How to Create a Haunted House on a Budget

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Updated: March 29, 2019 | References

Halloween is a great time to express your creativity. Creating a haunted house might seem like a difficult, expensive way to do this. However, if you look around your house, you will find everyday materials that can be used for this endeavor. With imagination and improvisation, you can make the indoors and outdoors of your house very frightening.

Part One of Three:
Creating a Spooky Exterior

  1. 1
    Find materials. Look for cardboard boxes around your house. Do you have any unused trash bags? Milk Jugs? These can all be used to create decorations. You might have construction paper that is leftover from your children’s school projects. Tissue paper, popcorn, and jars are also useful materials that most people have.[1]
  2. 2
    Buy cheap supplies. You can generally find pumpkins at your local grocery store. Artificial jack o’ lanterns are generally pretty cheap. You might want to buy balloons and streamers to use as decorations. Felt is also useful and inexpensive.[2]
  3. 3
    Get jack o’lanterns. You can carve a pumpkin or buy a plastic jack o'lantern from your local convenience or dollar store. This is one sure-fire way of creating a haunted atmosphere. You can place them in a line on your front porch.
  4. 4
    Construct huge spiders. Fill a black trash bag full of leaves, old magazines, or any paper you can find. This will be the spider’s thorax. Stuff a second trash bag with similar material. Twist this bag in the shape of a leg. Make several other "legs" in this manner and connect them to the spider. You can do this with glue or duct tape. Place googly eyes on the head of the spider. You can put these on your lawn.[3]
  5. 5
    Create bats. Draw a bat shape on felt or construction paper. You can use an online template for this. You may want to make bats of varying sizes. You should use a white pen when you make this sketch, so that you can see the design. Cut felt or construction paper using your sketch as a guide. Then, you can hang the bats on your walls or string them together for a haunted look.[4]
  6. 6
    Build balloon ghosts. Find a balloon, preferably made of Mylar, fill it up with air, and throw an old white cloth, towel, or blanket over it. Then, you should cut circles out of black tape. Attach these to the balloon to create a ghost face.[5]

Part Two of Three:
Designing a Frightening Interior

  1. 1
    Dim the lights. Try to turn off all the lights in your house. Light the space with candles. This lighting will have an eerie effect. You can also try setting your house lights on a timer, so they flash at odd intervals. This will create the illusion of dark forces at work.
  2. 2
    Fill the rooms with spider webs. It's not hard to make a spider web. You can use yarn, doilies, or cheesecloth to make them. Once they're done, put them around your house. If you make them big enough, you can even put plastic spiders on them. Don't make them too big, unless you want your guests to get stuck in them.
  3. 3
    Put specimen jars in the kitchen. You only need everyday household materials to do this. Fill a jar with water, sprinkle in food coloring, and then place the head of a teddy bear or doll in it.[6] Try to make several of these and put them on your kitchen counters. Give the jars odd, weird labels, like "Witches' Brew" or "Blood of the Innocent." This will make them seem more realistic.
  4. 4
    Create a bloody bathroom scene. Make fake blood, then splatter it all over your bathroom's surfaces. This will make your bathroom look like a scene from a horror movie. Try dipping your hands in fake blood or ketchup and pressing them on the curtains for an extra touch.

Part Three of Three:
Enlisting Scary Actors

  1. 1
    Ask for help. Tell your neighbors and friends a couple of weeks in advance that you need them to populate your haunted house for a night. They will probably be willing to aid you. You may even find that they will be excited to play the treacherous ghouls in your haunted house.
    • Give your guests instructions such as "Jump out whenever somebody comes a foot-length distance from you" or "Scream very loudly occasionally to freak guests out."
    • If there are children coming, you might want to ask your actors to be mindful of your guests' young age and not make the house too scary.
  2. 2
    Wear costumes. Tell your actors to dress up in simple costumes. For example, you could have them pretend to be zombies. To create a zombie, you just need fake blood and old clothes. Don't forget to have them practice the all important stumbling zombie walk!
    • Provide your guests with blankets with holes cut out for eyes and have them pretend that they are ghosts.
  3. 3
    Write terrifying dialogue. For example, if you have an actor who is playing the grim reaper, they can say “It’s time to take some souls.” Or, perhaps, if an actor is playing a vampire, they can scream “I want to suck your blood!” Zombies are simple to write for. They just need to moan.

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About This Article

Co-Authored By:
wikiHow Staff Editor
2 votes - 100%
Co-authors: 11
Updated: March 29, 2019
Views: 20,110

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