Building a haunt is an exercise in designing terror. The horrifying scenes, unsettling actors and shocks around every corner are the big picture goals. But sometimes it's the tiny things - the stuff maybe one person in 10 will even notice - that end up as fun projects in between building monstrous scenes and effects.
During COVID I started collecting kids' dollhouses from Value Village and turning them into tiny haunted houses. I ended up with dozens of them and loaned them to the delightful local funeral home in Stouffville last year for the Halloween street festival. You may see a few of them in this year's Uxbridge haunt...
Lately, when I'm not building fake vines or giant spider sacs, I've been acquiring old dolls that are taking on a new afterlife of their own thanks to friends who are just as strange as me.
Don't get the idea, though, that Feargrounds is going to be a cute, family-friendly event. It's not. These things are the exception to the terrifying rule. You might notice them as you run for your life through the corn maze. But probably not.
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