Castellon's Kitchen: Haunted Hallows Maze (Part 3 of 3)

(October 19, 2018)
For my last elementary school maze, I used horror movie locations as the inspiration for this Haunted Hallows maze. The first turn takes you camping at Camp Crystal Lake only to find an abandoned campsite, but you quickly realize that you are not alone...chased from the campsite you find yourself in a dark and stormy Sleepy Hollow Cemetery with a ghostly presence watching your every move. Spotting a house with a light on, you move quickly hoping for help in quaint, Haddonfield. Seeking shelter, you go in and find an unexpected basement filled with the horrors of Frankenstein's laboratory. Terrified and anxious you escape the basement only to find that you must work your way through the Gatlin corn field to safety. Hopefully, you'll make it out in one piece. 🎃
Over the last four mazes and lots of trial and error, I finally figured out how to light this maze! Yes, it's supposed to be dark and scary, but mazes can't be too dark. If only for safety reasons and to prevent the scared kids from running into the plastic tarp walls and tearing them down, which was a problem with the first Zombie Maze. It may seem counter intuitive, but light actually adds to the fear factor because now the kids can see what's ahead of them. Next to good lighting, sound is just as important. All my mazes would be a nothing but big dark rooms filled with scary props without the sound. Sound elevates the maze and creates heightened emotions well before entering it. It adds a layer of anxiety that isn't cause by something you see with your eyes. As the kids wait in line to get in, they hear the howling wolves, crows cawing and far off screams and their fear rises. Thankfully, I live with my very own sound engineer, my husband, who designed all the sound for all four of our mazes. His sound effects set the stage, instead of "lights ,camera, action", it should be..."lights, sound, camera, action!" Take a walk through the Haunted Hallows Maze video and let me know what you think in the comments, and then check out the How to's below.

Camp Crystal Lake

The start of the maze begins at Camp Crystal Lake campsite. It was probably the easiest to put together, as I only had to make the trees and the campfire prop. I created the forest of trees with 2- 4' x 8' sheets of cardboard cut into strips and painted them white with grey smudged in it. I then painted black horizontal lines to mimic the look of birch trees. I bought a large blanket of cheap camouflage cover and cut it up into irregular strips to form the foliage canopy which I stapled to the ceiling at various depths. I attached a large full moon to the plastic tarp and placed the tree trunks so that the moon peeked through the trees. I placed a small pop-up tent, and camping chair to set up camp. But no campsite is complete without a campfire! Check out how I made the campfire prop below.

For lighting, I added a small spot light to light up the moon and then placed a orange and purple swirl light to add color and mimic the glow of the campfire. I didn't get a good still picture of the finished campsite, but you can see it in the video clip below.

Campfire Prop

What you'll need:

Lunch sized paper bags
paper mache (1 cup flour, 3/4 cup water, 1 tsp salt)
black and grey spray paint
watered down white acrylic paint for splattering
foam board
orange string lights
foam insulation in a can
sticks painted black
fake flame light

Loosely fill up small lunch bags with crumpled newspaper, and crunch up the bag tucking in the opening underneath. Smear the outside with paper mache and allow to dry over night.

Layer spray paint starting with grey until you get the right look. Spatter watered down white paint to give the rock a speckled rock finish. Arrange rocks on foam board to test placement placing the fake flame light in the middle.

Now we are ready to make the coals.
My apologies that I didn't take any pictures of this step, but take a small string of orange Halloween lights and wrap it in plastic wrap loosely and arrange it in a circle around the flame light on the foam board. Use tape to secure it to the board. I had a bowl that was the exact diameter as the flame light so I covered it in plastic wrap so I could use it to mold the middle of the campfire, but you can use the flame light as your mold, just make sure to cover it with plastic wrap so you can easily remove it from the foam insulation. Let foam set for a few minutes and remove the bowl or flame light. Press in sticks into the foam insulation and let foam dry completely. Lightly spray foam insulation with black spray paint. Take care not to spray it too much because we want the orange string lights to glow through the insulation to mimic hot coals. place the flame light and glue the rocks to the foam board. Plug in and turn out the lights. Instant campfire!

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

This turn of the maze was the most labor intensive because I made the Mausoleum crypt, and cemetery fence out of cardboard. The pediments started as tall boxes, but I constructed the crypt from a few sheets of 4'x 8' double walled cardboard. I didn't take pictures of each step of the construction process, but I included the painting process of the crypt. I added tombstones, a ghostly woman, a color changing moon, blue swirl lights, and lightning lights to set the mood.

Mausoleum Crypt

I built the structure out of 4'x8' sheets of double walled cardboard from Paper Mart. I added a plastic skull from Dollar tree and wood scroll work from Hobby Lobby. The rock shelves were made with paper mache and cardboard. The whole thing got a light coat of rock texture paint. Then, I sprayed it with flat grey primer. Using watered down black acrylic paint I added definition to all the edges of the cardboard. Following it up with drips of paint for weathering. I added hot glue to the rock shelves to mimic years of melted candles.

The entry gate sections were purchased at the 99 Cent Only Store and I made the pediments out of tall cardboard boxes painted the same way as the crypt. I cut out holes for the eyes, nose and mouth in the front of the pediments and glued the foam skulls over them. I suspended color changing tea lights inside the pediment so that the skull would light up.

Haunted House in Haddonfield

Wanting to build a scene with a haunted spooky house as the main focus, I again turned to the house facade I painted for the Carnival Fun House (Part 1 of 3). I re-used the mock fence posts I built for the first Zombie Maze. The only thing I really added here was the cardboard tree and jack-o-lanterns. The house facade was mounted away from the wall so that actors could easily move inside and outside of the house. If they were inside they could peek through the windows or they could be outside chasing the maze goers away.
The cardboard tree was literally thrown together the night before the carnival after I realized I needed something more in this diorama. Problem was, that I didn't have any big pieces of cardboard left, I had only a bunch of scrap pieces of cardboard. So I taped them together to make a tree. See my frustrated tree face on the unpainted tree... :) It actually turned out nice considering I threw it together the night before and painted it the morning of the carnival.

Frankenstein's Laboratory

I made this turn of the maze because I wanted to use all my specimen jars in a cool scene. I made a cardboard bookcase that I lined with string lights to light from behind so the contents of the jars could be seen in dim lighting. The rest of this vignette, I used a white board from school, a large table from the cafeteria, I brought my small TV with DVD player to play bacteria and virus images, and then I added a bunch of my Halloween decorations from home. Check out the how to below!

Laboratory Specimen Jars

Specimen Jars- How to

Cheap Fake Body Parts (I got most of these from the 99)

Empty Plastic Jars with lids (I collected them over time)

Fake blood

Cheesecloth

Jute twine

Paper labels on string

Coffee, black paint and fake blood

Aging labels- Pour strong coffee into a spray bottle and lightly spray labels and let dry. Turn over and repeat and let dry completely.

Add two or three drops of black paint to your coffee spray bottle and shake. Again spray labels and let dry. Repeat on other side and let dry completely.

Use fake blood to spray or splatter lightly with blood and let dry. Repeat on each side.

Using small alphabet stamps, stamp out labels with black ink pad. Or hand write your labels with black ink.

Spray paint the jar lids the same color. Wrap tops of plastic jars with jute twine and attach your label.
Add fake body parts into the jars, wrap some with cheesecloth and dribble blood over body part, letting some pool at the bottom of the jar. Let dry completely, it may take a few days to dry, and then place lid on jar. Stack or place on shelves in groups for a gruesome display. I made this bookcase also out of cardboard and hot glue which I spray painted and splattered with fake blood. I drilled holes into the back of the bookcase at the base of each shelf and put Xmas string lights through the holes so I could back light the jars which revealed the bloody parts in the Specimen jars.

Gatlin Cornfield

Corn Stalks Prop

For the Cornfield diorama in the maze I needed an easy and inexpensive way to create a cornfield. I found this link on Pinterest on how to make 6' tall cornstalks. I wanted to add a little more realism to the stalks so I added some floral stems from the Dollar Tree to top the stalks and fake corn cobs from The 99. I made thirty of these to line the maze walls, attaching them with string and tape.

Corn Stalks Prop How to:

(variation of instructions by WikiHow)

6' sections of a 24" wide roll of 40 lb. Craft Paper (I got it from OfficeMax)

Hot glue

Floral stems

Fake ears of corn

Cut a six foot section of craft paper from the roll. (Make sure you use at least 40 lb. paper for this craft or the corn stalk will be too flimsy and won't stand on it's own. If you use 60 lb. Craft paper, cut only 5 ' sections of paper or you won't be able to cut through it when it's rolled.)

Roll it up until it is about 1.5 - 2 inches in diameter and you are able to fit two fingers into the end of the roll. Make 3- 8" cuts down from the top of the roll. Secure the bottom, non-cut end, of the roll with a spot of hot glue. Twist the roll a bit from the bottom as you pull from the cut end, gently twisting and tugging until you reach the desired length. Add a few picks of floral stems and glue to the top of the stalk. Then glue two ears of corn in the folds of the corn stalk leaves.

Here's a walk through of the Haunted Hallows Maze with actors.

Here's a picture of a few of the hard working ladies on the carnival committee after a successful carnival under the direction of our amazing PTA President Neidin.💓
(l to r: Wendy, Carina, Brianna, Me, Neidin, and Lili)