This haunt design was a part of a semester-long design project spearheaded by creative director and UCF professor Amy Avalos. Students were tasked with designing rooms to fit a 1/2"-scale haunted house cohesively while staying true to the assigned narrative.
Completed at UCF, August-October 2025.
read the narrative here:
Attraction Narrative written by Amy Avalos. Long ago, the aristocratic Ashthorne family built their manor upon cursed ground. The land beneath concealed a spreading corruption that devoured all life. Over centuries, the estate itself — gardens, mausoleums, and crypts — began to decay, feeding the curse’s hunger. The family has long vanished, but the estate lives on, its rotting halls and graveyard alive with insects, roots, and corrupted figures. At the center of it all lurks The Ashthorne Shade — a grotesque, spectral revenant born of a witch’s curse laid upon the family generations ago. The Shade is not fully human nor fully spirit — its body flickers like a shadow wrapped in tattered veils, its voice a chorus of distorted whispers, some male, some female. The witch’s curse promised: “Your family shall never rest, nor shall the ground that holds you.” And so, the Shade endures, guarding the estate, ensuring that every trespasser soul joins the Ashthorne family in the soil.
progress photos
SOUND & LIGHTING DESIGN
ARTIST STATEMENT
My Prompt: Statue Walk
Path lined with gothic statues; cracked, moss-covered faces.
o Character: One statue suddenly animates and lunges.
o Emotion: Suspicion turns to shock.
With the Ashthorne family having passed long ago, I wanted this scene to showcase the absence of life for a more unsettling feeling. I included a stone gazebo and fountain to reflect that this was a space once occupied and enjoyed by the family before the curse struck. I aged the scenery in this scene to emphasize how long it's been since the space was last tended to.
Of the six angel statues, the last one represents a scare actor. I chose the last one specifically; when guests follow the layout of the path, they'll be turned away from the statues by the time they cross paths with the actor. Additionally, the actor will be faced away from the entrance, helping them further blend in with the statues (if their face were showing, it'd be easier to differentiate them from the statues).