Blocks magazine archive: Building a LEGO Haunted House
Posted by Huw,
It’s time to open up the Blocks magazine back catalogue, with print subscribers now getting free access to the digital library of more than 80 issues – that’s over 9,000 pages – of LEGO features, reviews, build guides and more.
All the information on getting a Blocks subscription, including the extra subscriber benefits, is available here.
Each day this week Brickset is exclusively sharing one feature from the archive. In this feature, LEGO design supremo Jamie Berard takes us into the development of 10273 Haunted House – he reveals how it evolved to include a drop tower, who was responsible for the Adventurers references and what the original plan for the set was.
If you’ve been slowly adding to your LEGO fairground display over the past few years, you’ll likely have been eagerly awaiting the announcement of another addition to the range, which took a year off in 2019. But when the LEGO Group revealed 10273 Haunted House back in May, it represented a real change of pace for the burgeoning subtheme. The fairground line of the LEGO theme formerly known as Creator Expert actually has its roots in 10196 Grand Carousel, an enormous beast of a set that predates the current assortment by around five years. That sprawling 3,263-piece model was later revisited in 2017’s more compact 10257 Carousel (less grand by name, and nature), as the third set in the LEGO Group’s ‘Fairground Collection’, as it’s now retroactively known.
Things kicked off proper in 2014 with 10244 Fairground Mixer – a staple of travelling amusement parks, to be sure, but not exactly as prototypical of them as a Ferris wheel or rollercoaster. Both of those rides would arrive in due course, joining the Carousel to create a varied and expansive layout for those fans lucky enough to collect them all. And between them, they’ve touched on many of the hallmarks and minutiae of a real-life fairground: from candy floss and ticket booths to arcade games and nauseous visitors.
It’s not just the sheer presence of those details that has united the Fairground Collection, but their design aesthetic: they’re all a vibrant mix of bright primary and secondary colours (and shades thereof), creating a consistent palette across the entire subtheme. Decked out in appropriately drab grey, black and olive green, 10273 feels like a complete tonal shift for the range, in both concept and design. But as Senior Design Manager Jamie Berard explains, it’s one that’s been in the works for a while.
‘It’s one of the things that we’ve wanted to do forever,’ he says. As coronavirus has prevented our annual trip to Billund to meet the design team in person, we’re chatting with Jamie through a video call. He’s excitedly talking us through the development of the Haunted House, revealing that the free-fall tower ride wasn’t always on the cards.
‘The original thought behind it was more of a traditional haunted house, with some sort of a track system so you could go between different scenes or rooms,’ he elaborates. ‘But we very quickly realised that that was really hard to accomplish with the tracks and how big it would get. The Joker Manor showed us that actually it is quite hard to get a track system in that works at a reasonable size.
‘That’s where Carl [Merriam, LEGO Designer] came up with this wonderful idea of going with a drop ride and extending the tower. It was a nice opportunity to do the Haunted House we always wanted, but of course introduce a totally new ride mechanic. It’s totally in line with what we’d hope for a fairground ride that excites people, but a very different expression that they might not expect.’
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DESIGNING A DROP RIDE
As he speaks, Jamie demonstrates that new mechanic: turning the crank (or, if you’ve added Powered Up components, tapping your phone screen) slowly pulls a pair of seated minifigures up the frighteningly tall tower, using the 150 chain links that span the rear of the set. When they reach the top, the doors spring open, before the ride car plummets back down.
‘What’s beautiful about it is that it’s fluid in its motions, and yet when it comes down to the bottom, it has these wheels that slow it down just enough that it can get to the bottom without crashing,’ Jamie explains. Those huge wheels have been lifted directly from the LEGO Education set 45678 SPIKE Prime, and act as flywheel brakes to bring the minifigure riders to a comfortable stop. Reaching that solution wasn’t easy, though.
‘The tower was a huge challenge. The original version of it that we had was actually not enclosed. It was open. And we thought that was neat, that you could have something exploding out of the building. But the problem was that it actually proved quite a challenge to not only secure that, but to make sure it lived up to our quality and safety standards. By enclosing the tower we can control a lot more of what’s going on.
‘It also offers this opportunity to really give this crazy, exaggerated building that impossibly reaches into the sky, which was something that only Carl could come up with. It was really a clever way to create something that’s truly an icon.’
Standing an incredible 68cm tall, Haunted House really will dominate your fairground display. Its towering spire reaches far above even 10247 Ferris Wheel and 10261 Roller Coaster – but that unique visual identity serves another purpose, too.
‘It also steps away from the potential links to Monster Fighters,’ Jamie says. The 2012 theme’s 10228 Haunted House has become revered by adult fans for how well it fits into a modular building layout, commanding huge prices on the aftermarket as a result. But while the older set shares its name and dollhouse style with 10273, the LEGO design team hopes that both sets can stand apart. ‘We really wanted to show that this is a different house, but also part of a fairground ride. That feature of the door opening at the top really calls attention to the theme park setting.’
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A FAIRGROUND ADVENTURE
Swing open the newer Haunted House, and you’ll find the other feature that helps it carve out its own identity in the LEGO portfolio. The interior is decked out with nostalgic references that will delight LEGO fans who grew up in the ‘90s, mostly focused on the Indiana Jones-inspired Adventurers theme that first arrived at the end of the decade: an Egyptian obelisk here; a couple of Anubis statue heads there.
If you want someone to thank for those touches, Jamie isn’t your man. ‘That’s all Carl, Nic [Vas], Milan [Madge] and Mike [Psiaki],’ he says, rattling off members of his design team. ‘They’re all big fans of that line, and for years they’ve been trying to get me to find a way that we can go back in time to some of these spaces. I can’t take any credit for it – it’s all Carl and those guys finding ways to sneak it in.’
‘Sneak’ might not be the right word: the Adventurers references in 10273 aren’t quite as subtle as, say, the Galidor nod in 70620 NINJAGO City or 70436 Phantom Fire Truck 3000’s Res-Q bumper sticker. In fact, Haunted House’s entire narrative is built around serving the classic theme. The house is described as Manor von Barron, modelled after the home of Adventurers’ hook-handed antagonist, and the ancient artefacts contained within are actually his stolen treasures.
‘It’s the theming that really allows for that,’ Jamie continues. ‘It all of a sudden gives reason to say, ‘He’s collected all these artefacts and they’re haunted – they shouldn’t have been taken from where they were from.’ And it just all comes together in a fun way, even though it wasn’t initially something that we had thought of. As the building developed and evolved into its current state, that theming just totally made sense.’
To that end, the presence of Adventurers speaks closely to the way LEGO models can change during the design process – and the power that designers have to shape their briefs to what makes sense for any given model.
‘It’s always a collaboration when we’re coming up with these products,’ Jamie says. ‘Sometimes we’ll have a very set direction on what we would like to accomplish. There’s other times like this one where it evolves as functional and structural things change, and it forces us to change our thinking of what the storyline is, or how we are approaching this.
‘In this instance it was definitely design-led, particularly by Carl and a few of the other guys really pushing it, but I also don’t think it was a tough push, because it just made sense. It layers that storytelling to speak to LEGO fans in particular, right to their core hopefully, very much like Pirates of Barracuda Bay. I think there’s a real sense of nostalgia for some of these classic themes that we haven’t done in a while, so any time that we can reference them or bring them back emotionally speaks to people.’
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NEW HORIZONS
The target audience for those hat tips to long-retired themes also marries nicely with Haunted House’s packaging. This is one of the first sets to bear the ‘18+’ designation, and the first Creator Expert set to ditch that branding on its all-black box. As Jamie explained last issue, the primary intention is to make these advanced models more accessible to adults who might not have built LEGO in a long time – ‘18+’ won’t scare them off in the same way the ‘expert’ label might have. And according to the Senior Design Manager, that’s because the purpose of the age mark has changed.
‘It’s not a sign of difficulty level,’ he says. ‘We’re actually trying to step away from the age mark representing difficulty. What we wanted to do with 18+ is represent that this is for adults. And so in general you’ll see a lot of products that will have 18+ on them now, and that’s just trying to signal that these are for adults, but within that you’ll still see a range of difficulty levels. Some people will get the same experience they expect now, and then others will get more of an entry-level experience, and some will get a more difficult experience. But for now, the 18+ is not what signifies that.’
What it does signify – intentionally or not – is that 10273 Haunted House is a set best appreciated by those old enough to remember playing with Johnny Thunder, Gail Storm and Baron von Barron as kids.
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10 comments on this article
Nice article! My girlfriend got me this set for my 40th birthday a few months ago and it helped bring me out of a period of buying a bunch of sets without getting around to building them. I was very surprised at some of the negative reaction this set got when it came out; it's definitely on my short list of top sets ever made. I have it proudly alongside 10228 as part of my "spooky" LEGO display shelf.
Very interesting closing section about the idea of the 18+ line- I mean, we all already knew that it’s to open up accessibility etc. but one thing I’ve always wanted is more small sets aimed at adults- mostly in the City line for example? The quality of the build for cars in the City line is generally poor- featuring
Compare that to similar sized vehicles in Downtown Diner, or Corner Garage, or the recent IDEAS GWP car, which generally feature 200 bricks or more, creating more interesting shapes and vehicles. I’d love to see more vehicles like that released as individual sets for £15-£20!
Perhaps the 18+ line could open up that possibility in the future.
I read Blocks on Readly. There are back issues on there, although they only go back to issue 59. I know a lot of people like to have the magazine, but I find it easier on Readly. Cheaper too with all of the other stuff on there.
I love the way designers keep sneaking in their favourite references to these sort of sets, even if I don't get them all.
I just recently bought this one and hadn't clocked that there was the elevator ride. Haven't bought it as a fairground ride anyway - I intend to turn it into a sort of "Hotel Transylvania" with loads of monsters in residence.
I absolutely love this Haunted House. The drop elevator is really neat, and the exposed mechanics on the back are super creepy, but it's the Adventurers bits that put it on my must-have list. The most expensive set I've ever bought, but it was worth it. Great job by the designers, and it's neat to hear about the process on how some of it came about.
The Haunted House set is great, but I really wish they went for the Haunted Mansion like experience with a vehicle that moves through different rooms, perhaps with ghosts that pop out.
I was just inspired to watch Jang's review of this set after picking it up last summer, while on vacation and able to enjoy a rare visit to an actual LEGO store. They didn't have 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay in stock, so I picked this instead. I'm still pretty happy w/it and am glad to have been able to add it to my city's Theme Park (aka Corny Island as 71018-4 Corn Cob guy is the mascot :). Although the main action mechanism is a bit clunky, and like in Jang's review mine often slips. My son was winding really hard on it once and the 150 piece linkage snapped, and it was a pain in the rear getting it back together. Of course that only happened once... because daddy won't let him play w/it now lol.
The lady in the picture has a weird fringe. She must cut her own hair.
@Johnny__Thunder97:
I started making 6-wide cars around the time the Batman theme launched in 2006, and most of them hit right around the 200pc mark. Since then I think I've managed to make a few smaller cars that were less, but still over 150pcs. I think many comparable City vehicles were closer to 100pcs, which does make them feel rather clunky. 200pcs really does allow a lot more detail, both inside and out.
That said, I don't know that I'd be interested in buying a car line for the cars. Parts, sure, but I haven't been thrilled with what they've already done. Not even getting into the aircraft carriers they're making for Speed Champions right now, the VIP car had a really weird bit between the steering wheel and the windshield, and it took me a while to figure out that it was a really awkward attempt to make a column shifter (but it looks like it's intended to store an extra suitcase). Most of their 6-wide cars have really bad fender designs that leave ugly gaps in the body, which is one of the first things I figured out how to avoid on my early cars, and one of the things I've developed most as I continue to make more cars. I have a lot more freedom in my designs, due to not having to clear the Design Department, so bucket seats with a center console shifter aren't a problem for me.
But what I would like to see out of this is fenders and 1x3x2 car doors in a wider range of colors. I look at the new SC Dodge pack, and I'd love to fix the purple car, but they only made one of the two doors in dark-purple (and that was an older shade that doesn't really match the parts being produced now).
BTW, my latest vehicle is a 6-wide 1960's Ford Good Humor ice cream truck, which has a pickup-style cab. It's a little more compact than 60253, and in its current design it sits at 301pcs, not counting the minifig. It has room for two minifigs, but only seating for one, because that's the way those trucks were built.
I was also thinking when this came out that a fairground haunted house is more a ride through lots of spooky rooms, but interesting comments about finding it too difficult to achieve the effect they were looking for without just repeating the Joker's mansion 70922.