In this conservative community, there have been fairly strong anti-"haunted
house" sentiments expressed against Jaycee-sponsored and other "haunted
houses" where gore is overdone.   The local fraternities/sororities have
varied between "haunted walks" where you go by tableaus and "haunted houses"
where you are scared to death by someone jumping out at you in some manner.
 
The answer lies in the clientele you desire to serve.  If you want to encourage
families and small children, then tableaus and friendly "ghosts" are the way to
go.  If your audience is to be only adults and teenagers, then scaring them to
death may be more appropriate.   I've seen some interesting "haunted house"
examples which utilize some theme a.k.a. "Where's Waldo"....in short, every
room or scene has a spider....try to find it in each room....or there's a chest
with doubloons (foil-covered chocolates)...somewhere in each area....try to get
one chocolate.....or for kids, what's the name of the pirate in each room....
and give them a list to check off the names.  Of course, they'll pester the
"ghost pirate" for their name....but make them guess....one pirate could have
a green beard (Greenbeard), etc.
 
One of our campus fraternities had a "butcher shop" in their outdoor "haunted
house"...and had our campus food service chef actually hacking and tossing
chicken parts.   That was a little much for some....though it was humorous for
us staff who occasionally have to tolerate on-campus food (often quite good,
but sometimes very strange recipes).
 
Dean DeBolt, University of West Florida