• Who doesn't love Halloween? When it comes to holiday popularity, a Good Morning America report found that Halloween is now second only to Christmas, and that many major retailers have started rolling out the Halloween decorations before school is even back in session. If you'd like to celebrate Halloween in a big way, there's no better way to do it than to create your own haunted house. Whether your house of horrors is intended for a Halloween party, as a fundraising activity or just to give the neighborhood trick-or-treaters a thrill, check out these decorating ideas "submitted for your consideration" (as they used to say on the old "Twilight Zone" TV show).
  
  

Ghost Pirate Ship

• Decorate your haunted house like an ghostly pirate ship. To do this, mix typical pirate decorations like skull and crossbones flags, pirate swords, and treasure chests with any type of Halloween skulls and skeletons you can find, along with fake cobwebs, spiders and rats. If you are the artistic and/or crafty type, you can paint or build a ship background--if not, just scatter a few nautical props (ropes, spyglasses, etc.) around to set the scene. You can create a particularly spooky abandoned ship effect by setting a table with half-filled goblets of "grog" (colored water) and half-eaten "ship's biscuits" (plain crackers or cookies) to make it look as if some terrible disaster occurred just as your now-dead pirates were sitting down to a meal.
  
  

Vampire's Lair

• Set the scene with some tombstones and even a few prop coffins, and consider renting a fog machine to create an eerie scene for guests approaching the house. Have someone dressed as Renfield (Dracula's servant in the old movies) answer the door, and lead guests through cobweb-shrouded corridors filled with spiders, rats, and, of course, bats. Open up a creaky door (you should be able to find a good door creak sound on a CD of Halloween sounds, or download one to your mp3 player) and issue the guests into a "tomb" lit with a sickly green light (use a green lightbulb or theatrical gel) where they will be met by the Count himself rising out of his coffin.The vampire should greet visitors with a "Good eeeeeeeevening!" delivered in his best Bela Lugosi impersonation, and perhaps ask if they'd care to join him for a bite, admire their lovely necks, etc.
  
  

Mad Scientist's Lab

• Gather up all the science equipment you can find--test tubes, beakers, Bunsen burners, etc. Mix up some weird-colored potions with food coloring and water, and set the stage for your lab. Rubber brains, eyeballs, or other body parts in water-filled jars also add a nice touch. Go for a bare-bones look in the room you'll be using for the lab--a plain metal table, white walls and a green light (again, theatrical gel or a green lightbulb). A good sound effect to play would be that of a "Jacob's Ladder"; this is the type of electrical arc they used in old horror movies. If you are really good at building electrical-type stuff, you can even build one out of a neon sign or an old TV set. Dress up like a mad scientist and practice your eerie cackle--and if you want to add the crowning touch to your little scenario, create a stuffed dummy with a Frankenstein-type head and have him strapped to a table, perhaps with a few "electrodes" attached to a foil-covered helmet.
  
  

Zombie Jamboree

• Decide whether you'd like to have a "Night of the Living Dead"-style graveyard scene or a toxic waste zombie scenario, and decorate accordingly. If you go for a graveyard scene, set up foam or cardboard tombstones, around which you've piled loose dirt and dug a few holes, and be sure to have plenty of fake body part hands and rotting flesh-covered skull masks rising out of those holes. You'll also need a large cast of helpers to carry off this theme, as the most important part of a zombie haunted house is the zombie horde. Draft your friends and family members of all ages, shapes, and sizes and dress them in ripped, shredded, mold-covered rags with their faces and hands painted in ghastly shades of green and grey. If you prefer toxic waste zombies, get some old metal barrels, spray paint hazmat symbols on them, and drip some neon-green paint around to make it look as though they're oozing some noxious substance. Dress your zombies in lab coats, hazmat suits or post-apocalyptic, retro-punk costumes (as all of the classic toxic waste zombie movies seem to have been made in the 80s), accessorized with more neon-colored paint smears and glow-in-the dark green skin makeup. You can, if you like, "arm" your guests with Nerf guns and stage a zombies vs. humans battle in the dark, all around your haunted graveyard or toxic waste dump.
  
  

Urban Legend

• Try to remember whether there are any spooky legends connected to your area, such as neighborhood haunted houses, ghost stories, or monsters known to frequent your neck of the woods. Take a look at the website of the "Goatman Hollow" haunted house in Riverdale, Maryland, which is inspired by the legendary Goatman who is said to haunt certain areas of Prince George's County, Maryland. Older visitors already aware of the Goatman legend get a kick out of seeing it brought to life, while younger guests hearing the story for the first time get an extra scare out of the fact that it happened "right here!" If you are able to create such a haunted house that reflects the local folklore of your area, this will be sure to provide a unique and memorable experience for your visitors.