The Haunted House of Love
There are those who ask if I, Ramón the Mink of Love, am truly appreciating the Haunted House. After all, aren't the Love and the Horror the opposite emotions? No! It is a simple truth that anyone who is scared will seek out the Creature Comforts of which I, Ramón the Mink of Love, am an Expert. So to help all of you with your Amorous Aspirations this Halloween, I give you my guide to the building of the Haunted House.The first task in creating the Haunted House is to be finding the proper location. You are needing a large, open space where you can be partitioning off all the different rooms and displays you are to be making. The best locations, I have been finding, are the school gyms, the senior centers, and the church basements. Go to the person in charge of one of these places, and tell them of the vast quantities of Pure, Liquid Love that will be generated by your event. Most often, they will be letting you have their space for free!
The next step is to be laying the proper mood. If you are not having the right background effects for your Haunted House, you will not be scaring anyone, which is decreasing the chances for Love! The best ways to be inducing feelings of Fright is through the ambient sound effects. You should be having the tape machine with the proper effects on loop. Some good sounds are the wailing of the cold wind, the tolling of the lonesome bell, and the howling of the distant wolf. But for that true sense of Hair-Raising Loving, you must be remembering to overlay all of these with the 70s wokka-chikka guitar. This will be making your Haunted House recalled like no other.
Now you must be setting up all the scenes of horror. Remember, today's audiences, they are the jaded and cynical people. The corpses, the aliens, and the ghosts and other monsters are all too prosaic and banal. Every Haunted House has been using these for decades. No, you must be having the Exhibits that will be making your efforts stand Scarily above the others. Humble Mink that I am, I, Ramón the Mink of Love, have a couple of Truly Terrifying ideas for you:
- The audience walks into the room set up like the interior of a church.
Giant crosses are adorning everything. At the pulpit is the preacher who
is shouting and spitting and turning red from his exertion. He is yelling
about the evils of Love, and the immorality of modern society. He
approaches menacingly, as if he's about the grab one of the patrons
and forcibly baptize him. But when he gets close the lights go out and the
audience walks on.
- This one involves the bedroom scene. The customers walk in and see the
Beautiful, Lithe woman in the bed asking them to come Take her. But then,
out of a side door, walks the young man with the knife in his hand. “You!”
he screams. “What are you doing with my girlfriend?” He then threatens
the patrons with his knife while the women is pleading with him to calm
down and Share the Love. Fortunately he trips and the patrons can be
escaping through the other door.
- The audience enters through the door into the dimly lit room, where
they can barely be making out the woman in the pale dress. Her face is
completely obscured, and she is holding something in her hand. “Honey,”
she says sweetly in her high voice, “There you are! I've been looking
for you. Come here. Come to me.” As the audience gets closer, the lights
get brighter, until they can see that she is wearing the wedding dress.
She holds up the piece of paper in her hand so that everyone can read
it—it's clearly marked “The Certificate of Marriage.” “Now we
can be together for ever and ever! Just the two of us! For all time!” As
soon as someone is screaming or backing away, the lights extinguish and the
patrons are moving on.
- Again, the audience comes upon the bedroom scene. A young man or woman
is lying in the bed, with a concerned expression. “Darling, we've had
a little problem,” he or she says with worry. Then suddenly, the latex
covered hand is reaching out from behind and grabbing one of the patrons.
It's the giant broken prophylactic! Soon others are shambling and
moaning out of the closet, from behind the bed, and from the next room!
The audience is surrounded! How will they escape? Fortunately a door
opens, letting them into the next room...
Finally, remember that through all of these Horrors and Terrors, your audience will be becoming more and more scared, and hence more and more Aroused. Be sure to be providing a number of secret cubby holes and hidden rooms throughout the Haunted House for the Surreptitious Making of Love. And if you are keeping all of these under observation, you will know which ones might be Sharing their Delights with you as well! The successful Haunted House is having many rewards.
I wish you luck. May you have a Happy and Loving Halloween!♥
