New Links

Hi all!

Happy Friday! I am so ready to relax this weekend. I'm currently in the process of rearranging my work room/office/haunt lair so hopefully once that is done I'll start to get to work on some small props or at least some sketches for some ideas I have for next years haunt.

I've been checking out a lot of great pictures from some fellow haunters on hauntforum.com and man are people getting more and more creative each and every year. It's really inspiring to see some of the work that is being pumped out and to be honest I'm so overwhelmed right now by all the prop goodness that is going on by everyone on hauntforum that I don't know what to do first. I highly encourage you to check out hauntforum.com and just lurk around and take a peek at some of the pictures people are posting of their home made props and home haunts. When I tell you that some of these home haunts can rival some of the pro ones out there I am not kidding, it is just really cool to see and I hope to up my game next year for sure.

I posted a few new links that I'd like to suggest to everyone if you haven't checked them out or come upon them already.

The first is Hauntcast. Hauntcast is a pod cast that you can download straight from their website www.hauntcast.net or  from iTunes. They usually post a new cast once every month and focus on the home haunter and halloween enthusiast. There are a lot of great segments during the cast like "Fright Flicks" horror movie reviews with Johnny Thunder,  The Charmed Pot with The Mistress of Mayhem Shellhawk who talks about various Halloween related stories both new and old, Theater Of The Mind with Revenant who gives some really creative insight to the art of haunting and they always end with and interview with a Haunting Guru in the community. Guests have included The Davis's of The Davis Graveyard, The Mitchell's of The Mitchell Cemetery and Authors of the How To Haunt Your House Book Series, Stolloween, Bruce Stanton of The Reign of Terror Haunted house and many, many more. The Ghost Host or "G-Host" is Chris Baker who does an excellent job and is a Home Haunter himself. His haunt is the Village Mire and you can follow a lot of what he does by searching for Hauntcast on YouTube. Chris will often post videos of the props he makes each year and will explain step by step how he made them, he also has video of his home haunt in action with all the props in place which is really neat to see. Overall there is so much that can be said about the show because it is so fun to sit back and listen to and it goes great with a cold beer so if you love Halloween or are a home haunter then please check out Hauntcast if you haven't already.

The second new link is for The Haunt at Hellizondo. I LOVE this haunt but before I talk about it I should tell you a little about the back story. This haunt started as Haunted Tiki Island which (if I am correct) lasted for three years. Each year it got bigger, better and more creative. There is a great amount of attention to detail in this haunt and you can tell how much thought went into everything. What I think I like the best and what inspires me each and every time I look at their blog and their pictures is that the majority of their props are all hand made by them. I mean when you think of it you can't just go to the store and buy cool haunted tiki stuff because they just don't make it so you have to make it yourself. A lot of the characters are made with PVC that you can get at a local hardware store and paper mache. It is SOoooo cool what you can come up with with paper mache and Haunted Tiki Island is proof of that so check out their blog here at http://hauntedtikiisland.blogspot.com/. After the third year of Haunted Tiki Island they decide to started a new theme and created The Haunt at Hellizondo which is a Russian Circus Theme. I've posted the link to their site in the links list. I started to follow the blog for the Hellizondo Haunt from the beginning and it's so great to see the process from start to finish. You can really appreciate the amount of time and effort they put into doing this. I mean they are working on this for months! Now I usually work on my haunt for maybe 1-2 months so I can tell you that it is hard work and these guys and gals really get to it! Just like with the Tiki Island haunt they pay super close attention to detail and really try to stay true to their theme and even though it is a circus you won't see any scary clowns, dot rooms or your average run of the mill psycho circus haunt props but instead they made a really unique "Scareousel" also known as a Carousel (us haunters love to make normal words more scary!) The Scareousel featured some great paper mache creatures, classic mirrors and some pretty cool bejeweled carnival masks. The haunt also has a cool Rasputins Head Facade complete with spinning eyes, various concession and game stands and some great carnival lighting to boot. I can't say enough good things about this haunt and with Grimlock Manor just adding "The Carnival of Souls" to our haunt this year I can say that the Haunt at Hellizondo is sure to be a great source of inspiration for us. These guys rock and you should definitely check out both their blogs and all their videos.

My last two links I will combine here. The first is Shellhawk's Nest. Shellhawk is a part of the Hauntcast team and does a segment on the show called the Charmed Pot which I quickly explained above. Her blog feels like an extension of this segment as it covers various halloween related topics and is a really fun read. Shellhawk also is a crafter and has her own Etsy shop which you can visit here at http://www.etsy.com/shop/ShellHawk.

Lastly, I've added the Home Haunters Association link to my list of links. I posted awhile back about Grimlock Manor registering our haunt with the HHA. The HHA is currently running their Annual Home Haunters Contest which features different categories such as Best Home Haunt Walkthrough, Party Haunt, Static display etc. We will be submitting a video which will be judged by a few well known people in the haunt industry so stay tuned for the results but please feel free to check out their site and view the other entries for the contest and also browse the various home haunts around the USA to see cool pictures of their displays over the years.

Well that's it for tonight. I hope you enjoy the new links. I wanted to post something new as I continue to update the blog and our website. Hopefully in the next few days I'll have a new project started that I can start to post about but until then stay scary and enjoy the weekend!