Pete Tridish and pals made a hell of a Hallowe'en haunt this year: on their "porch of doom," trick-or-treaters were sent to a Mars colonized by billionaires where they were expected to mine Mars rocks and put them in Amazon Mars boxes at a sweatshop Amazon Mars warehouse; Pete notes that the haunt was partly inspired by my 2011 young adult novella Martian Chronicles, which was recently podcast in two parts by the excellent Escape Pod podcast! Read the rest

Nothing conjures up the eldritch geometries that are the secret fuel of Disney's Haunted Mansion like the hair-pulling geometrical puzzles posed by Ikea assembly instructions: hence, Spöke Håus, $20 and up on Teefury, proving once again that trademark violation is your best entertainment dollar. Read the rest

Trimbandit's Scary Animated Zombie Groundbreaker Instructable uses two pneumatics to make a partially buried zombie jerk and pitch and seem to try to claw its way out of your lawn -- it's an incredibly effective illusion, one that capitalizes on the jerking, sudden motions of the pneumatic to lend a terrifying, otherworldly vigor that makes the mannequin skinned over the pneumatics seem like the living dead. Read the rest

The Build Cave is a California-based prop-maker whose Etsy store is focused on decor for haunters with an emphasis on haunted, vintage elevators (!!), and which includes these delightful resin skull fence-toppers designed to be affixed to PVC pipe verticals and painted; they're $95/dozen. (via Creepbay) Read the rest

The tombstones at the Haunted Mansions in Disney's themeparks are a kind of credit reel that pay tribute to the Imagineers who made the Mansion possible; in this short Disney video, you get some potted biographies of the honorees, from Claude Coats to Marc Davis to Harriet Burns to the incredible and weird Rolly Crump. Read the rest

David Irvine (AKA gnarledbranch) sent us a selection of photos of his delightful Halloween ornaments painted on salvaged lightbulbs. Read the rest

Back in 1972-3, Disney ran a short-lived variety show called The Mouse Factory that intercut classic animation with live action, framed by celebrity hosts that kind of threaded it all together into a mashed-up, loose storyline. Read the rest

Spanish Etsy seller EasyPrintAndCut makes tiny, printable papercraft furniture, housewares and decor for haunted dollhouses: grimoires, vampire hunting kits, spooky wallpaper and wainscotting, tiny taxidermy, adorably tiny engravings from tiny gothic antique books and much more -- all for instant delivery. Read the rest

The $35 Bleeding Hand Candle from Etsy seller Creepy Candles is a life-sized candle whose fingers blaze, melt red wax blood, and leave behind a full-sized metal skeleton hand when they've burned up. Read the rest

Get your phone to loop Madame Leota (or your favorite spooky fortune teller), stick it in a goldfish bowl with strategic black cloth covering everything except the video, and plonk the whole thing on a candle-holder: viola! (via Gameraboy) Read the rest

Dan Howland from the dearly departed Journal of Ride Theory snapped these all-the-feels tombstones at this year's Davis Graveyard (previously) haunt. Read the rest

Make rounds up a bunch of great tutorials for making humaniform ghosts out of packing tape, in both adult (dress form-molded) and child (baby doll-molded) sizes, perfect for your haunt this year (show here, Cynthia Abernathy's glowing ghost).

How-To: Packing Tape Ghost Sculptures [Agnes Niewiadomski/Make] Read the rest

Dan from the Journal of Ride Theory writes, "The semi-pro Hallowe'en display in my neighborhood just gets better every year. I'm sure you'll spot the Haunted Mansion references." Read the rest

David writes, "A year ago I pledged to make a fully interactive version of my augmented jack-O-lantern, Gourdy; I've finally gotten around to doing it, and I'm releasing him free for anyone to use. Read the rest

The Hauntbox is an open-source hardware controller for all the sensors and controllers necessary to build sophisticated, automated electronic haunting projects. It requires no soldering or prior knowledge to use, and is fully hackable and accepts Arduino shields. The Kickstarter was successful, and they've gone into full production: you can Read the rest

Back in 2010, Jason and Melissa -- a pair of haunters who got engaged in their Hallowe'en front-yard haunt -- had an amazing Haunted Mansion-themed wedding, with elaborate props and keepsakes and centerpieces, each finer than the last. Naturally, they held the wedding at the Forest Lawn Cemetery chapel, a Gothic confection; and they served a 3D Haunted Mansion wedding-cake. Read the rest

LoveCraftsman sez, "How to make a realistic corpse out of a cheap plastic skeleton in one hour."

Having experienced the tedium of creating a corpse with liquid latex and cotton fiber first hand I found this tutorial extremely helpful. It uses a cheap plastic skeleton, plastic dropcloths, and a heat gun to produce a surprisingly realistic final product. The one in the tutorial took about an hour and looks pretty good, particularly when compared to the latex treatments that take days to finish.

Quick and Dirty Corpses

(Thanks, TheLovecraftsman!) Read the rest