Tired of bats and zombies, but still determined to have the best display on the block? Turn your entryway into Your Lair, or that weird cave with all the baby vampire sacs in Van Helsing. Go nuts for cheap!
1Create a backdrop for your lair, unless your walls look creepy enough to show through. Lay out a roll of dark paper or fabric large enough to cover your space, and spray paint them to add dimension and give them the color you want.
2Cut and hang the backdrop. This is like wallpapering, only not as precise or sturdy. Measure the height of your walls and cut sheets three or four inches longer off your prepared paper or cloth. Attach them to the wall with duct tape (rolled to be two-sided), black thumbtacks, carpentry staples, cord and hooks, or any way they stay up. Use the remaining paper to cover your ceiling and any bare patches.
3Add torn strips of cheesecloth sprayed with fluorescent paint on top of the black paper and cloth. Light this with large black lights for an eerie glowing effect.
4Conceal fog machines in the corners of the room. Fill the room with thick fog to add atmosphere.
5Fix a few large strobe lights to the ceiling to give the room an otherworldly shock effect.
6Create the cocoons. Unpack and stretch a rope of spiderweb, following the instructions on the bag. Hang most of the length where it can stay clean, and get a hook or helper to hold it still, a few feet from the free end. Fan out the free web until it's one or two feet wide. Inflate about 5 balloons taped together, or stuff and tie shut a large garbage bag, and wrap it evenly in the fanned cobweb. Cut the cobweb away with the scissors and twist it around the top of the bag or balloon to gently secure it, so it has a twisted tail of web on the same side as the bag's handles or the knot of the balloon. Repeat with the remaining balloons or bags, until you have a large cluster of web-covered globules to hang from the walls and ceilings. The more you make, the better it will look. Reserve 5 or 6 bags of web for the mother alien egg.
7Paint the cocoons. Layer on gray, black, and any other colors you want on them to hide the print on the grocery bags or the surface of the balloons, tone down the white webbing, etc.
8Hang the cocoons in clusters from the ceiling. Hang them by their tails using tape, carpentry staples, or whatever works best on your ceiling, keeping the large ones toward the back and concealing any Albertsons logos that might show through. Let them bunch up and rest against one-another.
9Touch up the cocoons again with paint, unless you didn't install a backdrop earlier. Deepen the shadows, hide flaws, spray the tails to blend into the backdrop, etc.
10Add a final layer of web. Uncoil and stretch your last bag of web, tear off a large chunk, and spread it evenly all across a cluster, reinforcing the cocoons and further screening them in mystery. Repeat for the other clusters, spread remaining web decoratively around the front of the entryway, or wherever you can think of. Spray paint the webbing that covers the clusters so it blends into the walls and doesn't appear so stark white.
11Add large latex rubber veins, and water balloons coated with Vaseline and thick hair gel.
12Add a thick coating of clear hair gel to all the hanging sacks, veins, and dangling globules in the room. Add food coloring to the gel to give it a tinted look.
13Apply a generous amount of a realistic stage blood by dipping a large paint brush into a can of blood and whipping it around the room. This method will create a very realistic blood pattern, and if you have covered all surfaces, will not make a mess.
14Clean up the scraps, check the display from a distance, make sure that the foggers and the strobe lights are functioning properly,and add on anything else you have lying around that might fit.
15Some suggestions: Severed arms, legs, intestines, rotten heads made of rubber with the eyes pulled out, also coated in a non toxic food like applesauce, dyed blue cottage cheese, or tomato paste. (non toxic for the children)
16Rubber eyeballs affixed to the sacks, human ears, animal bones strewn about the floor, and plastic skulls covered in brown paint to simulated decay -these types of details will add to the shock effect producing fun and thrills for all involved.
17Hide in the closet with a bloody flannel shirt, and a latex pig mask covered in blood. Remove the chain from a chainsaw, and when the children enter the room, jump from the closet, chainsaw roaring, and chase them around the room. The slippery surfaces of the hanging alien egg sacks will frighten and gross-out all involved. This is a variation of the 'peeled grapes as eyeballs" kiddie haunted house of our youth.
18Make sure you have a loud CD playing on infinite repeat. Use the sounds of hogs squealing in reverse, chains rattling, and strange outer space synthesizer effects to finish this frightening haunted basement!
19Have a fun and safe time!
- If the tails of the cocoons keep stretching, tie a string directly to the bag handles or balloon tip and hang them by that.
- Open your screen door and notice the path it swings along; place your cocoon clusters out of its way.
- Balloons are lighter and better shaped than stuffed bags, but dark ones are hard to find.
- If you want to hang anything heavy, like skeletons, or gory dead bodies, hang them with heavy string and cover the string with web.
- Tell the children that and old man died in the room that they are about to enter.
- Watch for fire hazards. With so much paint-soaked webbing floating around, keep the jack o' lanterns well out of the way.
- If you have a porch light in your ceiling, cut a hole in the backdrop so it doesn't burn itself one.
- Spray paint can be potentially hazardous to your health... And your clothes, your floor, your door, and every other exposed surface near your working area. Use a drop cloth and ALWAYS use in a well ventilated area.
- A high wind will tear up this display.
- Tacks, staples, and nails will damage your walls and ceiling. Get permission and use them sparingly.
- Coat all surfaces with homemade fire retardant.
Things You'll Need
- Four or more bags of new fake spiderweb
- Roll of brown or black paper or dark fabric that will cover your entryway
- Spray paint in black and gray
- Gray plastic grocery bags, paper bags, or sombre-colored balloons
- Sharp scissors
- fake skeletons
- Rubber Dead bodies
- raw mat
- Lightweight stuffing for the plastic bags
- Duct tape, wood staples, and/or nails
- An overhanging doorway
- strobe lights
- black lights
- fog machines (4)
- Pig Maniac costume
- 2 gallons (7.6 L) stage blood
- Chainsaw (remove blade)
- Hair gel
- Hot melt glue
- Latex varicose veins
- Scary sound effect CD