Ellen, help us haunt!

Intro · Education · Community · Talent & Skills · Future Potential

Portfolio: Listing · Kitchen · Classroom · Witch Lair · Bathroom · Laundromat · Snake · Collage

Thank you, thank you!

Thank you, Ellen and staff, for your time and consideration. We truly think this is something right up your alley: charity, community, and of course the opportunity to scare! (We know you’d love to send Andy and Amy out to be terrified once we're done.)

Our haunted house fundraiser (Hubertus House of Horror) was founded over 30 years ago by a group of parents troubled by the threat of the school's closing due to financial issues. The event was particularly effective because it brought in funds from customers throughout a large portion of Wisconsin and even surrounding states, relieving the financial burden from within the school.

Although we feel the closing of the house in 2014 was handled unfairly, the decision was ultimately the Archdiocese's. Regardless of how it ended, this fundraiser was an INCREDIBLE phenomenon of charity and community-building for over three decades.

We'd like to focus on the huge potential that still exists to continue benefiting the community. Your financial assistance to acquire a new location and supplies would enable us to continue this amazing work.

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." ~Nelson Mandela

Unlike many other charitable contributions, this would create a self-sustaining program that continues to bring people together and keeps raising funds for decades to come. This fundraiser supported education throughout its entire run. We highly value education because it is essential for children to grow up with the intellectual keys that unlock the doors to their dreams. This community would love the opportunity to continue to advocate and finance this important cause, and we feel that the potential created by this event could easily be expanded to serve other needy areas within society, as well.

Community & Fellowship

One of the most impactful sides of this fundraiser was the large, caring community that had grown around it. In fact, we've never seen anything so effective in building a community of otherwise unrelated individuals—one that fosters hard work, friendship, and dedication in supporting strong values and education. This was first evident in the smaller group of core volunteers: the countless hours that we put in nearly year-round was unbelievable to most but showed the passion felt for its success. This core group alone had drawn not only from the surrounding community, but also volunteers who commuted over an hour each way.

The community-building hardly stopped here. Each of the 10 nights of operation, we utilized at least 70 volunteers to act in the house, sell tickets, call numbers, serve in the kitchen, etc. Within a single season, we received help from a roster of over 700 different volunteers from throughout the community: parents, parishioners, concerned education-enthusiasts, high school groups (including National Honor Societies and Key Clubs), and many others simply willing to give their time for a great cause. Let us tell you, working a night at the house was exhausting; yet our volunteers had a blast and kept coming back night after night, year after year, to help support area children's education.

Local businesses supported us with funds, materials, and advertising; our village even passed a resolution honoring our fundraiser and recognized that "volunteerism is one of our community's most important assets and is one of the many aspects which provide quality of life enhancements for our citizens." They noted:

"One of the most revered and feared haunted houses in southeastern Wisconsin"
"Efficient and effective coordination of hundreds of dedicated volunteers"
"Provided our community with many direct and indirect economic benefits which have been derived from the successfulness of their famed haunted house"
"Good-natured, scary, family-fun and has become synonymous with Halloween for our local residents"
"Hard work, dedication, and the economic benefit they have brought to our community for the last 31 years operating as the Hubertus House of Horror"

As an additional example, one of the local restaurant establishments generously provided food and a warm, welcoming gathering place for all of our volunteers after each night of operation.

The end of this fundraiser in 2014 effectively destroyed an entire community of people.

Talent & Skills

Despite being entirely volunteer-run, this program attracted incredible talent, in addition to creating and developing countless skills within our community. It often brought out talent that our volunteers never knew they had!

However, for many individuals, the end of the house atrophied entire skill sets in their use for charity. For some, many of those abilities are now unused. In what other way can all of the following skills be used together by devoted individuals that are having fun for a great cause?

Project management
Scene design and detailing
Fine and rough carpentry
Engineering principles
Welding
Pneumatic systems
Electronics and micro-controllers
Sound and video
Lighting design
Marketing/advertising
Script-writing
Acting
Coaching
Makeup
Costuming
Volunteer management

Now, a word from the house…

"I am one of the last haunted houses of my kind. I am truly unique. I pride myself in providing good, old-fashioned scaring during the month of October. During the rest of the year, I enjoy the constant renovations, improvements, and pampering that my extended family lovingly provides me. Without my friends and family, I would be nothing but an abandoned house. Each year, I can boast being an original experience for young and old, unafraid and scaredy cats alike. My rooms are always interactive, so people take the time to really look rather than rush through screaming. I enjoy telling a story, sharing my blood, sweat, and tears with each and every person who walks in my doors." (Snippet used for advertising)

Future Potential

Until its very last day, the haunted house continued to serve its purpose—supporting a school so that children may grow in an excellent and nurturing environment, fostering a community, and encouraging hard work, dedication, pride, friendship, family, values, and fun. We cannot stress enough how much this meant to the school, local businesses, and to an entire community of people.

Ellen, would you help us to continue this impact? We would LOVE the opportunity to create something new that would build on the success of over 30 years in the entertainment industry by bringing back this incredible community of fellowship, talent, creativity, love, and a commitment to education.

The Portfolio

Listing · Kitchen · Classroom · Witch Lair · Bathroom · Laundromat · Snake · Collage

Each room began as a completely blank slate, usually entirely empty with black walls. Lots of planning and construction transformed this blank slate into a highly-detailed, immersive world complete with lights, sound, scents, and other elements of water, air, etc. Roughly 50-75% of the attraction was either modified or completely renovated each year to keep the show fresh for returning customers.

In addition to an immersive environment, we used a number of different tactics for scaring, including strategically placed startle scares (think the break-away coffee table on your show), lots of technology, and an appeal to various senses and inherent fears.

Fog-filled school bus ride: The bus was mounted on pneumatic airbags and rocked back and forth, accompanied by sound, fog, "zombie" scares, and a crazy driver.
Elevator simulation: Also suspended on airbags that aggressively rocked the elevator as if falling, followed by a "crash" at the bottom.
Interactive coal car: Patrons stood on a platform and enjoyed a WILD mine ride accompanied by video projection.
Spinning fluorescent Vortex tunnels: Illusion that convinced customers they were spinning.
Mack truck: While watching the projected rules video, a full-size mack truck front crashed through a false wall with headlights and loud horn.
Swamp/Sewer: Featured standing water, rocking bridge, rain, waterfall, endless tunnel (utilizing a regular and two-way mirror), vines, sounds, dim light, fog, and scents. Themes included swamp monsters, pirates, and eventually a sewer.
Steampipe: Designed as an industrial warehouse. Video effect with plasma display disguised as a grate window and fog to emulate steam. Scare was coordinated between video effect, noise, water sprayer, and actor in a drop window behind patrons.
Claustrophobic squeeze maze
Visit from a crazy doctor and nurse
Doctor Who-like room
Dark abyss with vibrating floor plates
Dimly-lit maze of pallets
Classic “house” rooms: bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, closet
Crazy clowns
Mad scientist
Pirates
Classroom
Haunted diner
The list goes on, and on, and on, and on...

Kitchen

Designed, constructed, and detailed as an old, gross kitchen. Four strategically placed scares: kitchen table; ironing board flipped up to release hidden door for bathroom scare; cabinet startle; fridge scare. Group exited through the refrigerator.

Classroom

Customers sat in school desks. Insane teacher scolding, interrupted by three scares: bulletin board opened to reveal Freddy jumping from above; corner wall split for second Freddy scare; pneumatic bookshelf appeared to fall towards patrons.

↙ Converted into...

Witch Lair

Flickering, bubbling cauldron; inanimate "Earl" hunched in cage. Witch engaged in spell while dropping potions into cauldron (as lights change color) to bring "Earl" back to life. Three simultaneous scares: spell board; corner wall; cage lunges forward as Earls comes back to life. Group exited through door disguised as shelf; book shelf tipped while shuffling past.

Bathroom

Narrow pathway to force group into single file line. Four independent scares repeated to scare each patron: reach through shelves; water mister from toilet; laundry table collapses to reveal actor in floor; startle from behind shower curtains.

↙ Converted into...

Laundromat

Laundromat had similar scare pattern, substituting the toilet spray with a washing machine, and the shower with the front of a dryer mounted on a hidden door.

Snake

Modeled after products in the $4,000 range—built by hand for just over $200. Large snake head (5’x5’x3’) suspended from track and had full 360⁰ of motion. Counterweighted for easy actor operation. Looked highly realistic under proper lighting. Accompanied by glowing eyes, loud noises, and a vibrating floor. The sinister snake came flying out of the dark, snarling and hissing, and lunged right at the group!