Thunder Mansion

"A hundred years ago on a dark and stormy night,
A legend began that is sure to inspire fright.
Lightning flashed and thunder boomed,
Dark shadows swirled and filled the room.
Your thoughts turn dark in a terrible fashion,
You will never escape…Thunder Mansion!"

In 2002, 2003 and 2004 I created a small walk through haunted house for my son’s elementary school annual spring carnival.

The haunted house was designed for children in kindergarten through 5th grade..not an easy task to thrill a 5th grader while still remaining mild enough to entertain a kindergartener.

The basic concept was to use a series of cardboard cut-out characters, black light, fog, dual audio track and several actors.

The characters were original artwork I created in Photoshop, enlarged and attached to heavy duty corrugated cardboard.

The actual haunted house consisted of a maze made from wood panels painted with a faux stone technique. Some of the card board characters featured animated and light up eyes. The whole tone was somewhere between Dr. Suess and Tim Burton.

Friendly, weird sort of trippy.

A series of tombstones were also created using the same techniques. The tombstones featured campy names and silly sayings all designed to entertain a young audience.