Nightmares in Victoria

I had the opportunity to catch a helicopter into Victoria to meet up with Sean and his friends and to see (as far as I know) Western Canada's only year-round haunted attraction. The attraction is not a haunted house per se, but two 15 minute experiences: The Hot Seat, and Madame Isabella's. The Hot Seat brings you and no more than 4 of your friends (comfortably) into the execution chamber to witness ol' sparky in action. The actor we had was really good, and there were some scary anticipation involved. More laughs than screams for us, but I hope it's the other way around for normal people. The other attraction, Madame Isabella's, is a séance in a room that comes alive with spirits ( of the pnumatic and animatronic variety). Both attractions were a lot of fun, but not really scary. I'd certainly reccomend going.

2007 Costume: EmoTron the Emo Robot

EmoTron won 2nd place at the Blarney Stone (Sean won 1st!). The head is made from an Optimus Prime mask, the shoulders from a couple waste baskets, and most everything else are odds and ends from the dollar store glued on. There were many flashing lights, and I was able to shoot laser beams from my eyes. The problem with this costume is that the dark lenses that made my eyes invisible, also left me practically blind in the low-light atmosphere of a nightclub.

The Haunted Gallery

Our contribution to the Vancouver Museum's Haunted Trolley tour was a gallery of the macabre. The challenge was to bring in props and decoration worthy of museum forgery! The gallery had a number of artifacts, some of which were actually genuine as well as a few gags such as a falling axe, shaking boxes, talking skulls, a floating ghost head, a ghostly mirror and a drop panel that scared many. The goal was not to create a haunted house in a museum, but a gallery that could be appreciated as-is with a few scares and effects to enhance.

2007 Haunt Plans Announced!

For 2007, the creative team behind Aberthau: Nightmare Mansion will be lending its talents to the Haunted Vancouver Trolley Tour at the Vancouver museum. Our main focus will be creating a haunted gallery--a sort of museum gallery/haunted house hybrid. Guests will be able to experience the frights there as well as at the Vancouver Cemetery and the old city morgue and hear Vancouver's true ghost stories along the journey in the Trolley replica. Official Site: http://www.vanmuseum.bc.ca/haunted.html

Halloween 2006

I wanted to take some time off from haunting in 2006 to allow time to visit other haunts, something I've never had the time to do in the past. I visited as many haunted houses as I could, and had a blast. I also won an iPod Nano at the Blarney Stone for my scary scarecrow costume that I whipped together. Halloween is so great! I was also given the opportunity to get involved with the haunted house put on at the Bridge Studios. This was really exciting at first, knowing the props, sets and skills that would be put into the event, but as everything came together, and Sean and my ideas were ignored, I distanced myself from the show as much as I could. It's much more of a Halloween Stunt Funtacular than a haunted house.


Here are some photos from 2005: http://s30.photobucket.com/albums/c340/aberthau05/?start=all

Here are some other haunted houses to check out:

Barnyard Phantoms (Surrey) -Recommended
Bear Creek Ghost Train (Surrey) -Recommended
Double Spurs Haunted House (Abbotsford) -Recommended
Fright Nights (Vancouver) -Recommended
Haunted Studio Tour (Burnaby)
Potters House of Horrors (Surrey) -Strongly Recommended
Reapers Haunted Attractions (Chilliwack) -Strongly Recommended
Stanley Park Ghost Train (Vancouver)
Tarkov's Haunted Gallery (Fort Langley).
Trethewey House Sacry Tour (Abbotsford)