just be me.

[fontgeek]

For Sleeping Beauty, it would probably be easier to have her, Sleeping Beauty, gorging on the Dwarves than having Dwarves consuming her. Dwarves would be harder to find or manufacture, and having to do seven different ones just makes it that much harder.

I believe this whole haunt is outdoors in a real life field or forrest, so that needs to be kept in mind when dreaming up scenes.

One thing I think we need to keep in mind is that many of the kids or guests won't know the original stories or rhymes, so each scene needs to be complete enough in it's story telling to keep in interesting to viewers. If a whole scene is based on presumed knowledge by the viewers, then the scene is lost or meaningless to those who don't know or make the connection to the original story.

[PeeWeePinson]

Thank you guys! What great ideas, I am printing this thread as I am writing this.

[Rasputin]

I was going to do this for my haunt but I am now uncertain as to whether or not I will do one at all this year (my theme would be a haunted movie theater) anyway, with this type of theme, there are a few directions you can go:

1) The characters grew up with the audience; The characters are evil; or the villians won the stories.

2) You need to pick the stories, lesser used examples are Pinocchio, Rumplestilksen, and Peter Pan. Also during this stage you need to pick whether or not to use the "Disney" versions or use the original fairy tale (this is more or less is determined by the "direction" you go in) Make sure you utilize your venue!! It's hard to build a forest in a hallway.

3) Now pick the scariest parts you can think of in the story or think of ways you can make your favorite (relevent) parts of the story (no one wants to see dead dwarves sadly whistling to work) scary. Example: Pinocchio in Mangiafuoco(Stromboli)'s cart with all the puppets (you can see where I am going with that).

4) When you go through your ideas, ask yourself if you want to make signs for each scene. If the answer to that is no, then make everyone can easily guess as to what the story is.

5) Now, is there a reason the audience should go through your haunt (other than it is the only one on the street)? Give a story to it (I had a really good idea for this but don't want to post it until I see if it could play out well) One could be a villain (such as an evil queen) has finally taken hold of the fairy tale kingdom and "fixed" the fairy tales. You can show this through out the house by putting a queen with a quill pen and a book at every empty corner (but spice it up, Make the queen stand behind a bookshelf, add an extra shelf, bolt down the books and put it on something so it can fly to the left when she pushes it and pops out). I hope my little "tutorial" has helped you out.

[nixie]

The direction I take is that the villains have risen from the grave to seek revenge on their storybook counterparts. All of the "good guys" are normal looking, extra wide-eyed and innocent (to hopefully evoke sympathy) and situated with their villainous counterparts who are all undead, rotting, and grey. I use warm amber light for most of the haunt, then try to light the villains with cold blue light for contrast. I don't know if it carries over to those who come to see it, but that's what I go for.

[grantbrott]

We just did a podcast on our site Haunted House Startup where we briefly cover topics related to twisted fairy tales, if your interested you can check it out might help with ideas we just shoot ideas and ramble on the topic for like 15 minutes maybe even longer. Oh ya its podcast #3, its up on our site but might take a couple days before it shows on iTunes

[RedSno]

I got tons of ideas from this thread! Thanks Guys!

[Jansenhuant09]

This thread was AMAZING! This is the theme we ended up with this year and I love how creative and twisted everyone is =)