ha ha ha ha! I think my favorite part is the staircase down to the cellar with the bats. I love that.
I figured just seeing an ajar cellar door would be enough to give some creeps. After a track adjustment I realized that you were getting a full-on view of the cellar, so I added the hanging bats. And then I thought it would be cool if a bunch of them flew out right after you whizzed past the doorway. Granted, the ones that fly out are considerably smaller than what you saw hanging inside, but you're not supposed to notice that
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Thanks for all the video views and comments, I realize it's much more of a time investment to sit through a video rather than look at pictures, but since it's also a time investment (for me at least) to even make a video (I hate it!) I held off on the interior photos until you were forced to see it in the video.
There's a couple things on this attraction I did not like, one of them is (mostly) not my fault. I had to go with the Hoax track and it's very simple, low-budgety cars. It's a very bendable and narrow track so it fit the scale of something that was also meant to look like it could've once been a walk-through attraction. But that's where the benefits stop, because you also have no control over speed or car direction, and all you can really do is lock and unlock it's spinning. So I had to build the track first, figure out which way the cars were facing, and build all my scenes from that. Adding a functional second story was necessary to increase the length of the ride without making a gigantic show building, but getting the train back down to the main floor was a problem, because it picked up so much speed and everything after that descent goes by really fast. By extending the back of the building and adding some track I was able to get the cars slowed back down by the end scenes, but it kind of kills the momentum (and the realism, because there's no reason a dark ride should pick up speed like that.) Boo, Frontier.
The other thing, totally my fault, is the theming at the end of the ride, which I'll get to in a minute.
The living and dining room scenes are pretty basic, not much of interest other than a moving head on the dining room table. I don't feel like it starts getting interesting until the kitchen, where there's a lot of things happening at once in this scene:
There's body parts in the tub and a chicken pecking at something (brains maybe?) There was additionally once a chicken on the stove pecking at the "stew" but since the stove is lit that chicken probably would've chose safety over hunger
. There's a rat that scurries out and disappears into a knothole in under the sink, the faucet is running and the sink is overflowing but water doesn't show up good in night shots in this game.
Right after the aforementioned bats in the cellar is the freezer scene, with three bodies suspended on meat hooks and a few more scattered amongst the other perishables on the floor for good measure.
And then comes one of my favorite shots, a happy accident that happens so fast that you get a "what did I just see there?" moment:
I didn't take a photo, but there's what looks like a hand railing on the right side of the first staircase that is actually supposed to be one of those chair-lift thingies that old people have. [I was going to make a citytrader joke right there but I'm not going to because it's possible that I'm older.]
^^The bathroom scene, (both bathroom and kitchen feature some workshop content), more running water, blood on the floor and the water in the tub is supposed to be red but I went with creepier lighting so the red unfortunately isn't visible.
My very favorite shot in this ride, another last minute near accident: You get this beautiful head-on shot of the spider window, and then I got the idea to have an actual spider drop down directly in front of the spider on the window. I'm not so good with subtlety
I then tried to something similar with the next 2 stained glass windows, including the bedroom scene (not shown) and this one, but the cars really need to be travelling perpendicular to the window to get the full effect, and in these cases, neither do.
Something else you don't really see in the video, the spiral staircase that takes you back downstairs really is a staircase and not just a track/ramp, I wanted to make the ride suddenly bumpy at this point but didn't know how to do that
I kind of wanted to make the illusion that you were actually dropping all the way to the cellar, even though you're back on the first floor. The walls have changed to cinder block, lots of beams and cobwebs, floor debris and [Fisherman's] glowing eyes in the walls. I ended up pulling back on some of the theming, given how fast the cars were moving at this point.
Luckily, they slowed down just barely enough in time for the morgue (why is there a bunch of morgue drawers in a farmhouse? Because it's creepy, final answer.
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This is what ended up being my "grand finale" scene, and there's not much grand about it. I suppose it gives some closure to what's passing for a story here, simply that someone is killing people grotesquely and doesn't seem to have an exit strategy for the corpse disposal. It should have ended bigger, more shocking, more visual. I had simply run out of ideas at this point and I also didn't want to make the attraction building any larger.
That scene is followed by a decidedly boring hallway that takes you to the exit. But at least the station is well-disguised to look like a basic farmhouse foyer, no ride operator or visible equipment. Just some audible "drips" since it's obviously storming outside and the roof is in disrepair
The show building backs right up to the parking lot, so I figured the Petersens, (back when they owned this place) would've continued the exterior theming somewhat to generate interest. There's also a train ride that passes by that needed some interest as well, (look mom! It's an open garage door with park maintenance vehicles!)
Well, there's still a lot to see, none of it really finished, and nothing anybody is going to be interested in once Halloween is over. So I'll probably crank out photo updates through the week (a zombie POV video is looking unlikely, I didn't plan my time well.
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