Haunted Trail of Tears 2022 – Day Walker

Welcome to the second part of our three part series on our 2022 annual Halloween Haunted Trail event. In the first of the series, we covered the behind the scenes work that goes into putting it all together (link here). It is difficult to capture the extent of the trail due to the darkness (there is not a lot of ambient light down in the valley), so we always like to take shots during the day ..also allows those that are easily scared to get a bit more of the experience. Will focus more on the new stuff and items that could be easily missed in the dark. This year we had a new entrance to the trail!

Hit the jump to start the day walk of the Haunted Trail of Tears 2022.

The setup of the Pumpkin Arch was detailed in the prep/build phase, but I am pretty proud of it so you get another look ha. It looks even better at night as the pumpkins look like they are floating above the entrance, look for that in the upcoming night walk. I didn’t include a lot of the blow-ups in the first part of the trail as those have been covered a lot in the past. For those that are not familiar with the trail, we plan it so it gets scarier as you go deeper into the forest – guests are responsible for determining how far they …and/or kids should go. We are not responsible for nightmares or therapists post party hehehehe. The Dragons Lair was back again and after addressing some “nuances” with the animatronics we added to the little dragon, they both had a flawless fire breathing night.

Bat Boy was back in its usual spot. For the next year I need to move those wings up higher on the Posey, from this angle they kind of look like they are coming out of its butt!

This is my favorite blow-up on the trail. The dragon is actually Paul’s and it is gigantic. It spends the nights battling the skeleton dragons.

Now in the valley, the guests begin their journey from the tamer props to more involved ones. This is when the guests need to start making decisions on what they are prepared to see.

Our Pirate greeter welcomes the guests to the trail. Finally found a spooky Parrot to replace the Owl for next year’s event – we are always trying to improve. Note, Ron recorded a number of “piraty” greetings that the skeleton Posey randomly plays as the guests approach.

This is Paul and I’s inside joke. From the early days we have always had some Xmas related props that have been enhanced to fit the Halloween theme – it is a statement on what we think about the retail Christmas world trying to push our favorite holiday out of the way.

From there we move into the Emerald Forest. Will have to wait until the night shots to know why this is appropriately named. It is a little hard to see in this shot, but that’s Brad’s 12′ Home Depot Skeleton he let us borrow for the event. That prop makes the dragon blow-up look small! We have better shots of that we’ll cover in the next post.

This year we found some new webbing material which worked really nice and gave the spider area a more realistic feel. Definitely need to pick up more of that for this year. You can also see some of Brad’s handy skull work in the trees to the right. He has a gift and whenever he is available we put it to good use.

Another look at the webbing and you can see a better view of the giant skeleton in the background.

Not to give too much away for this October, but our spider infestation is going to get a whole lot worse thanks to some new 8 legged nightmares currently being planned in the “terror lab”.

The witches were given a new place on the trail this year. There was a new emphasis put on the first part of the trail (the less scary part) and decided we needed the extra space. I think they liked their new home and they were a perfect fit for the Emerald Forest.

As an interesting tidbit, the witches are always the last prop to be assembled on the trail. Their heads are made of color changing orbs that are USB charged (link here). Want to make sure they get a good charge during the day so they will last through the night.

You can never have too many witches on a haunted trail – there are two additional ones getting finishing touches in the lab to add to the trail this year.

Just to give a feel for how the trail works, the guests are directed to the right path (using rope lights you can’t see right now) which then opens up to the cemetery that is technically straight ahead. On the left is the evil clown area before wrapping back to the cemetery in the middle and then on to the zombie containment area positioned to the left of this photo. A large part of the trail effort is making sure we keep everyone on the path and don’t get confused in the darkness – So far we have managed to only lose a few guests, hoping they show up some year hehehe.

This is heading to the right in the image above. You can see some of the fencing we use behind the skull prop to help direct traffic – again, this is all covered in rope light to visually help in the dark.

Continuing down the right path to the cemetery.

This is where we put the new Grim Reaper Linda bought me at Costco after the previous year’s event. I think you are going to like how this looks in the night time walk-thru. It also has a very nice, deep and rich voice card which really adds to the effect.

More witches! This one actually broke last year right before the guests arrived. It stopped lunging forward, but the voicing and the eyes lit up so it still produced a good scare. Took it completely apart in the off season and figured out the lunge gear box had some plastic gears sheared off. Couldn’t get it fixed then, but will take a closer look for this year and see if we can’t get it restored to its full splendor.

That’s Paul’s ring of ghouls. The previous year he burned out the servo mechanism that spun it – all fixed now!

This is looking back from the center path a few shots above – mainly left it in as you can see the rope lighting that is entwined in the fencing. In addition to help direct people, this also puts a lot more ambient light into the valley which is badly needed on those moonless nights.

The Gargoyle cemetery sentry worked great again this year. There were some issues getting everything working during the first couple of years for this prop, but since hardening the controllers and adding the fog that shoots out the mouth it has been rock solid – knock on wood!

Sun is starting to go down and you can already tell the effect on the trail by just comparing the look of the Gargoyle with the shot above.

As mentioned in the prop post, The Coffin Opener prop underwent a lot of improvements in the off season. A new frame was added to the opening skeleton to keep it upright and the open/close mechanism was improved to make it a bit smoother. Also redid the controller and put it in a one of our standard waterproof boxes. It used to stay up by the house to keep it protected if it rained. Now it was in its rightful place.

A wider shot of the cemetery. Brad is working on a new ground fogger for this area and I have numerous new tombstones to add which will help fill it out even more.

One of the new stones for this year – this plays off a running joke from work as I used to keep a folder to put all the emails addressed to Brain.

Both of the wings were given new hardened controllers this time which solved all the problems we were having with them. I think this may be the first year both wings worked flawlessly for the entire event.

Another new feature of the trail was the projection screen. I always wanted to try a projection, but wasn’t sure how to do it and make sure it didn’t get ruined by any bad weather. After noodling on it for awhile with Ron, we came up with a working solution. First task was to create a gravestone to house the projector. We then got a black screen door replacement material designed to withstand pet scratching and put it on a PVC frame. At night, the mesh would catch a majority of the light and give the impression the figures were truly floating in the air. Results..even better than imagined – we are going to have a lot of fun with this long into the future.

Slightly wider shot of the back of the cemetery.

Another shot of the cemetery, this time looking back from the projector tombstone.

One of our custom stones from a few years back. Still looking good and still generating laughs…once they get it hehehe.

Another one of the custom stones – just noticed we had the right skull decoration turned …oops. The eyes light up on this one.

A wider shot of the left side of the cemetery.

I finally got the letters blackened in this year on the Alford stone. I need to add some more detail in the cracks and maybe darken the inner cutouts, but this was a huge improvement making it much more readable at night. Alford also got some work on its linkages which worked a lot smoother this year as well. He also had a non-weather-hardened controller so that has now been fixed for the ’23 event.

Another scene from the graveyard. That is one of the few store bought tombstones in the collection. My neighbor actually gave me that one year and it has been put to good use ever since.

Looking back down the trail from the cemetery. The fencing will have rope lights on it to help direct guests to the right into the Clown/Zombie Areas, otherwise they would be heading back the direction they came from and miss the more mature oriented scares.

A last warning before entering the Clown Infestation area – I recommend turning back now ha.

Paul really tapped into my worst fears with his newly revamped Posey. Originally, this used to be his Herman Munster prop – very tall and would slowly move at the waist at random times. To spice it up a bit, he changed it to Pennywise and now, not only does it move its head and torso, he loops various quotes from the IT movie. This evil thing gives me the creeps even in the daylight.

Looking into clown alley. Each year it gets worse which is not helping my sleep at ALL.

Hugz the Clown is always a big hit and probably gets the most selfies of anything else on the trail. Apparently went on a diet in the offseason as he seems a lot thinner than he used to be. We will be sure and fatten him up for next year..maybe even make him taller.

The “red clown” below is Posey #1, the first PVC prop to come off the Posey line way back when we decided to get into the haunt business. I have kept it in this state in honor of that heritage, but we are working to upgrade it to our newly V3.0 frame that is completely poseable – this early version had fixed joints. Still creepy as hell though.

We have had an ongoing battle with the Clown in a Box prop. The mechanics seem to always develop issues once we get down into the valley. Even after getting those addressed, it would struggle to make it through the night (it spins in a circle inside the box). Decided the main issue was the weight, so the head was hollowed out and the red spring coil was shortened which took a lot of weight off the wiper motor that drives the shaft – that did the trick as it worked perfectly for both days of the event.

Once out of the Clown Area, you head into the Zombie Containment Area. Again, we like to give plenty of warning to allow our guests the opportunity to maintain their sanity and turn back. If you choose not to listen to the Grim Reaper, you are responsible for what happens next!

I highlighted the height upgrade the Reaper received this year in the prep post. The trail pictures don’t really give the impression of how foreboding this prop is, so threw in this image to give you a feel for the size. Note, Ron was a bit nervous when I showed him the new scythe I had bought at an antique store – yes, it’s real, and yes, it’s heavy. I did grind the sharp edge off the cutting side and we made sure we had it tightly secured to the staff. We here at Intrigued are all about safety for our guests – physical safety…we make no warranties on mental damage.

Paul’s sister found these movie prop heads to use on our trail. They look like frozen heads and amazingly lifelike. Paul then added an “evil sounding” slowed down version of one of the Beatles songs for an inside joke for us Stones fans.

The Grave Digger made its triumphant return to the trail this year. A series of mechanical failures the first year and we ran out of time to get out last year. A year later it has all new mechanics, a new mask and better (as in more appropriate) clothing, The head and left arm randomly rotate independently and if it sees you, the left arm will raise and the new sound card will give you your fate.

A wider shot of the Containment Area. The Grave Digger is in the back, the Dancing Zombie on the right and our new Spiked Zombie on the left.

If you happened to read the first post in the series you already know this prop had to have some very late night debugging to fix a mechanical issue and thus didn’t make it out until the second night. All fixed now, it worked perfectly. I still need to make the tutorial post on this prop that goes into detail on how it was built and the movement it has. Basically, once triggered, the eyes will light up, the arms will try to reach out and grab you while the sound card plays nasty zombie sounds. I think the back torso falling off onto the ground is a nice touch.

Boo!

The Witch Chef prop has been with us for a while now. Each year it gets a little better and now thanks to a generous gift from a coworker, we now have much more lifelike babies for the soup. If I have time, I would like to animate her arms for next year. I did pick up a creepy as hell doll at Spirit during their clearance sale I plan to add to the cauldron – even has creepy voices etc., oh, and I also have new misters that will simulate boiling water in the cauldron!

The Posey 2.0 Line had a rough start. It was an entirely new evolution of the Posey frame complete with mechanical servos for movement. As with all brand new things, it took a bit of work to get it refined (link here). I am pleased to say that all the kinks have been worked out and “Servo Man” brought the scares without issue both nights.

Freddy debuted the previous year and he looked great. Problem is UV fluid leaked out of the needles in the off season. Reworked the design of those so they are leak proof now and if for some unknown reason they do, they can be easily fixed. Note, I just checked and they are still full! I did paint the gloves brown just to make them more true to character.

Here is a closer look. Once it gets dark the fingers under the UV light really glow bright. Main thing was making sure all the ends of the needles were sufficiently blunt and were not pointed at anybody. My ode to Tina Turner in the Who’s Tommy.

Another zombie Posey. I haven’t had time animate this one, however, it does look pretty creepy just standing there in the dark. Probably will minimally add a sound card to it to for the upcoming trail to add a little more scare.

The annual demon sacrifice is in full swing – they started early with their traditional human sacrifice – at least they didn’t grab one of our guests.

Ned’s overhaul is complete. the motor that spins the little girl in the web is now functioning as intended – will have to remember to add the new webbing to the background – should really make Ned pop as he gets kind of hard to see in this darker area of the trail.

Now we transition into Paul’s primary area. He is absolutely free to do whatever he wants here. Also allows us to keep the props organized, otherwise we have to be more careful in the teardown so we know what goes home with Paul and what stays. He also has a mini cemetery. His stones are a little smaller than the ones we put in the earlier graveyard and they tended to get lost when we used to put them all together.

Paul has great haunt creativity and always brings a good spook and a great laugh to the trail. He also has a truly nightmarish set of baby ghouls.

I am not sure what happened to the rest of that guy and I’m not asking ha.

For a prop that doesn’t move, his Posey on the left absolutely creeps me out. I think it is the eyes that are so lifelike, well, I guess I should say deadlike. The scarecrow on the right is an annual favorite – go for the free candy in the bowl on his lap and you might end up regretting it.

Paul also has a great idea to use shepherd’s hooks for his props. This way he doesn’t have to rely on a convenient branch to position his scares. This group was having quite the party..well, all but one was ha.

Ah, the Shining Twins. If you think these girls look scary just standing there, you should see them start to move and the things they say are absolutely horrific. Naturally, it is one of our favorite stops on the trail.

More spooky props from Paul’s collection.

And now my favorite from his house of spook. That Werewolf mask is so detailed it brings the scares just standing there. It helps that it is pretty tall and extremely lifelike to make our guests jump if they don’t see it at first. He places it just off the trail in a small clearing. Did I mention the laughs…you have to like the baby playing with a Meerkat.

Now to the prop that closes the show. Paul created this scene base on the Twilight Zone’s Talkie Tina episode. Tina is a talking doll with evil intentions – pretty much the original Chucky. Tina (doll on the right laying down) raises up while the Twilight Theme is playing and proceeds to say her devious lines from the movie. Did I mention we are not responsible for nightmares!?!

Hope you enjoyed this day walk of the Haunted Trail of Tears 2022. Keep in mind this is only a small fraction of the total trail, but does give you a feel of what you are in for.

Take care everyone and hope you are looking forward to the night walk-thru in the next post in this series.