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 coffin lid that lifts on its own. Steel linkage, geared motor, mounts into a lid you already have. 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, a speed controller and a power supply, wired and ready. Half the animatronics in any good home haunt are built on one of these, and it is the part people are always trying to source.

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, starting October 1.
• Collect votes. Any FrightMaps account can vote, once a day, every day.

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. Every account gets one vote per day, for all 33 days.

That changes what winning takes. A burst of votes from one big share on day three 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 un-cast vote is gone.

Why this one runs past Halloween

Most contests close before the 31st, which has always struck us as backwards.

Your haunt is never better than it is on Halloween night. Full fog, every light on, a line down the sidewalk, the crowd actually reacting to it. That is the photo you want in a contest, and until now there was never time to get it in.

This one runs three days past. Shoot your haunt at its peak on the 31st, get it entered, and let people vote on it. Halloween night counts.

The dates

• October 1: entries and voting open, 12:00 AM Eastern.
• October 31: your best night. Get the photos.
• November 2: entries and voting close, 11:59 PM Eastern. Daylight Saving ends November 1, so that closing time is Eastern Standard.
• November 3: the three winners are announced in the app and by email.

Full official rules are on the contest page.

Three winners. Three machines. Thirty-three nights.

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