Back Lit Scene

An effect made popular by movies like "Psycho" and "Rocky Horror Picture Show" are back lit scenes.  The viewer watches a skit with only silhouettes.

We have adapted this popular effect for our haunts by using a strobe light and a scene using a chainsaw and a dummy.

This effect works best at the end of a long hallway.  The guests see the scene as they walk toward it.  In our haunt as the guests past the scene and felt safe, chainsaw psycho exited a door and chased them a few feet.

The Screen

The screen is a sheet of material that hangs in front of the actors to "black out" the non-lit areas creating a silhouette.  You can use a bed sheet, frosted clear plastic, white plastic, or black plastic.  The amount of light the material lets through determines the brightness of light you need for the scene.

For our project, we used an 8' x 8' sheet of 3.5 mil black plastic stretched over a 2" x 4" lumber frame.  This was placed at the end of a 30' hallway.

The Light

Any single point light source should work for this effect.  Look for a light bright enough to make a clear silhouette on your material, but not bright enough to blind the guest.  A large par can or flood light would be a good choice.

In our case, we used a 750 watt Chauvet Strobe Light.  We set it for a very slow strobe to give an eerie effect.

Keep in mind when using strobe lights that you can make your actors and guests sick if not careful.  Post a sign at your entrance warning of strobe use.  In our case, this light did make me a bit sick, but the actor in the room somehow survived the night.

Light Position

If you place your light on the floor, it will make your actors appear much taller.  If you mount it to the ceiling, then your actors will look shorter.  We found that placing the light on a 3' table made our 5'5" actor look 7'5" tall.  The light was about 8 feet behind the screen.  The actor did his scene very close (almost touching) the screen.

The Story

In our tests, we found that it took people about 30 seconds to walk down the hallway, so our scene was aimed to last about 30 seconds.

We had an actor, a dummy, an arm, and a chainsaw.  As the people entered the hallway, the actor would start the chainsaw, cut off the arm, and pick it up in his spare hand.

The reality is that this was more effective than we expected and it took people a LONG time to walk down that hallway. 

If you found this article helpful to light your haunt, then please consider putting a link to it from your haunt webpage.

The author of this article is not a professional and has no affiliation with any of the companies listed.  If you would like to support his business, you may want to check out the Glow in the Dark Paint at Glow Inc.