Haunt Weekly

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're celebrating the holiday season by discussing scams! Okay, that doesn't make sense, but we were visiting the grandbaby and didn't have time to come up with another idea. Still, haunts are uniquely vulnerable to scams and 'tis the season for them. So that's what we're going to talk about, some of the more common scams ha...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing the news. It's been a busy month, but we get to report on the opening of The Haunted Mansion in Disneyland, a haunt that is failing to give out refunds and two separate studies about the benefits of fear. We also have some big conference news, a haunt that needs our help, and much, much more! This Week's Episode Includes: 1. In...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're wasting perfectly good money for your entertainment by buying random haunt garbage from Temu. How bad is it? Well, there were a couple of decent times, but the inflatable sex doll, I mean tarped dummy, probably says it all. Fortunately, our misery can be your entertainment as we review our recent buys. This Week's Episode Includes: 1. Int...

Send us Fan Mail Last week on Haunt Weekly, we reviewed the 2024 season and gleaned lessons from it. This week, we're turning our gaze forward and examining the things we want to improve next year. All in all, this was a tough list to make. Most of the 2024 season went great, and the things that didn't were outside our control. But that doesn't mean that we can't improve on suc...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're looking back at the now-finished 2024 season. It was a wild one for us, and it felt like an uphill battle, both literally and figuratively. However, with the season in the books, we can pause, catch our breath and discuss some takeaways that we hope to carry with us into 2025. This Week's Episode Includes: 1. Intro 2. Work We Did for the...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're wrapping up our 2024 haunt season and covering the news. This includes discussing how our Halloween night went, our trip to the 13th Gate and, of course, the latest haunted attraction news. So please sit back as we cover all the haunted attraction news that is fit to print. This Week's Episode Includes: 1. Intro 2. Question of the Week 3....

Send us Fan Mail Though we know many of you are at the tail end of your season, we just got our first two nights in the books. And what amazing nights they were. A full crew, a good crowd, tons of great scares and a haunt that worked just about perfectly. You can't ask for anything more.  So that's what we're going to talk about this week: our first two haunting nights, our visit to...

Send us Fan Mail Sorry for missing last week, everyone, but we've returned with an overlong episode with much to discuss. We need to first update you on our haunt season. Then, we'll discuss our trips to three haunted attractions in the New Orleans area. It's a long one, folks, so strap in as we have a LOT to go through. This Week's Episode Includes: 1. Intro 2. Question of the...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly is a double-length episode as we discuss our recent trip to Kansas City and St. Louis, which included three full nights of haunt visits. First, we visited The Beast and Edge of Hell in downtown Kansas City. Next, we checked out Darren Lynn Bousman's creation at Exiled in Bonner Springs. Finally, we returned to Waterloo Sportsman Club with family in t...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're recapping what has beeen one of the best weekends of our lives for visiting haunts: The Lost Souls Chicago Haunted Bus Tour.  To say it was an amazing weekend is an understatement. Not only were there six great haunted houses, but an amazing bus trip plus some great time with a good friend and friend of the show. In this episode, we're re...

Send us Fan Mail Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone does dumb things while they are learning. However, it's a very special kind of mistake that makes you want to smack your past self across the face.  Yet, every year, we are confronted by just such mistakes. So we're going to talk about them. Here are eight mistakes we made that really make us hate our past selves. 1. Intro 2. Question of...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're talking about the week that was, including our experience with the hurricane and our recent haunt build. However, for those who want something to do when they aren't working or acting, we have a suggestion: Happy Escape Tycoon. The game's name is a misnomer. It is actually about running your haunted attractions and goes into surprisi...

Send us Fan Mail By its very nature, haunting is an up-and-down business. Sometimes, the queue lines are packed, and other times, it's impossible to get a crowd. After a few gangbuster years, things started to look scruffy, and there were a lot of indicators that should have given the haunters pause. No matter what the economy is actually doing, perception is 9/10s of reality. So, let's...

Send us Fan Mail  This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing the news! We have news about a haunt destroyed by arson, updates from Knotts Scary Farm and a series of celebrities getting involved in the haunt business. All of that and much, much more! This Week's Episode Includes:  1. Intro 2. Question of the Week 3. Conference Reminders 4. NC Haunt Destroyed By Arson -  - GoFundMe Link - http...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're discussing the game Crime Scene Cleaner, recently released on Steam. The game isn't your standard cleaning simulation game. Instead, it's a masterclass of storytelling through one's environment. A great deal of thought went into the placement and setup of the game, making it one haunters need to pay attention to. So strap in and...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly we're doing a topic that, for us, has been a LOOOOOONG time coming: Aphantasia in haunting. What is aphantasia? It's the inability to form pictures in your mind. Where most of the population can picture a beautiful beach or a country cottage, people with aphantasia see only words, letters or numbers. Though this was originally discovered in the...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're discussing building or improving your haunt character. It's the perfect time of year for this conversation, too. With just over a month before haunt season, many actors are trying to nail their characters down. This includes veterans looking to up their game and newcomers looking to hit the ground running. So, we'll discuss how to bu...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing the news!  Sadly, this week's lead story involves you-know-who being arrested on some serious charges. However, we also have some haunt openings, announcements from Six Flags and much more. This Week's Episode Includes:  1. Intro 2. Housekeeping Note 3. Question of the Week 4. Conference Reminders 5. RM Arrested on Attempted Mu...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're discussing the TV series The Walking Dead and examining the lessons that haunters can and should learn from it. From scare tactics to sound design, the show offers much to learn about scaring people. So, we will break down all the things you can learn from the show. This Week's Episode Includes: 1. Intro 2. Work We Did for Our Haunt 3. Qu...

Send us Fan Mail AI is still the big marketing buzzword for the 2020s. However, as the hype and fear begin to fade, it's time to look at what AI can actually do and how it might be able to help. To that end, most of AI's improvements are more iterative than revolutionary. However, that doesn't mean that AI is useless, just that one needs to be smart about how they  use it. This Week...

Send us Fan Mail Every haunt has a theme, even if they don't realize it. Sometimes, the theme is no theme; sometimes, it's a generic "Haunted Hosue" theme. Other times, it's something even worse. As haunts begin working on their themes and promotions, we'll discuss themes and the mistakes we see haunts, including some good ones, make when picking a theme. While a haun...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're doing the news!  It's a busy time for haunt news as we ramp up the preparation for haunt season. However, that doesn't mean we don't have a few stories from outside the industry that could have major impacts on haunted attractions. This Week's Episode Includes: 1. Intro 2. Question of the Week 3. Haunted House Actor Admits...

Send us Fan Mail This week on Haunt Weekly, we're discussing day jobs—or rather, why day jobs should hire haunters. Haunting is hard work, and even those who've done it for years or decades may not view it as "real work." However, we should be more proud of our work and hiring managers should take note of the skills we've learned. After all, if we can survive a few seasons...

Send us Fan Mail Haunting is hard work, but it's much more difficult when unprepared.  In this episode, we will discuss 13 things that every haunter should own. They can make haunting easier, more comfortable and, in some cases, safer. So sit back, relax and take some notes. You probably have a few things you'll want to buy. This Week's Episode Includes: 1. Intro 2. Work We Did for...

Send us Fan Mail A haunted attraction is basically a magic act. Though everyone knows it's an illusion, we don't share how it is done. However, we're throwing open the curtain a bit and looking at 13 secrets that pretty much every haunter knows, but doesn't tell their customers. Some are standard, some are wholesome, and a few we'd probably rather not get out. But we will...