Tesla - the Not-Very-Qualified Electrical Contractor:

In keeping with our theme of zombie contractors invading and ravaging our home, this hapless fellow tried to perform some electrical wiring but got the shock of his life...

"Tesla" is a body built on a PVC frame and utilizing a great mask we picked up last year at the National Haunter's Convention. Catherine (Scaredy Cat) built out the body as she does with all our other bodies.

The "special sauce" that really made this prop were the two "electric firecrackers" I bought from FrightProps.com. I had seen similar sparking fuse boxes online, but wanted to add a special touch; in this case our frying victim.

The guts of the prop started with an old electrical service panel I pulled off our house after we had our service upgraded a few years ago. The old rusty dirty box added a nice touch. By simply disguising one of the "firecrackers" with some metal tape and mounting it in the box we had an instant "shocking" prop.

To provide a secure platform to mount (and hide) the controls we utilized another (smaller) electrical panel box. As always, I use a EFX-TEK PROP1 controller to drive my props, and since the "firecrackers" (and the strobe light II wanted to use) were all 110VAC devices, I added an EFX-TEK RC-4 relay controller. The RC-4 controls a single circuit in this prop, which we wired up to both the two "electric firecrackers" and an external strobe light that added an extra flash to the scene. Finally the PROP1 was hooked up to an external PIR motion sensor to trigger the sequence. You can see the PROP1 and relay controller mounted in the box below:

I wanted the second firecracker to look like a sparking electrical cable. To accomplish this I went to Home Depot and bought a 3 foot length of the largest diameter flexible hose they had. I split one end so I could insert the firecracker into the hose with its electrical lead sticking out behind it (but disguised by taping over it with duct tape) and then spray painted the entire hose a nice flat grey. Below is a shot of the hose with firecracker inserted:

The whole assembly was mounted to a piece of plywood painted black. A bloody handprint was added because...well... you gotta have blood.

Below you can see some shots of the prop with Tesla standing by in its final placement. The prop was programmed to catch people as they approached (via the PIR) and went into violent (and LOUD) electrical convulsions just as they reached him. You can see and hear a sample here as we tested it in the lab. You can also hear the electrical mayhem (and screams of some TOTs) near the beginning of the 2012 Night Time Haunt Video.