| Welcome
once again to the dark world of the Terror Syndicate...
Dark Works takes home haunting to
a new level!
This year's haunt is now bigger, more
complex and features many new props!
The front of the house changed a bit
this year, in turn we had to build 10 new window covers.
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Meet the "Sentinel" our 13
foot tall guard who watches over those entering the haunt.
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The ever popular "Wall Crawler"!
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The first gate shown above was jazzed
up a bit this year with 4 Mr. Thrifty skeletons from ACC.
After positioning and mounting them to the front of the gate
they where webbed over with stretch web and latex.
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Once through the first gate you enter
into a "lobby" area. This year we provided free
hot chocolate for our guests.
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Perched high above is our new life
size gargoyle prop. We had it setup to blow jets of smoke
from it's nose approx. every 30 seconds.
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Around the corner from the lobby area
is the main entrance gate. It's the same gate we used last
year. We changed a few details including painting "Nox
Noctis" on the door which is Latin for death. Kind of
sounds like a bad joke! A night shot was never taken of this
area however it can be seen on the new Dark Works 2001 video.
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In order to keep the masses from crowding
the main gate area we set up the tripods and rails used along
the driveway last year. This gave a clear line of sight for
the camera in the chest of the Watchman prop.
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Two of the additional features of this
area where the posted signs and one of the new working floor
fountains.
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Now we can start into the haunt. Just
inside the gate door is the sign leading you on your way.
The picture below to the right shows the first hallway leading
to the first room. You will notice that we hang a lot of Dorp
through out the haunt. It really transforms bare walls, and
spaces into well dressed creep zones!
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Around the corner you're greeted by
the Acolyte prop. Then a new static MM prop called the Guard
holding a skull staff.
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In the corner of this room is a chained
door. The door is pneumatic and when triggered slams open
and closed violently against the chains. We got just about
everybody with this one!! To the right of this effect is the
exit for this room into a narrow hallway. You have to go to
the right otherwise you where face-to-face with the Stork.
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At the end of the hall sat the other
floor fountain.
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You exit past the fountain to the left
and walk toward the next scare hidden down inside a boarded
up wall. This pneumatic prop is simply called the "Ozzy
Prop". The mask we bought for it looks a lot like Ozzy
Osbourne!
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The next area you walk into is darker
until your standing in front of last years Guts prop. Guest
are hit with a blast of air coming from whipping air lines
in the prop's belly. At the same time a wall lantern is lit
across from it to bring it into view.
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The next area has two boarded up corner
walls. The walls hold the corpses of our past victims and
a air-blaster aimed at your ankles! Lighting in this area
is very dim with many shadows. Hidden in a dark corner stands
the Watcher prop! Many people stopped and stared at it for
a few seconds before walking past it. It was very hard to
tell whether or not it was a live person.
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Out of this area and into a short hallway
with more boarded over holes. Inside the wall to your right
hangs a half corpse. Hidden below it was a pneumatic wall
thumper. It was triggered while you walked through the area
creating a loud unknown pounding noise. No action to see but
it disturbed many guests!
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You now walk into a slightly larger
area with a flickering over head ceiling light. More corpses
are displayed here along with one of our large wall mirrors.
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The new Cage prop is the next scare
which is sitting across from the corpses pictured above. This
is another pneumatic prop. When triggered the prop inside
the cage quickly leans forward looking out through the bars.
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Just as you pass the Cage two of our
Headlights are lighted to reveal the Monk prop nealing right
in front of you! When it was triggered he would slowly rise
up to a standing position. The lighting was just right making
most guest think it was a real person! We had people saying
things like "that guy that stood up slowly in front of
me scared the hell out of me!" Also pictured (bottom)
is a quick static prop the we placed up high between the Headlights.
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A few more feet past the Monk you are
confronted with the Jerker prop boarded up inside of a corner
wall. On the wall to the left of it is a 4 light skull fixture.
So as you can see in less than 20 feet you are hit with 3
pneumatic props one after another!
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Turning another corner to your right
is the new Hanging Man pneumatic prop. Set back into an alcove
and boarded up, the prop would thrash back and forth as if
he had just been hung! More of an "eye candy" prop
than a scare.
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Also hidden behind the wall where the
Hanging Man is located, we placed a new air cannon. It would
hit you with a 60psi blast of air from behind as you walked
down a narrow hallway.
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At the end of the hallway off to the
right sits the Barrel pop-up prop.
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This takes you to the last prop inside
the haunt. Past the barrel, a few steps forward, off to the
left is the Wall Dweller or Oh-Shit prop. Then the next thing
you know your outside again!
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One thing that I didn't mention till
now is that this year we had a robed "actor" inside
the haunt in addition to our normal front gate, exit gate
and security people. We worked it so that when you entered
the haunt you where followed up to the Ozzy prop area. He
then ducted out a secret doorway and then jumped out in front
of you in the Cage prop area! Then ran back and hid in a dark
corner next to the Hanging Man prop. After you past him he
followed you again till you came to the exit. Most people
didn't know he was behind them till he would shake a alum.
can with a few pennies duct taped inside (pictured below).
You use something like this to train a dog from doing something
bad! He would shake the can then stand still up against a
wall like a prop. It worked great, most thought we had several
people inside but it was just one guy! It made people very
uneasy!
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Now for a look behind the scenes...
Once again we used the A/V control
setup. However this year we had to add another 4 cameras to
the system making it a total of 13. For more info on this
setup see last years haunt page and Handbook #3.
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This is our fog system using two foggers
and two new fog blowers that send fog through 4" vinyl
duct.
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Here are a few outside shots. The picture
to the above right shows the building that houses the Watcher
prop and the corpses boarded up inside the wall corners. The
right picture is a top view of the first section of haunt
with the main gate at it's end.
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Last but not least we have some never
before seen pictures showing the first stages of the haunt
as the walls are going up.
That's it for another season! We are already in the planning
stages for 2002. Bigger, Longer and a lot more work!
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