■ ABOUT
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■ My love of ghost trains | haunted houses | Halloween...
■ Growing up in Clacton On Sea in the 1970's and 80's, The Ghost Safari was the first ghost train I went on. (Photograph by Paul Angel | 1980).
■ Ghost Trains, Haunted Houses and Halloween are my absolute fascination. Always have been. I love the time of the year, and everything about Halloween too. It's a fun spooky time that appeals to the inner kid in me.
■ To have been able to put on a haunt from 2016-2019 was absolutely a dream come true. It was a heck of a lot of time, money and effort, but so worth it.
■ The Haunts went from a simple tent structure in 2016 no bigger than 3mx3m sq. to 2019's 6mx4m 20sq. large enclosure. It barely fit in our garden, but it was so worth it to see it in action on Halloween night!
■ Clacton-On-Sea Pier had a ghost train called the Ghost Safari.
■ I remember one Saturday night going here with my family and I went on this ride on my own.
■ The ride broke down right in the middle of the ride, and when the emergency lights came on, I could see all the track layout and prop builds. I was instantly hooked, and wanted to know more.
■ Personal Thoughts Ghost Trains | Dark Rides | Haunted Houses over the years have been somewhat mixed especially growing up.
■ If Clacton pier opened up a permanent haunted house, I'd be the first in the queue to switch jobs and work there, lol, and I'm not joking. :)
■ More often than not, I've mostly been underwhelmed with ghost trains that I've been on, with a few notable exceptions. They're simply stuck in the 1960's and really do need a more modern take on them. Same for walk through haunts.
■ When haunts/rides are done right, seeing the delight and sheer fright on peoples faces, and then seeing them smiling at the end is priceless. It's Like watching a horror movie, or any other thrill ride at a fair ground, I believe ghost trains are, for the most part, poorly made, poorly designed, and lack anything really scary.
■ Just like the movies...
■ I've never been a fan of horror/gore movies like Saw etc, my horror is more of the supernatural spooky kind. So, things like The Exorcist, Poltergeist, and newer movie franchises like The Conjuring, notably the first two, and Annabelle: Creation, stand up as great movies. Also a healthy amount of cheese does work well for a ghost train, so witches, goblins, demons, animatronics, can be really effective too. Not been a huge fan of real live actors saring people, but I'm warming to the idea.
■ When I was building my first backyard haunt, it was nothing like the last haunt was. I'd learned ideas, and picked up new methods of prop building along the way. I've been more of a fan of ghost train rides where you sit in a car as opposed to walk through haunts, but car ride haunts are very very involved! So I do stick with walk through haunts for all my projects.... much easier!
■ When I set out on this journey, I wanted all my haunts to have all the props, jumps and scares, built by me personally. It's a massive learning curve, and I've always had some great help along the way.
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