I've considered pointy sticks but then Tolkien's goblins from The Hobbit always come to mind.??And they always made me laugh even though they are supposed to be scary (ORCS are scary
).??Their elongated limbs, tiny torsos, and leathery donkey ears in addition to dull, chipped schimitars and/or pointy sticks was just too comedic for me to take seriously.??Hell, even Gollum fed on the occasion goblin.
Kitchen knives is one I have not considered.??Kitchen knives scream of many things frightening:??latenight opportunistic home invaders, psycho serial killers, exasperated wives.??Plus, they are one of the few things that are made scarier the better condition they are in.??(Seriously, a dull rusty kitchen knife can give you tetanus, but a sharp Ginsu will sever the aorta effortlessly).
In any case, when wandering the middle of a forest on a moonlit night the sillhouette of an ax is far more frightening than your prized Ronco chef's knife.??Cleavers are nice but too cliche.
An ax just says violence.??There is nothing smooth, gentle, or clean about murdering someone with an ax.??It's angry, bloody, psychotic.??Ax murder says "I hate you and I want to make sure you stay dead."??
Edit - I was just sitting here considering the intimacy of the kitchen knife.??The necessity of proximity with the knife says that you want to embrace every aspect of the death of your victim (keep in mind here that the main focal point when working a haunt is that you want your patrons to believe their lives are in danger.??It is all an illusion.??I'm truly a philathropist at heart... I just love scaring people lol).??Wielding a chef's knife high and screaming is effective, but for maximum benefit one would do best to play the insanity card.
Rather, you get close and speak in a calming voice about how much blood the human body holds, where the threshold is for supporting consciousness, and how long it would take to reach this point when different areas of the body are subject to incision.??Perhaps you don't want them to scream or a certain facial feature would look nice in a jar by the door.
This is a very, very interesting path I will consider.
The other people who work here just jump out and make the stereotypical monster noises.??I play on people's phobias.??Not everyone is scared of sudden movements and loud noises.?? A lot more people are scared of psychos with weapons.
Everyone is scared of the apathetic intellectual with a ginsu knife and all the time and patience in the world...
