Car Headlights and Horn

This effect is very effective at the end of a long, dark hallway. As the audience is feeling their way along, a car's horn blares and headlights shine in their faces.

This is a fairly straight-forward effect. You need to wire up a 12V car battery to a pair of headlights and car horn(s), that will be activated by a floor mat switch or motion sensor.

When putting this effect together, it is more effective to use the whole front end of the car, instead of just mounting the headlights on something. It makes the scene more scary and realistic. When I helped build a haunted house West of Chicago IL, we used the entire front end piece (bumper, headlights, grill..) of my 1969 Pontiac Catalina. It was a big hit with all of our customers.

When the lights go on and the horn sounds, the audience usually goes crazy. For that reason, you may want to take some precautions. Always make sure the walls surrounding this effect are VERY sturdy. When we had that effect in our haunted house, someone kicked in one of the headlights. For this reason it is a good idea to have the headlights mounted a couple feet off of the ground, in a recessed area behind a wall panel (see diagram below). This way none of the customers can accidentally (or even on purpose) damage your set-up.

Have a ghoul follow the group to make sure everyone exits the scene. You would be surprised at the number of people that get confused and try to go back the way they came in. It is also a good idea to have the effect on a timer that will only allow the lights and horn to be on for a certain amount of time, then deactivate the effect for a while. That way, the trigger of the horn and headlights seems random and none of the audience members can 'play with' your special effect. In the haunted house I worked in, we used a floor mat switch to activate the effect. Unfortunately some people would jump up and down on the switch, over and over to get the horn to honk and the lights to go on. Not only is it annoying, it really takes its toll on your battery! Click here to see a timer from Haunt Master Products that would prevent haunted house patrons from abusing your special effect.

Also, have a battery charger and a spare battery on hand. That way you can charge one battery, while the other is being used.  Don't try to charge the battery while it is being used for the effect. The large, sudden current draw can cause permanent damage to the charger.