James Bond 007 themed halloween house? Limited materials and time.

October 27, 2021 9:58 AM

We will have exactly one trick-or-treater this year. He's 10 and will be dressed as James Bond. What can we do on a short time frame and that won't generate a lot of waste? So no plastic single-use stuff, Amazon junk, Halloween Store junk, etc. He's coming Friday evening.

We just moved to a remote neighborhood where there is but one child, and he will be the sole trick-or-treater that we have this year. We'd love to give him more than just a candy-y experience. What could we do that's James Bond 007 themed?

We're quite remote, and could probably pull off something very spooky, but instead what might be more Bond villain lair-esque? We're assuming his parents won't actually want him to come inside the house, as no one has been in anyone's houses out here since March 2020.

Things we have on hand:
- 2 projectors with internet access. House is brown though so we'd need to hang sheets to project onto something. We do have many large windows and have done rear projection of spooky stuff onto sheer curtains in other homes before.
- Tons of large cardboard boxes. Tape, etc.
- Security cameras with two-way communication and built-in lights. These could be repositioned. I could imagine using one of the security cameras to talk to him as they come down the road, or using the camera's light to "scan" him for weapons.
- Video doorbell.
- Remote-controllable house lights.
- Colored, remote-controllable lights.
- Bluetooth speakers

Time: time until Friday evening is short, but I could spend a couple hours building something on Thursday or Friday.

I welcome all suggestions! Come up with a script if you want!

posted by MonsieurBon to Home & Garden (12 answers total)

Serve this small child a fancy delicious beverage in a martini glass poured from a shaker.
posted by phunniemee at 10:01 AM on October 27, 2021

Maybe an outdoor scavenger hunt?
posted by tipsyBumblebee at 10:03 AM on October 27, 2021

You could have the iconic Duran Duran intro from A View to a Kill playing on a loop projected on one of those windows. And some of the villains are iconic, if you're willing to dress up. I'm thinking of the guy in the bowler hat.
posted by fingersandtoes at 10:04 AM on October 27, 2021

Have a way to play the theme song as soon as he hits the doorbell. I cued this version up 35 seconds so it starts with a brassy opening.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:12 AM on October 27, 2021

Do you have a rotating chair and a pet? You can be waiting on your porch with your pet on your lap and your back to the trick-or-treater, and when he arrives, you can rotate around and say, "I've been expecting you, Mr. Bond."
posted by yankeefog at 10:14 AM on October 27, 2021

Maybe an outdoor scavenger hunt?

Or an escape room kind of thing. (Loop in the parents in advance so you don't suddenly spring some kind of weird trap thing and they're all "oh no they are kidnapping my child" or whatever).

Or take a page from the CARMEN SANDIEGO game show - you are M, and you have an urgent assignment for Mini Bond to help you figure out where the Mastermind Bad Guy is hiding, and if you'll just step over here towards this picnic table where we have some clues he left behind....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:25 AM on October 27, 2021

Dress up as Q and slip him a note with instructions to find his candy? Maybe that leads to the "I've been expecting you Mr Bond" moment and someone hands him the candy.
posted by ReluctantViking at 10:27 AM on October 27, 2021

You pretty much have what you'd need to recreate Scaramanga's fun house from The Man with the Golden Gun.
posted by bronwensaurus at 11:29 AM on October 27, 2021

Will it be super dark? If you can scrounge up some laser pointers / cat toy lasers, a maze of those to get through to get the candy would be very cool, but maybe difficult to pull off outdoors. You also need some kind of mist-producing thing (hairspray?) to make the beams visible.
posted by momus_window at 12:36 PM on October 27, 2021

Rather than lasers, you could use yarn or thin cord to the same effect….
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:43 PM on October 27, 2021

Using a large sheet of cardboard, print out (or draw) the swirly gun barrel from the series iconic opening sequence. Have the kid stand in front of it, play the Bond theme, then use your projector to have the blood spill down. Alternately you could just project the whole sequence on a white sheet and have the kid strike the Bond pose in front of it. Let his parents film it and he'll have a fun thing for social media. It'd work best if you could get a version without the original Bond in it. He's confined to that white circle area and it wouldn't be too complicated to remove him.

Your family could throw on some black clothes and sunglasses, and when the kid rings the doorbell you say, "Bond is here! Henchmen attack!" Then you strike some cheesy karate poses and when he swats at you you all fall down, defeated.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:39 PM on October 27, 2021

Thanks for all the ideas folks. We decided to go for a title sequence video projector and talking to them through a motion-tracking eyeball-looking security camera.

But they (5 kids, it turns out) showed up 20 minutes early (booooo) so they only got me talking through a video doorbell and pretending to be a Bond villain while my partner yelled "jeez man just open the door and give them some candy!" Ok, there were our other usual Halloween decos, which did scare some of the younger kids.

So... Next year?
posted by MonsieurBon at 8:23 AM on October 30, 2021