Behind the Scenes: The Magic of Setting Up a Haunted House

As the scariest season of the year rolls around, haunted house come to be a hot topic, with the iconic annual Halloween Horror Nights, and parties being held, full of activities for both young and old. 

Freight forwarding company Kuehne + Nagel went with a horror theme for their gala, with Halloween just around the corner.  With ‘A Haunted Gala’ as the theme for the night, our team was entrusted to the construction of a three-section haunted house, revolving around the concept of Asian horror: First, a room inspired by Japanese urban legend and antagonist of the Ring series, Sadako; second, a jungle paranormal concept; and lastly, a replication of a Chinese funeral.

For so many of us, Eastern horror stories seem like a faraway legend, but for Noel Boyd, founder of paranormal channel Ghost Files Singapore and one of the talent coordinators for the gala, the supernatural and the unknown are right up his alley.

“Asian horror has always fascinated me,” he explains. “There is always the same female demonic entity that is talked about across Southeast Asia and Central Asia.” Concert director Arnie Ibong echoes the sentiment, adding that overall, Asian horror seems to add that extra-creepy kick to things.

This also explains the defining difference between Asian and Western horror: Asian horror has fewer jumpscares than its Western counterpart but taps more into our worst culturally-rooted fears. This explains why so many of us get thoroughly spooked by Asian horror movies. Some of these urban legends are the reason why some traditional superstitions are still practised to this day.

We had little previous experience in organising similar thematic events. So, it was a delight for us to be directly involved from the start, from ordering props to taking inventory. We purchased rugs and photo frames from IKEA for the Sadako and funeral-concept room, and — you read that right — 20 potted plants for the jungle room. After that, we spent the afternoon taking stock of other props, including Chinese vases and vintage birdcages which we found on Carousel, Shein, and Shopee. 

It was another treat for us when we went along for set-up, the night prior to the big day.  From the get-go, we were right in the thick of it, amongst a creaking rocking chair and walls camouflaged with fake leaves to simulate a jungle, complete with dim red light. 

Southeast Asia is home to numerous urban stories, originating from different cultures, commonly from Malay and Javanese folklore. One example is the well-known pocong spirit, which refers to a ghost wrapped in funeral cloth. We also took inspiration from the traditional Chinese funeral, sparing no detail down to flower wreaths and white drapes.

These legends and cultures proved invaluable to our team, who went to great lengths to make every set as realistic as possible, as Arnie explains: “We visited a haunted house in Malaysia for inspiration, and then the team started brainstorming for ideas. For decor and setup, we made sure that everything is very close to reality.”

Of course, achieving this task was not easy. With only one night to set everything up, we were in a race against the clock to get ready to open the doors. There were also numerous unprecedented problems, such as some adhesives not working, which caused us to delay as we ideated for solutions.

After the rooms  were finally complete, then came the next step: Who could we find to bring its concept to life?

The Craft of a Scare Actor

Being a scare actor isn’t as easy as we might assume – simply screaming at people and lunging at them may not always do the trick. Furthermore, scare actor movements   are often limited as many haunted house usually prohibit actors from making physical contact with participants. 

Because of this, factors like a strong storyline, costume and makeup, unsettling sound effects, and convincing improvisation by the actors are essential to keeping participants on edge. This pushed the team to consider every eventuality carefully when picking scare actors.

“My actors are part of my team. There’s close to 120 of them that I work with,” Noel shares. “The actors were carefully selected according to the characters that Arnie and I developed. Each character represented the basic storylines that each station had.” The most recognisable ones, he pointed out, were the pontianak and pocong spirits, which were found in the jungle-concept room. 

But above all,  he wanted to make sure that every single character and scare achieved one common goal: “As a storyteller, I feel it’s important to not stray far because we want people to relate to stories that they’ve heard.” 

It’s Showtime!

And achieve that they did! Even while we were making final checks before showtime, the actors wandered about and scared anyone they encountered. Some practiced movements with their prop weapons, while others jerked their heads and limbs to create awkward, abrupt movements. Their efforts shone when the bulk of the attendees started arriving. 

Our client took the opportunity for a walk through the rooms before the event officially started, and to our pleasure. He thoroughly enjoyed his experience and expressed his compliments for the haunted house.

At last, with the combined efforts of our team and the actors to bring Asian horror legends to life. We successfully wrapped up the haunted gala, leaving our participants with memorable and thrilling memories.