Do you want to create one of those spooktacular haunted house parties that people have at Halloween? Well, this is how you can do it.  First impressions are everything with a Halloween Funny Haunted House Party.  Those impressions should begin before the (un) lucky visitors to your house of horrors even step foot inside the door.

First of all you need Halloween Invitations.   You can make themed invitations yourself, for example pumpkins, using orange paper with black stick ons. If cutting and sticking isn’t your favorite thing then you could get some of the Halloween clip art which is available online, there are all sorts of images that are funny, scary and even ghoulish. You can use these to create your own unique invitations. You could also make the invitations that fit in to the theme of the party such as ghosts, bats, funny monsters, superheroes, and so on.

Lighting is one of the best ways to set the atmosphere outside.   A black light works great on the porch provided there aren’t too many street lights and if you have some glow-in-the-dark creatures or monsters you can put them nearby.  If you really want to go to town you can use portable spot lights with colored bulbs and then aim them at at your roof or door. You can get some excellent lighting to ‘plant’ in the garden from Halloween Party Suppliers, and they are not too costly. You can hang all sorts of scary pumpkin lanterns from tree branches, or use flashing Christmas lights.  Next is the door, you can make it like a gravestone or the door to a castle using a spooky door curtain or drape it with cobwebs that trail in peoples faces as they walk through.  Sound effects are good too, a loud creak goes a long way on Halloween.  If you have plenty of time you can make mock gravestones for the garden out of old timber, or cardboard boxes if the weather is set fair - rain doesn’t do them any good.

Once you have the outside sorted you can start on the inside of your house.  You can turn an ordinary house into a spooky environment with just a few touches.  Make sure you block off the doors of rooms you don’t want people to go into, tape across the doors or scary ‘Keep Out’ notices work well. Decorate other doors to look like coffins, or hang skeletons over them. Then you need to tackle the windows - you don’t want to spoil the atmosphere.  Best thing to block out the windows are black plastic garbage bags. You may have to split them, and it doesn’t matter if they let some light in - it will be a very weird and spooky light at best.   Most houses have dimmer switches, but if not, just use some low powered bulbs, they will do just as well.   Depending on the theme of your party you can buy suitable Halloween Decorations to put on the walls or have ‘hanging’ around, like the occasional bat, vampire or witch.  Putting munchies or drinks into cauldrons in each room helps the atmosphere too. Lighting is powerful inside as well, use light sensitive decorations, black lights and decorations that work with those are great.  Coloured bulbs or shades create a strange glow in the room, or you can use lamps placed on the floor shining upwards, just make sure they are not a fire hazard.

Next time we’ll look at Props, Costumes food and games for your Funny Halloween Party.