Give Them A Real Scare This Halloween-A Guide to Scaring Trick or Treaters and Haunting Your House, Yard or Party
Authored and Illustrated by: Joseph Pfeiffer
This is a deceiving book. Upon first glance, the cartooned cover as well as the profusely cartooned illustrations would lead you to believe that for the more advanced haunter, this book would be of little use.
Au contraire mademoiselle et monsieur!
There's a lot of information and more importantly, ideas for Halloween costumes, decorating and haunting in this book. I've had this book for a number of years and I still find myself flipping through it for ideas and inspiration. I can see the train of thought in this book, a veritable haunting brainstorming session that was put on paper and published. And that's ok, no, that's good! He doesn't tell you HOW to use pneumatics, control circuits, or carpentry skills (although, there are some elementary molding and prop construction instruction overviews that are quite valuable to get a start on construction) but gives you ideas on how you can make and use a prop in a haunt. I want to do one of the first ideas in the book: sit in a wheelchair with a blanket over the lap. When the trick or treater comes close, rip off the blanket to reveal two skeleton legs and start wheeling towards them saying "I want your legs, give me your legs, I need your legs!" I would think that would be instant mental scarring. The idea is in the book but the execution instructions for this isn't, which is ok, you purchase two bucky legs off of Ebay, tuck your own legs under the seat of the chair and away you go!
Well, maybe a little more than that, but not much!
Three words, get this book, great ideas when you're feeling mentally dry and need an inspirational jump start.
2 comments:
When I saw the cover I groaned (sorry) - your review about sums it up, I think I read one or two interesting things....which I seem to have promptly forgotten :D
Still in my collection, good reference book....and I think it is good book for beginners.
Cheers!
I agree completely, it is indeed a book for beginners, a haunt of ya'll's caliper wouldn't really find anything much in it (I still like the wheelchair idea, I think it would freak out a kid or two). A newbie would probably benefit from it though I think.
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