Hallucinations Creations' Home Haunt Contest: three motorized props, three winners

There is a moment every home haunter is chasing. You have the fog, you have the lighting, you have a graveyard that looks genuinely wrong in the best way. Then a car slows down, a kid points, and something in your yard moves.

That is the whole hobby in two seconds. It is also what we are giving away.

Hallucinations Creations Inc. builds the mechanisms behind that moment. Props, FX, fabrication, out of Illinois. Real welded, wired, motorized hardware, not a blow mold with a light in it. They got in touch and offered to put three of their builds up for FrightMaps haunters, so here it is.

What you can win

Three winners, one prize each.

• First place: the Motorized Digging Shovel Prop. A shovel on a stand that digs by itself. Set it at the edge of a fresh grave, let it run all night, and watch people work out whether somebody is down there.
• Second place: the Lid Opener Motorized Mechanism. The mechanism that lifts a coffin lid on its own. This is the piece that turns a casket prop into an actual scare.
• Third place: the Wiper Motor Kit with Speed Controller. The workhorse: a geared wiper motor with a speed controller and a power supply. It is the part home haunters are always trying to source, and it drives more backyard animatronics than anything else.

How to enter

Entry is free, and it stays free. There is no Fright Coin cost, no subscription, and Pro members get no advantage.

• Get your haunt on the map. If it is already listed you are ready. If not, add your haunt at no cost.
• Enter from the Contests tab in the FrightMaps app. Entries are open now.
• Collect votes. Voting opens October 1, and anyone signed in to FrightMaps can vote once a day, every day.

Every entry is reviewed before it can collect votes, so enter early rather than on the last night. One entry per person. You need to be 18 or older and a US resident, and prizes ship anywhere in the fifty states or DC.

The mechanic that actually decides it

It is not a jury and it is not a single popularity spike. Votes reset every day, for all 30 days of voting.

That changes what winning takes. A burst of votes from one big share is worth less than a handful of people who come back and vote for you every day for a month. The haunt that wins is the one with people behind it, not the one with the biggest single moment.

So when you enter, tell your street. Tell your Facebook group. Tell the regulars who come back every year. Then remind them, because the vote resets every day and an uncast vote is gone.

The dates

• Now: entries are open.
• October 1: voting opens at 12:00 AM Eastern.
• October 30, Mischief Night: entries and voting close at 11:59 PM Eastern.
• October 31: the three winners are notified in the app and by email.

Full official rules are on the contest page.

Three winners. Three machines. Thirty nights.

Download FrightMaps, get your haunt listed, and put something in your yard that moves.