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Chris Stafford from the 13th Floor Haunted House in Phoenix gave us some tips to make your house the creepiest, crawliest, and scariest on the block!

Transforming your home into a Halloween escape can be fun and entertaining, but can sometimes be overwhelming. With a few simple touches, you can begin to make the most terrifying effects in your own living room.

Chris Stafford, from the 13th Floor Haunted House, noted that there are three main components to starting off a Halloween transformation: lighting, sound, and atmosphere.“

First and foremost, turn your lights down,” Stafford says. “Use dimmers or flicker controls for that eerie feeling.”

Many seasonal Halloween stores supply lighting tools, such as flicker controls and specially colored bulbs to help give the “haunted” feeling to any plain space. Strobe lights are also great effects that are on the more theatrical side of the spectrum.

Along with theatrical effects to make your space scarier, are fog machines. Some fog machines are industrial sized, but others are available for cheap at department stores or seasonal stores that are much more manageable for an unprofessional, home setting. If no fog machine is available, a simple bowl of dry ice can be used for the same effects.

Regardless of your Halloween theme and whether or not you’re going for a party setting or trying to imitate an actual haunted house, sound effects and soundtracks are among the most important.

Midnight Syndicate and Nox Arcana are two popular soundtracks that cater to different themes. They offer gothic sounds, carnival music, and more. Both are good starter soundtracks, but there are other soundtracks for sale and download that can cater to any theme you’re trying to pull off.

Stafford says that many of the huge effects done in haunted houses can be toned down for public use and scaled down to accommodate personal projects.

Of course, proper decorations and costumes are necessary to amp up the fright factor, but be sure not to forget the advice from the 13th Floor: lighting, sound, and atmosphere.