The “OctoPod”

January 18 – May 22, 2015

What happens when a group of Halloween enthusiasts come together to work on a Haunted House room for final Great Lakes Fright Fest? Something amazing!

What is Great Lakes Fright Fest Haunted House? It’s a camping gathering for Halloween enthusiasts. A Haunted House is constructed for the weekend under a series of tent canopies. It is built and torn down in 2-3 days time.

The idea started in a basement in Indiana in January of 2015. It spawned from a YouTube video called “Fangoria 2010 – Machine, a steam punk horror show”.

The initial idea was to build a “nightmare machine”, something that patrons could enter and sit while we put on a show outside the machine. We purposely avoided a “time machine” theme. We wanted to put on scenes that were Halloween related and wanted to make sure each scene resonated quickly with the patrons.

We had a time constraint. The initial goal was to put a group of people through our “room” in 20 seconds or less, to keep from backing up the Haunted House line. This proved somewhat challenging.

We decided that a turning platform would suit us best. We would use a bench to seat up to 8 people. The platform would turn 360 degrees, but we would never turn completely around and around, but instead turn in a clockwise position, stopping at an entrance, scene 1, scene 2, and finally an exit.

The turning platform quickly developed into a octagon shape, hence the name OctoPod. Walls were built to enclose the platform and bench to make for a “machine or pod feel”. We designed doors with multiple hinge points to allow for easy loading and unloading of the pod. We also designed limited viewing (view ports) openings in the doors to provide for a somewhat hindered view of each scene. We also developed a curtain system to close and open as the pod was turned from scene to scene.

A back story was created and a story board developed to support the “machine”. The rest of the project is outlined in these blog entries. Enjoy.