Our Haunt Vocabulary

"dark attraction"

A "dark attraction" is a fancy name for a form of entertainment with a spooky theme, such as a commercial "haunted house".

"Haunt" (noun) - "Come visit my haunt!"

A "haunt" is a casual name for a "dark attraction" or entertainment "haunted house". This covers everything from year-round multimilliondollar commercial enterprises to a decorated front yard that is only on display a couple days a year.

"Haunt" (verb) - "J.B. Corn is haunting from the other side now."

To work on presenting a "dark attraction" or entertainment "haunted house".

"Haunter" - "Billy is a talented haunter."

A person who works in or on a "haunt".

"Techno-haunt"

A "haunt" that relies heavily on technology (automation, electronics, pneumatics) to entertain and scare patrons.

"Condition orange"

"I need another extension cord."

This term was coined in honor of the bright orange "shop" extension cord. It applies despite the true color of the extension cord in question.

"Shrub"

A particular kind of effect, manifesting a creature that interacts with the audience. We coined this term in honor of the "enchanted shrub" from 1997. Although he was just a two-foot-tall tree, he seemed able to hear and see what was going on, and was able to speak back to the kids, conducting conversations with them and heckling the stuffy ones.

"Spook Up"

Take something that is not particularly scary and make it creepy, scary, or shocking.

"Plan C"

Use a Bucky skeleton. Works when anything else you might have planned that goes awry!

"garg"

Affectionate term for "gargoyle".

"ship's carpentery"

There is an expression "ship's carpentery" that is used to describe a situation where almost every measurement is different and every piece is custom fit. Under the stress and strain of hard usage, wooden ships are bent and twisted away from their original design. If you go to the original plans and cut a piece of wood to fit someplace, it probably won't fit in real life. In addition, spaces on ships tend to be rounded and/or tapered anyway. In order to be work effectively in this environment, you have to measure the exact gap and cut the wood to fit exactly ... and just about nothing is ever "square".

"haunt engineering"

Similar to ship's carpentery is a term that we call "haunt engineering". We try to build some pretty elaborate stuff, like the mad monk who stands erect and suddenly raises his arm up to show you something. In an ideal world, with commercial products, the designer would figure out how heavy the load would be, the speed with which it would move, calculate torque, and pick appropriate materials to stand the strain.

We don't have the knowledge to do that, so we guess. And the monk ended up with legs that would bow as he lifted his arm. Which led us to make stronger legs for the next attempt.

So, "haunt engineering" means, give it a guess, try it out, and try to improve it next time.

haunt engineering