JustJimAZ

SF Themed haunt

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It seems to me that most haunts, if they have any literary influence at all, use the same books. Frankenstein, Dracula, maybe some Lovecraft. If you've been reading my blog you may know that I think Dean Koontz has some great stuff in there, though I've never seen any obvious influences in any haunts.

My son suggested the idea of a Haunt based on HG Wells' stories, and I thought it would be interesting. Then I naturally thought about Jules Verne. I wonder if this has been done? Either is too ambitious for me at the moment, but here are some thoughts I have, for your consideration and comment:

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Wells' Books:
The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth
Giant rats, chickens, worms, wasps, spiders, even people.
The Invisible Man
The obvious man in bandages, mad scientist in his lab.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Any number of pseudo-human creatures here
The War of the Worlds
The ships, the aftermath of battle, maybe the aliens themselves
The First Men in the Moon
Especially the insectoid aliens in the caverns
Empire of the Ants
Intelligent ants destroy a South American town
The Crystal Egg
The egg allows people to view mars. Wouldn't that be a cool application of a Pepper's Ghost effect? You could use video on a laptop and even make it interactive.

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Verne's books:

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
The infamous Captain Nemo and his amazing ship The Nautilus explore any number of weird underwater worlds and encounter any number of creatures! He sank a lot of ships, so underwater zombies are not impossible there!
Master of the world
Basically Captain Nemo in a flying machine. Mad scientist?
Mysterious Island
Nemo again. Not much in the book, but in the movie there were giant beasts
Dr. Ox's Experiment
Giant mutated plants. Maybe they could become man eaters!
From the Earth to the Moon
Again, nothing in the story, but an excuse for an alien planet kind of scene
A Journey to the Center of the Earth
Caves, subterranean creatures, dinosaurs

Let's not forget that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which is definitely horror sci-fi, much like Frankenstein was. Like the werewolf, I think much of the horror there is in the transformation. Unlike the werewolf, it has the additional element of Mr. Hyde slowly taking over. That would be a pretty cerebral haunt though.

Looking at this, I now see a lot of steampunk themed opportunity that I did not consider when I began writing it. Odd, considering how much Wells and Verne are revered in steampunk circles. The thing is to make it a haunt - a creepy, uncanny place suitable for scaring the fluids out of ToTs!

If you were creating a haunt based on a sci-fi author, who would you pick, and what would you do? What would you do - or like to see done - with Wells and Verne?

Happy Haunting!

Updated 08-09-2018 at 03:15 PM by JustJimAZ

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  1. Excogitate's Avatar
    Love the ideas and the possibilities!