| Why
was Club Haunt created in the first place?
I was caught by the Halloween
bug at a very early age. I would set up the living room every
Halloween and try to scare anyone that came trick-or-treating.
In fact, I was more interested in decorating the house than actually
going out to get some treats. But when I got out to do some trick-or-treatin'
I would always admire the work that other people put into their
neighborhood haunts and that inspired me.
I guess my first real haunted house was
created in 1980 (has it been that long?) with my friends. We set
up an area at our local church and charged admission (.25 cents).
The spook house was really small but it's success (we made over
$10) led us to create the Fright Factory which ran almost annually
from 1984 -1995. In the Fright Factory we made an art of using
black plastic as barriers (I don't recommend this) but as the
years progressed, our haunt got more sophisticated. Over the years,
the Fright Factory had it's high and low points. The low point
was making the decision to open our haunted house just 4 days
after the 1989 earthquake in Northern California. It was a flop.
After Fright Factory, I wanted to do something
in the Halloween spirit. I launched Club Haunt in May, 1998. I
wanted to put together a web site that you can use as a launch
pad to find really cool Halloween and Horror sites on the web.
But I also wanted to add my own horror and Halloween information.
Club Haunt had tons to offer - from news to box office numbers
to major amounts of horror/halloween links, Club Haunt was getting
cool - and becoming way too much work for one guy.
In September of 2002, I decided that Club
Haunt was losing it's focus. The site was completely revamped
with a focus on Halloween as a fun holiday and encouraging visitor
participation - and that's where you come in.
I want all of you that are reading this
to make Club Haunt a place where you can exchange ideas, party
tips, costume ideas and haunt info. I want it to be an online
community that you can enjoy all year round.
And now for some shameless promotion.
I graduated from San Francisco State University
in 1991 with a BA in Broadcast Communications. I have worked for
several television stations and production companies over the
years as a graphic designer and film/video production guy. I moved
to Southern California for a couple of years and worked in the
film industry as a model maker/production coordinator. Some of
the films I worked on were Face/Off, The X-Files Movie, End of
Days and Pitch Black. I now live back in the heart of Silicon
Valley working in design for a variety of clients and helping
out local haunts as a consultant. If you are interested in setting
up a haunt in Northern California and are in need of advice regarding
visual design, please email me. If you just might be looking for
some web design work, check out ParticleBox.
If you have a haunt that you would like to add it to the Club
Haunt list, please go
here. One thing I'm looking
for are neighborhood haunts. You don't even need a web site link.
Just an address so people know where to go and visit.
Happy Haunting
David Collier (aka - Haunted House Dave)
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