Since I’ve been playing Alice the Madness Returns, I think that, were I to make a haunted house, I would be inspired by one of the levels in that game.
A creepy and disturbing doll house theme. Things that look cute, like porcelain dolls, stuffed animals and toys, but give it a freakish and offending look. Hanged dolls with barbed wire around their mouth and eyes, cute looking skeleton hands pointing in the direction in which to proceed in the house, decapitated doll heads crying or laughing and teddybears holding giant scissors in a menacing fashion.
It would be kind of like a museum, where everything is dark, but the objects on display would be brightly lit up, to offer a discomforting sense of disbalance for the visitor, both physically and with the subject matter. I’d make it kind of maze like, to offer a bit of confusion and panic.
I think that would be a cool theme, and while it may be strong in itself, I’d fashion the whole thing in a way that people can have fun and remember that it’s Halloween. I wouldn’t wanna completely traumatize people. XD
Either that or just place life size plastic zombies all over the front yard.