Haunt Weekly - Episode 421 - Flat Black Walls

[0:23] Hello, everyone. I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast for the on-attraction entertainment community.
Whether an actor, owner, or just plain aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you.
Okay, well, first things first. If you celebrate, Merry Christmas.
If you don't celebrate, I hope your winter holidays are going well.
Yeah. If you celebrate any holidays, happy holidays. If it's not a holiday, happy day. Yeah. Happy regular everyday day.

[0:55] That's fine, too. Yeah. And I know for a lot of people it pretty much is, because there are a lot of people working that we don't often think about at this time.
Yeah. But, yes, there are a lot of people who make sure society is still running, the power stays on, the hospitals are staffed.
Bars are definitely open so that people are escaping from their families.

[1:15] You know, the essential services. services we got electricity health care and bars exactly puts everything in perspective but yes think of them too but on that note um if you don't want a well this isn't a holiday themed episode at all so i don't know where i don't know where the hell i'm transitioning to i don't know this is an episode about flat black walls if you don't want that i would understand uh feel free to check out everything else we've done at hauntweekly.com hauntweekly on twitter hauntweekly on facebook and youtube.com slash on weekly you can also find us wherever you get your podcasts from and pay special attention at facebook.com slash on weekly as we do the occasional live episode there would love to have you join us that's where you find out about our recordings all right well first thing is first as we mentioned even though it is indeed literally christmas day yes we are doing a regular episode of we did our holiday stuff earlier so we're transitioning back into doing regular stuff off maybe a little bit early but whatever yeah it all works out well but we did skip one thing this week and that was doing any work for the haunt yeah we did work on the house instead yeah but yes we did not get out in the haunt other than to talk about you know plants and logistics and things and we're still trying to figure out kind of what the next step is yeah well I think in yeah.

Discussing plans for the haunt and upcoming episodes.

[2:42] Yeah, I think we have the next few steps figured out, but we just need to get out there and do it. But it's also holiday, and we'll do it next week.
Yes, we are going to resume work hopefully next week.
But yeah, this week we just decided to go ahead and take a little bit of time off from it.
All right, now that being said, every week we do have a question of the week.
And last week, we had a fun one because we asked you all what film or video game horror franchise think should be turned into a haunted attraction.
And there were a lot of great answers on this one.
Yeah, Roberta McClellan said Phasmophobia. A game we actually played. Yeah.
And did not get into. I don't know why it didn't connect with us.
I don't know. Maybe we should try it again.
I mean, I think we just didn't understand what was going on.
And maybe like a helpful walkthrough or something like that we could get you know better into but anyways max schick said world of warcraft um and then proceeded to list expansions that i have no idea what they are or how to pronounce them so i will not even attempt it because i don't want to get murdered by world of warcraft fans i've never played a minute of world of warcraft me either i've played um warcraft i played all the warcraft games those are fun uh played starcraft but never World of Warcraft never got into it, so I have no commentary I can offer.

[4:06] Sam Farrell said, Ghost Ship. Guilty favorite of his thinks that some of the sets would be great for haunts. Haven't seen Ghost Ship, got to be honest.

[4:15] Yolanda said, Dead by Daylight. Mm-hmm.
Jamie Lee said, Bioshock, more of the aesthetic.
Yeah, not less the actual story, because I agree. The story isn't like super jump scary, but the aesthetic, that Art Deco aesthetic. And I think that would be cool.
And that actually kind of is the direction we're heading this year with the steampunk. Yeah.
I mean, I can see how Art Deco and steampunk have a lot of overlap here.
Well, and Bioshock has some steampunk elements to it. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[4:45] Sean Fenner said, Tales from the Crypt. I am going to strongly disagree with you, Sean. Tales from the Crypt would not make a good haunted attraction.
You have to make it a haunted theme park.
Yeah. That way you have the Crypt Keeper kind of being the thing that ties it together.
And you can have like five episodes each be a different attraction. That would be amazing.
That would be also, they could pull the Bernie though and make the Crypt Keeper the person who brings the haunted house to life each year.
Yeah, and he's the character out front and around and kind of tying the whole center hub of everything. like he is in the TV show.
So it makes perfect sense. I think a haunted theme park would do well.
You could also do something similar with Goosebumps, even though Goosebumps is a bit more silly at times.
Are You Afraid of the Dark has a similar vein on it. But any of the anthology horror shows, hell, Twilight Zone could work.
It had enough horror-ish episodes. I think you could make that work.
Though I don't think Rod Serling would make as good of a horror.
He was an amazing host, an amazing director, an amazing producer.
But I have a harder time picturing him being the host of a haunted theme park. Yeah.
What you're about to see is supposed to scare the pants off of you.
Boring! We're moving on.

[5:59] All right. Finally this week, Jerry Farascio said, Atari haunted house.
Which, once again, I have to disagree.
Not a good haunted attraction. This needs to be a haunted escape, horror-themed escape room.
Because that's what the video game was. It was basically a video game escape room with completely obtuse instructions.
I have actually watched playthroughs of Atari Haunted House and still don't understand it.
So I could see it working as one of the hour-long, more experienced-based haunted houses like they're doing with the vault.
Yeah. I could see it working like that, but... A traditional walkthrough, no.
Yeah. Because it leaned too heavily on the puzzles, I think.
Yeah. to be just a walk-through haunted house.
It needs to be an escape room or an interactive exit. It needs something like that.
But still, I think it'd be absolutely hilarious to see the cut-out bats and eyes floating around.
That'd be fun. All right, this week's question of the week, if you wish to answer it, is what is your 2024 haunted attraction New Year's resolution? Let us know.
Hauntweekly.com, Hauntweekly on Twitter, Hauntweekly on Facebook, and YouTube.com slash Hauntweekly.
Leave a comment anywhere. we will read it and there's a very good chance we will read it live we will spake it so to speak.

[7:19] So, yeah, what is ours? I think we've already talked about ours, which is to try and do the hour of work every week.
You haven't asked the question. Yeah, I did. What is your 2024 haunted attraction related New Year's resolution?
Yes. I actually did say that. Okay, you said it quickly.
It's fine. It's fine. But, yes, that is ours, is to work on it more throughout the year instead of leaving a large chunk of it.
We know it's completely unrealistic to say we'll get it done by September.
Yeah. We used to talk big and talk shit like that when we were younger, and it never worked out then either.
No. But we realized we do need to shift more of the burden to the earlier months.
Yeah. And we talk about doing it all the time. We tell people that that's, you know, a better plan.
Yeah. We definitely, in this category, do as we say, not as we do, people. Yeah.
I will openly admit that we have been terrible at this historically, but I think we found an approach that might actually work for us. Yeah.
So I'm excited about it. I hope it puts us in a much better place come September, October.

Focus on Promotion and Actor Training

[8:24] Because we have other things that we would like to focus on in the actual run-up to the Haunt. We would like to focus more on promotion.
Yeah. We'd like to focus more on actor recruitment and actor training.
We have things we want to do between A and B in those months that we can't do because we're too busy trying to build the goddamn thing.
Yeah. Yeah, that really... And I think that that's part of the reason that numbers were what they were this year.
Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's not all of it. No. But I do think it plays a role. Well, and it's weird.
The numbers were down, but we have heard from far more people than usual that they went through.
Yeah. It seems like the impact might have been bigger. I don't know why.
I can't piece together why.
But it does feel like the impact was bigger anecdotally, even if the data doesn't favor us. It's weird.
Yeah. I don't know how to, I've got mixed feelings about that, is what it comes down to.
All right, this is an episode in two parts.
We wanted to talk about Flat Black Walls for a while, and we're going to.
Yes. But we also, this is the first good opportunity we've had to talk about Decomposed, Haunted House's Christmas show, the only Christmas show we attended this year.
Yes. And so we're going to talk about that first, and then move into the main topic.
And even then, it may be a slightly short episode. If so, yay, you're off early, it's Christmas.

[9:43] Just be happy. Yeah. But on that note, yeah, Decomposed.
Okay, before we say anything about Decomposed, we have to do our disclosures. Yeah.
We've known John Farrell, the owner and main builder of it, forever.
Yeah. We've known him, I think, longer than Ellie.

[9:58] I think over a decade. Yeah, I think so. We have over a decade.
It's been a long time. Way, way, way before he ever opened the haunt.
Even he was in the early stages of thinking about getting the haunt. We knew him.
And so it's a little different for us talking about Decompose compared to a lot of the other ones. Because, yeah, we know people there. But we know them through the haunt.
Yeah. And that kind of sets the definition of the relationship that we're going to come on this podcast.
We're going to go on Garbage Horror or whatever and be honest.
You know, we set that expectation.

[10:26] John is different. and he's an old friend and that complicates it so we're not going to make any claims of impartiality we're just not that said i think any way we break it down it was a very solid christmas event yeah i think i may have liked the christmas event more than the regular season i i know i did no and i can i can go into why in a little bit yeah because we got to talk about like the only other christmas show we've been to yeah was um new orleans nightmare and this admittedly was their their first year doing the Christmas show.

Comparison to New Orleans Nightmare's Christmas Show

[10:57] First year doing it, and it was, I think, five or six years ago.
Yeah. And we've not been back. That said... There's a reason.
Well, that said, the New Orleans Nightmare's first year, and this was John's first year.
Yeah. So it is more of an apples-to-apples comparison than it may seem.
Yeah, well, this is John's second year being open, his first year with the Christmas show.
But New Orleans Nightmare, of course, it gets complicated. First year doing a Christmas show for both of them.
Exactly. How's that? Leave it there. So that way, apples to apples.

[11:28] But the New Orleans Nightmare one, it was really frustrating because barely half the haunt was open.
Yeah. They literally let you in at function and midway point, which really, really seemed odd to me.
Because we paid more than, we paid more for the Christmas show than we did the regular show.
Yeah, and got less haunt. Because the regular show, we're email subscribers, all that. We get the super early bird discount. Yeah.
So we're buying tickets in like fucking August or something.

[11:54] That's when we buy most of ours, yes. And we basically got super cheap tickets and went and saw the full show.
The Christmas tickets, they didn't do that because there was less run up.
And we ended up paying significantly more.
And less than half. About half the haunt was available to us.
Yeah. The only real change was some decor.
That I remember. Yeah, they had put up a few lights, and I don't think they even changed, like, the characters.
No, they gave them Santa hats and elf costumes, but the people, all the characters didn't work the same.
I don't think that they even did the, there might have been one or two elves, but I don't think so.
There was very little change. That was what it was. it was mostly like Christmas lights everywhere some fake trees put up nothing really felt different no so we left disappointed because it wasn't it wasn't enough of a change and it wasn't a full show to us because we had just been in October yeah and the other thing is that eliminated the FOMO like every year that show comes around we don't have FOMO because of that experience Arrogance that nuked our film.
And like I said, this was five or six years ago. I do not know how the show has changed.
I do not know either, but I'm going to say hanging around outside of...

[13:22] Of decomposed i did hear people who went to both talking about how they enjoyed the decomposed one more okay well you have good ears my ears suck yeah um but yeah it it was it was a frustrating experience and it made me sour on christmas shows broadly and specifically you know going to one as a ticket event but when we heard decomposed was doing one we have faith in john we know his his passion for this.
Well, and the other reason was because we wanted to take some crew members with us that weren't able to go with us during season.
And even if it didn't change a lot, they would at least be able to see the haunt and see what John's doing. Yep.
That was a big reason we went to this.
Yeah. So, in fact, I would say that was actually the primary motivator.
It was a chance to get some of our crew out to decompose. Yeah.
It was like 90% of the reason. And it just happened to be a Christmas show. Yeah.
That said, This was a much better experience for me. Me too.
The main thing I noticed, and this was right off the bat as you go in, completely new script. Yeah. Everything was new.
They had the same setup as far as the scares and some of the scenes were, like physically.
Right. But all the characters and dialogue and setup was different. Exactly.

[14:44] Like, you know, the haunt still had its physical constraints as a haunt.
And so scares worked the way they worked. And especially that first room, for example, where you would go in and previously you'd be lectured by the head nurse and all this. Now you're getting lectured by Mrs.
Claus and then eventually Santa. By the way, there's Santa.
Yeah. Fucking on point. Yeah. I mean, okay. I loved that first Santa.
If you've heard the song, The Night Santa Went Crazy by Weird Al Yank, if not, how the fucking hell are you listening to this podcast? Yeah.
But second, if you've heard that song, picture that Santa minus the shotgun and you're done.
That's it. It was that Santa. They don't use firearms in this, but everything else, bang on.
This was the drunken, crazy Santa.
Yeah. It was perfect. It was just perfect.
So it was Mrs. Claus, an insane elf, and a Santa appearance. Yes.
All in the first room. It set the pace and set the tone.
And all throughout it, that new script, that new dialogue carried throughout.
Out because they were doing instead of i mean honestly i'm only partially sure what the story decomposed is i gotta be honest.

A Twisted Santa's Workshop Experience

[15:55] Here, it had an actual narrative, which was you're going through Santa's workshop, and shit's kind of messed up, yo.
Yeah, and Santa's not in a good mood. Multiple people told us he's not in a good mood today. And he was not. He was not. He was decidedly not, I will agree.
So yeah, but that narrative carried through the whole thing.
Even rooms that seemed like you would never actually, you know, be able to turn into a Christmas thing.
Yeah. Like they have a morgue slash crematorium scene with all the little shelving units and bodies.
And they had elf shoes and stuff sticking out on the candy cane.
Yeah. It was pretty fucked up, actually. Yeah, but I mean, those little details are things that you notice.

[16:40] Instead of a rotting corpse on the slab in the morgue room, they had Frosty the Snowman.
Well, what was left of melted Frosty. I mean, what the fuck was Frosty doing in Southeast Louisiana? Melting, obviously.
Not well. No. But, I mean, that was just a nice touch.
And their main Santa at the very end was hilarious.
It was the funniest mask I've seen in a haunted house in a long time.
It would not be out of place in the Don't Shoot Me Santa Claus video. Yeah. From the...
Yeah, I mean, it was really old school looking.
Exactly. And it was a lot of fun.
They had, it was really, really good. And the decoration was pervasive.
It was every room and it actually changed the feel of, and like I said, the narrative of the haunt. Yeah.
Go ahead. Yeah. Everybody was, their makeup was different and holiday themed.

[17:42] So, and they, they changed the graveyard scene so that it wasn't just a typical graveyard walkthrough. There was Scrooge there and a Carollers.
Yeah.
So that was a nice change up too.
Yeah, and oddly enough, I mean, you said, I think, you know, you said that you liked the Christmas show better than the regular show in a lot of ways.
I agree, and I think part of the reason was they kept the narrative and the theme throughout.
And that's one of the things about Decomposed is that, especially since the way it's been built, it often seems to lack that cohesiveness all the way through.
It does feel more like the old spook house style where you're going from scene to scene to scene.
This actually gave it a cohesive, fun theme all the way through.
And so, yeah, you had your share of good startles and people jumping out in the right place. There was an excellent stilt walker at one point.
Yeah. That I swear to God has just made a fucking rubber and magic.
Yes. Yes, the stilt walker actually scared...

[18:43] One of our crew. Yeah. Or at least startled. Scared probably a little strong.
But got a reaction, we'll say. Got a reaction, which is the actual goal.
So, yeah, you had your scares and everything, but it was also fun and silly and taking itself, I would say, at the right level of silliness, basically, the right level of seriousness.
Where, yeah, they could still hit you with the scares, but you knew that you were supposed to be laughing a little bit, too.
And I think that kept me off balance more. Yeah. Because you would see things like the melted frosty and go...
Yeah. And then someone jumps behind you to scare you. Yeah. Because you're too busy laughing at fucking frosty. Yeah, because that was a creative thing that I've never even seen it on.
Yeah, and I just loved it. They had a little of the cotton batcher and just a carrot on the top. It was just so fucking beautiful.
It was. It reminds me of the Louisiana snowman that comes in the little jars in craft circles. and you put a little water and then the nose in the hat.

[19:47] Yeah, two little black beads for the eyes. And yeah.
It was genuinely very, very good. And also, I do appreciate the fact that it was the entire haunt. Yeah.
Not just a room or two in the beginning. Not just the middle to the end.
No, it was the entire thing.
It was the whole haunt that helped a lot, too. So I didn't feel like it was only half the experience.
Yeah. All in all, it was hindered a little bit because their sliders weren't able to slide because we went on a day that it had been drizzling all day.
Which in Louisiana, that is.
Well, and that property particularly retains water.
I don't know what it is because it shouldn't, but it does. I'm not enough of an expert.
I think part of it's because there's so much concrete that it doesn't seep into the ground. Yeah, I think it's incredibly level. It might be too level.
Like it has nowhere for the water to go is the problem.
And it was an old blimp base, so it's a big, huge, flat span of concrete.

[20:52] It's giant, but, yeah, it is incredibly giant and flat, and it is a low-lying area. I mean, a.k.a. Southeast Louisiana.
I mean, don't know what more you want. But, so, yeah, it does retain water.
That was a little bit sad.
But, yeah, overall, I thought it was worth the trip. I really did appreciate it and enjoy it.
Yeah, and it was a slightly longer walkthrough. Yeah, I feel like this may have gotten my haunted attraction Christmas spirit back.
Yeah. Yeah, so maybe we'll go to a different one next year. Maybe it's worth going to a Christmas show. Maybe it's worth it.
I know why haunts do it, and I think haunts should be doing it, but I think this is more of the template on how to do it.
And I've got to say, just casually listening to people as they were leaving, like you were doing, kind of eavesdropping, everyone was having fun, and everybody fucking loved the melted frosty on the... Yeah.
That was genuinely, all-puttingly hilarious.

[21:47] And so, yeah, I don't know. I think this, I think, I think John understood the assignment.
Yes. But once again, like I said, we are, you know, I think we would say this without the bias.
But yeah, just, we do, we do publicly disclose our bias there for all the correct reasons.
Because, yeah, we've known John longer than, I think, just that we've known just about anyone. Yeah.

[22:11] No, you know, we've known him for a really long time. and that, you know, and God, the quest he's been on to open this on.
That's why I'm just going through my thing, all the crap he's been through. So, yeah. Anyways.
So, our main topic this week is a situation everybody's familiar with. Yes. We've been there.
John's been there. Everyone's been there at some point. Time is running out.
You don't have enough time to detail as much as you'd like. Yep.
As a result, you know, this could be because you have a new expansion.
Yeah. Maybe you just built this whole new area up. Or maybe, God help you, if you're like a lot of haunts, you have that awkward transition between two rooms that you just don't know what to fucking do with.
And time ran out before you could figure out what to fucking do with it. Hey, we understand.
We've all been there. But basically, you're stuck with flat black walls and very little time to do anything to decorate them. Right. What do you do?
Well, you could leave them as flat black walls.

[23:09] We've seen that done. Seen it done. It is a tactic. It's fine.
I mean, and it's not the worst thing, especially as a transition piece.
Yeah, but I think I've harped enough on how flat black walls are not a favorite of mine. Because it's so easy to change them.
So, basically, that's what we're going to talk about this episode is you're running out of time. You don't know what you're going to do.
Sort of a plan for the panic. This is the, oh, shit, I'm stuck with these walls.
I need something that can work very, very fast. So, the rule we had when we started this. Yeah.
We gave this assignment to each other. Yes. We've been going back and forth on this.

[23:54] Is that it has to take less than 15 minutes per eight foot by four foot panel. Yeah.
So that's pretty quick. That's pretty quick. Ideally, though, less than five.
The hope is that you could do an entire room of, say, eight panels in under an hour. Yeah.
Or like a sequence of eight panels in under an hour.
So basically, what to do if you're stuck with flat black panels.
Here's some ideas. The first one, don't have flat black panels. I know.
I know. And here's the thing. I get the idea.
We've been there. We've made this mistake. stake but the thought process is that haunted houses are supposed to be dark black is dark you paint your walls dark therefore ipso facto well and it's kind of a go-to in haunted houses to use black as the primer as the base yeah base color yeah and there's a lot of reasons to actually do that and and give black walls its moment if you're going to do um like a if you want to do a paint over it, but have the black show through like, something's falling apart or something like that. It can look pretty cool.
But it has to be a very deliberate decision with a very specific outcome on the other side.
Yeah, because black is... So in...

The ease of painting darker colors over lighter ones.

[25:15] In painting, one of the things you can think to yourself is it's always easier to go darker.
It is harder to go lighter. Yeah.
It's very difficult to put a lighter color on top of a darker color.
You can do it, but you're going to take a lot of coats, a lot of time.
You're going to spend a lot of money probably doing it because paint's expensive.
Exactly. It's going to take longer to cover up a black wall than it is a white or an off-white wall. And we're sitting here in my office, which is a dark, beautiful shade of red. Yeah.

[25:47] I'm the only person who have ever walked into the paint store with a hex code for my website to make a paint out of, but it worked. And it's a beautiful red.
And it matches my website theme. So that makes me happy.
But the primer coat on it, you can see in a couple of places, was white.
Yeah. Because we painted over the initial bright-ass blue that it was. It's like turquoise.
We painted over that with white before doing the dark red because that's the way you do it.
Yeah. And, of course, some of the paint is chipping where we had tape up at the corners now after all these years. But it's been up for about 20 years now.
So, you know, I've got to admit, it's held up better than it had any right to, given how crappy of a job we did. Yeah.
Well, thank you very much. I helped with it. I contributed to the crap.
No, part of the problem is that the texture on these walls is off.
Yeah, and it's not texture we put on. No. Either is part of the problem.
But anyways, neither here nor there.
No. But no, we started with white and went darker. Right. Even though it was going to end up being a very dark color, we started with white.

[26:53] But the other thing is, if you have a white wall, you either will have an easier time painting it, Or if you can't paint it and don't have the time to paint it, you can quote unquote paint it with light. Exactly.

[27:07] A couple of different colors. You can change the feel of those walls easy.
Like a lot of the walls in our haunt are white because we can just, we got color changing bulbs.
A lot of haunts have them. Yep, lazy. Just change it, change the brightness, and you know, you're done. on.
Yeah, like our museum room this year was a quote-unquote blue room.
Yeah. And that it was very dark, deep blue, like almost an ocean blue type thing.
But the walls are actually almost dark white. Yeah, the walls are very white, and we used a blue flame light, or a blue ice light. Yeah. I think is what it's called.
So it gave some motion. Blue, green, and... Blue, green, a little bit of purple, I think.
Yeah, and it looked really ominous and eerie. You would not know going through with haunt lights that it was white walls.
So start with white walls.
Easier to paint. And if you can't paint them, you can't decorate them, you can't give them the attention you want, a couple of colored bulbs, a couple of motion bulbs maybe.
You can do so much with it. A couple of colored lights, boom.
It's what color you want.
You can add a little bit of blood effect to it.
Put some red paint in a spray bottle and just spray a little bit or just sling paint at it.
You can also do a mold effect with a green color.

[28:30] Water it down put it on let it drip let it kind of so the secret to that yeah is to spray the wall first with soapy water yeah and then the cheapest spray paint you can find go over where you put the water yeah this is the time to get the cheap spray paint yeah this is the time we're gonna get into where you get the expensive spray paint in a minute yeah this is good for cheap shit spray paint that doesn't stick to anything yeah i did this on um with black and had people come in and and say, how did you get it moldy?
And is that real mold? Why is it in here?
It's like, no, it's not real mold. Yeah, unfortunately. But thank you for the compliment.
In New Orleans, we probably should not be doing a mold effect.
There's too much trauma there. Well, you know.

[29:16] But anyways, no, but it's a very simple effect to do. It takes only a few minutes, and it adds a lot to those walls.

[29:24] Realistically, you could do, I mean, that is less than five minutes per panel.
Just a quick pass with a spray bottle of soapy water, hit it toward the top half of it with the black or dark green or light or green spray paint.
Watch it drip, move on to the next panel. I mean, it's so fast.
And keep your soapy water handy so that if you spray too much accidentally in one spot, hit it with the water, and it'll keep it dripping.
Basically, everything is a mixture of spray with bottle, spray with paint, spray with bottle, spray with paint, until you get the consistency you want.
It's not hard to learn. and you kind of have to get the feel for it.
Yeah. But hey, if I can get the feel for it, and I am Mr.
Ham-fisted when it comes to painting and detailing, then anybody can.
Yeah. Like, Fat Crystal can do it. It probably means it's Ivy League shit, so you've got to watch out. But if I can do it, anybody can do it.
Yeah. So, but yeah, it's such a simple thing, but you need to start with white walls.
That is what we're talking about. Or at least light color at the very least.
You can't start with dark on that technique.
Yeah, and honestly, for a haunt, I think starting with like a darker eggshell or something would probably make sense.
Still light enough to give you those effects, but also a more natural color.
Yes, and the reason you don't go with yellow is because if you put like a blue on top of it, it's going to look green.
And now you've got to play the color wheel. It's going to do orange, or it could change into a brownish color.

[30:49] Yeah, if you start with yellow, everything kind of veers toward brown very quickly, like super easily.
So, I mean, mind you, if that's the look you're going for, fine.
But yeah, white or, like I said, a darker off-white slash eggshell is so much better than black because it gives you so many possibilities.
Yeah, even gray would work better than black.
Even though gray, once again, you're going to have to be thinking about the colors you put on top of it.
But yeah, anything is better than black and the purpose of it, we've got to do something quick to decorate it. Have you ever seen a flame wall and a white wall? It looks awesome. It does.
Okay. But you've already painted them black, so what are you going to do?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks a lot, jackass. It's like saying the greatest hangover cure is to not drink so much.
Yeah. Yeah, geez. Thanks a lot, you fucking prick.
That's not... Well, here's the thing to do. Put shit on it. Okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah.
You can put things on walls. Yeah. Are you serious? Yeah. Yeah.

[31:46] Yeah, my honest big tip is just get your impact driver and get whatever random shit you have around that's safe to put on the walls. Yeah.
Be thinking about the safety aspect of it, obviously. Right.
But if it's safe to put on the walls, put it on the fucking walls.
Yeah. You'd be amazed how quickly you can cover a wall with just random crap.
Yeah, I actually... A few washers and some screws.
Yeah, I drilled serving platters onto a wall this year in the museum room.
Did it make sense? Not really.
Not really. But it was a roadside attraction. It's not supposed to make sense. Exactly.
But they didn't have sharp edges. They were metal. So they would hand up if somebody, it wasn't an impact wall, so it shouldn't have been hit.
But if they did, it wasn't going to hurt them or hurt the wall.
So, you know. You can do so much so quickly. I mean, it's not that difficult.
And this is a great reason to get lots of signs, pictures, knickknacks, random kitsch, whatever.
Because remember, kids, it's not hoarding if you own a haunted house. Exactly.
That's called scavenging and haunting, not hoarding. You do not have a problem as long as you have a haunted house.

[32:55] And here's the thing, though. If you don't have a lot of stuff, it's actually super easy to make a lot of stuff.
Right. We went out and bought a bunch of sign backing, just blank signs, and various shapes and sizes. It's super cheap to do.
You get like a 10-pack for a few dollars at a hobby store or something.
And then with a combination of spray paint and markers, you can make a bunch of signs. I made about a dozen signs in under 30 minutes.
Yeah. And that would have been enough to at least put stuff on at least four or five walls. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, we should share the picture of your signs at some point.
They look jank, but once again, it's a haunted house, and it was a roadside attraction-themed haunted house. The jank is part of it.
Exactly. Part of it. Exactly.

Distressing Wallpaper for Quick and Easy Ambiance

[33:38] You can also put up wallpaper and just leave a little corner not tethered down.
So after it dries, take that corner, pull it off. Now you have ripped wallpaper that looks like it's naturally torn.
Yeah. Instead of trying to cut out ribs.
Yeah, and wallpaper is incredibly fast to put up, especially if you're not worrying about the details, which you shouldn't be.
You got a little wrinkle in there? No problem. What do you care?

[34:08] It's called ambiance. It's distressing. Yeah, that's right. What, not completely straight?
That's distressing. Yeah, you don't even have to put it on all the walls.
You could just put it on a section of the wall, and it'll look like the rest of it just didn't get done.
Yeah, and that's one of those things, like, wallpaper was so huge when we were kids. Oh, yeah. In the 80s, late 70s and the 80s, wallpaper was huge.
Nowadays, nobody thinks of wallpaper.
Mm-mm. It's like it doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, get some wallpaper and slap it up there.
It's incredibly fast to do, and especially if you don't give a shit about doing it well.
Yeah. And guess what? You don't.
So it's really quick to slap up there. but yeah basically just find these things just but basically find things that you can put on the walls quickly and easily and there's there's a lot of options there yeah but all right so let's talk about spray painting and craft paint directly yeah this is uh basically as we just discussed if you start with a black wall your options are severely limited because it's so much harder and so much more time-consuming, so much more money-consuming, so much more all-consuming to go from black, from dark to light, then light to dark.

[35:25] But there are a few options that remain really good. One of my favorites, and this has been a fairly recent discovery, has been fluorescent paint.
Yeah. The really, really, I mean, it's technically not fluorescent paint.
I mean, I know it's kind of a misnomer.
Yeah. It doesn't actually fluoresce. Right.
But the fluorescent colored spray paint goes great on black walls.
Yeah. And get like the 3X. Yeah. You're going to want the expensive shit.
Yeah. This is one of the times you don't cheap out on your paint.
You get the Super 3X coverage paint and primer, but it looks really good on a dark wall. It doesn't look that great on a light background, but on a dark background, holy shit, it pops.
Yeah, it does. We actually put it on dark purple walls, like plum purple, because even when I do black walls, it's not black walls.
No, but still, they were plum. But yeah, they were almost black and dim lighting.
They look black, but we put this over the top of them and just spray painted words and phrases and graffiti.
And it looked really good. Yeah.

The Benefits of Using Dark to Light Paint Technique

[36:37] Honestly, this is the one kind of paint that I think is better to go from dark to light on, though. It looks incredibly good.
It's fast. It's fun. Draw stick figures. Write messages.
Save words. And the main thing is you're giving people something to look at and read and engage with when they're in that room.
Because that's the problem with a flat wall is there's nothing for the customer to engage with.
Basically, their eyes are just hitting it and bouncing right off and they're not gaining anything from it. Right.

Enhancing Customer Experience with Visual Engagement

[37:07] So doing this, writing words, writing messages to people, gives people something to look at and go, ooh.
You know what I mean? It keeps the tension going a little bit.
It might not look significantly more impressive than just a plain black wall.
But in terms of customer experience and customer engagement, it's a major step up. Yeah.
So, yeah. It's a very, very simple thing that you can do. This takes minutes if you get the good spray paint.
Yeah. This is one of those times where you're going to trade some money for time. And even we think that's a good trade because the not good coverage fluorescent paint is crap. Yeah.
Anyways, next idea is black light reactive paint.
The old standby for Hans. This has been around for obviously a very long time and pretty much requires a dark background to work.

[37:58] Especially if you have not done a lot of it before, this can be a very interesting transition. Like I said, a lot of times you see these flat black panels are in transition sequences. Yeah.
Decorated room, decorated room, the segment connecting them is just flat black walls.
This can give a little something interesting to that.
And realistically, I think this is one of the better ideas because I think a lot of haunts only use this when they're basing the entire attraction around it.
The 3D haunts, the clown haunts and all that.
I think it can be interesting just as a transition piece. if you can do it in theme.
Yeah, and that's one of the things you've got to keep in mind is if graffiti isn't with your theme, like if you've got a Victorian house and it is immaculately decorated, then this isn't for you.
This isn't what we're talking about. We're talking about for where it fits.
Yeah, but this is something to think about.

[38:57] I also don't know why every time I mention fluorescent paint, haunts immediately leap onto circus-slash-clown themes.
I don't know either. It can be literally anything that looks appropriate.
Seriously, go look at the Blacklight posters and the Blacklight reactive art in the 60s and 70s when this shit was a major fad.
And, yeah, it's a lot of space-themed stuff.
Yeah. Like I said, a lot of cosmic stuff. A lot of nature-themed stuff.
Probably because of the drug connection. But regardless, you can do more than just circus and clown.
Yeah, you can just do shapes and it will look cool.
You know? Yeah. And look disorienting, too.
Yeah. Once again, the goal is to give people something to engage with in their own mind, so that way they're not just, like, completely checking out during this portion.
Right. Keeping their mind going, keeping them engaged is crucial.
Yeah. And so now I'm going to throw at you a few quick painting techniques.
Okay. In case you haven't heard of them.
Before you spray paint, put a piece of lace up, and the...

[40:05] That has an interesting pattern in it. That's the important part.
Put the lace on the wall, spray paint over it. The pattern will transfer to the wall and that's done.
Like, that's a done call now. And if you're looking for a place to get that type of lace with an interesting pattern, I recommend thrift stores.
Yeah. They are very good places to find that kind of stuff because that's often where it ends up.
Yeah, because it can be an old curtain that was just a lace curtain.
Exactly. It could be an old curtain or a bedspread type thing.
Yeah. Anything like that.
Yeah. take a lighter color of paint and use a sponge and sponge it on in random order that just gives it a little fake texture a little something yeah same with the dry brush using a roller um that's the fastest way uh out of over a sponge it dry brushing with a roller is faster you just put a little bit of paint onto your roller pull it up onto the top little ridge thingies and then And dry brush it on.
And don't forget about your stencils, including stencils for laying brick that you can get at the hardware store because that will look like brick.
All you've got to do is paint it like a lighter gray and roll it over or even a brick red.
Yeah, and once again, this can work with darker walls.
Yes. Especially that type of technique. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[41:31] And it doesn't have to be, like, it can be very subtle. We're not talking about putting white on top of black or, you know.
It could be that. It could be. I mean, that is easy to do, and it'll make, you know, a quick transition piece.

[41:46] Yeah, yeah. Once again, if you're just trying to get between two rooms that you don't really know what it's going to be, that may be a way out of it, maybe something to experiment with.
So, yeah, stencils can be great. and either with spray paint or regular paint or just a roller.
You can get stencils designed for both.
Right. And you can also cut out your own at bigger sizes so that you don't have to do the small ones.
Yeah. And this is one of those times if you have not ever obtained a Cricut machine, it could be a useful area for you if you want to do custom stencils.
Yeah. Because it can do the cutout for you.
Yeah. Instead of using the X-Acto knife and the whatever material.
Yeah. Yeah, if you have a Cricut machine, once again, you'll save a lot of time with doing this with stencils. But yeah, like you said, there's brick stencils at hardware stores.
And I am sure you can find stencils on any internet site out there for just about any pattern you might potentially want.

[42:43] But our next up. Right. Adding depth. Yeah. And I think this might be our final section. Yeah, I think this is our final one.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're almost done. Yeah.
But no, accent trim is such an important thing here.
You can do crown molding, the center molding, like the middle height wall, which is a very, very common way of adding depth or just, you know, molding at the bottom too.
And it makes the walls look more finished.
And if you're going to do that center one, don't do it at exactly the center.
This is a pro tip. put it at the two-third height mark and then put um and then if you have time put a lighter color underneath the molding so at the bottom before you put the molding on put a lighter color it's going to make your walls feel taller in your rooms feel taller yeah and if you do the opposite it's going to make it feel short yeah the main thing here though is molding like that is so easy to cut and put in place once again if you don't care about it being like a haunted house which which, that's the whole point.
And molding can be anything. It doesn't have to be wood. Yeah.
You can use pool noodles to create an effect that simulates molding.
But something as a molding to add depth to it.
Yeah. It's a subtle effect, but it really can make it feel like an actual lived-in space.

[44:01] Yeah. Rather than just flat black walls. And this is one of those things where, yeah, okay, if I just put molding at the top in a sort of a center, quote-unquote, center stripe on it.
Yeah, it would still be a flat black wall, but at least it would look like someone thought about it. Yeah.
And it would look like part of a larger thing rather than just, oh, this is a empty nothingness transition sequence. Yeah.

Creating the Illusion of Windows with Curtains

[44:26] Yeah. So the next one to add depth is fake windows. Oh, yeah.
I put it down three levels. The simplest is to just hang curtains.
If you hang curtains, nobody's going to look behind it, but your brain interprets it as a window being there.
Even if it's in the middle of the haunt and you know that there's no possible way there could be a window there, the brain's going to interpret it that way.
The next level would be hang curtains over an old window frame so that that pushes the curtains out a little bit and people think...
And get a little, maybe allow a little bit of a sneak peek between the curtains so they can see the frame there. Yeah, exactly.
And then if you wanted to go even further, you can hang blinds with twinkling lights behind the window frame and put sheer curtains and then it looks like they're seeing the night sky without actually having anything other than a few lights behind.

[45:21] You know blind yeah but basically you know adding that little bit of depth to it um once again it's all about giving people something to engage with a detail to engage with to look at but you know like i said because the most common place we see this is those transition sequences you typically don't see it like as the whole of the haunt right but these are areas in which people frankly um can just kind of zone out.
And it's, yeah, well, rest periods are important. There still should be something for people's mind to engage with. Yeah.

Creative Ways to Cover Walls with Safety Fencing or Chicken Wire

[45:59] Another idea is to simply add chain link fencing or chicken wire.
Yeah. Obviously, you got to do this safely, but you can cover, especially if you have a run of these walls, you can cover a wide section of it very quickly with chicken wire, with a roll of chicken wire, for example.
Cover Or have it screwed in and have it, and that adds that extra layer, that extra detail.
Yeah. And you can stick things in it or behind it.
Exactly. You could also get that fluorescent orange safety fencing because that's plastic. So that's not going to hurt anybody.
And just staple it up in the corners and roll it down.

[46:39] That would be a really quick way and give it a cool geometric pattern.
Well, and also gives it that under construction vibe, which I guess technically the section is.
Everything in a haunted house is under construction at all times.
But no, it gives it that under construction vibe. And so especially if you have something where a construction zone in between the spaces or as one of your spaces makes sense, easy fix.
Easy way to immediately indicate what this is.
Yeah, you can, like I said, though, you could also do the metal wiring, which is great if you want to stick like things into it. But I have seen haunts that had the chicken wire, but then stuck straw into the wire. Exactly.
So that's incredibly fast to do if you already have the straw.
Yeah. It might be great for an outdoor haunt, for example, that already has a ton of this stuff laying around.
Obviously, concerns about fire code compliance and whatnot. Be smart about what you use here.
But if you can find a way to get that effect, it is incredibly fast and incredibly cool. Yeah, it's very effective.
I've just added one that I'm going to put back on the sticking stuff, two walls. Okay.
Make a line of heads at the top. These can be your unused mask.
If you're not using a mask that night, you know, just put some mask forms at the top of the wall so that they're not messed with.
But there's something to look at and put funny names underneath.

[48:01] Or, you know, character names. You know, this character died last year in the haunted house.
So yeah, it's super easy to do that It does not take a great deal of time And if you give us something to read and something to look up at we're not looking at the middle or bottom scare sections.

Importance of Keeping Guests Engaged with Entertainment

[48:20] And it also, like I said, keeps people engaged. Even if you're not going to do a scare in the zone, it keeps people engaged, keeps their mind going, keeps them entertained. And that's really what this is about.
Haunted attractions are supposed to be about entertainment. And sections that feature flat black walls and no actors and nothing going on, there's literally no entertainment.
I will tell you, every time I hit one of those, I am pulled out of the experience. Yeah.
This is to kind of give people something to grab onto and stay with it.
Yeah, even if it's the minimalist of effects. Yeah.
And sometimes, like I said, we've talked before about it. People need breaks.
People need spaces in the heart where their mind has less to chew on.
You can't just keep stimulus, stimulus, stimulus, because then the mind gets numb and everything falls apart.
But you still need to give them something because, as you said, you don't want them to be completely removed.
Right. So just having something much simpler isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it has to be something.
Thing. On that note, everyone, once again, if you celebrate Christmas, hope it is a Merry Christmas for you. If not, hope your winter holidays are going well.
This has been episode 421 of Haunt Weekly. We talk about flat black walls.

[49:32] If you want to check out more Haunt Weekly, you can find us at HauntWeekly.com, Haunt Weekly on Twitter, and Haunt Weekly on Facebook. YouTube.com slash Haunt Weekly is the YouTube channel.
Every episode we've ever done is available there for easy access.
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Okay, probably not. That'd be very sad if that were true. But on that note, everyone, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal.
And we will see you all next week with, we don't know what, but it'll be another regular episode of Haunt Weekly.