Candy Bowl Zombie Hand Prank!!

Trick-OR-Treat? The Halloween question I, along with millions of others, have been asking for the past decade. But now, as I stayed home this Halloween, needed a new question to ask. So I chose: “Why just one?” Why have Trick-OR-Treat when you could have Trick-AND-Treat? Why shouldn’t parents have fun on Halloween as well as kids? This is where my instructable comes in.

If you’ve ever been Trick-or-Treating, you have probably seen various different attempts made to scare you and other candy-hungry children. However, because of this, you probably haven’t been genuinely scared in a while! I mean, even if the decoration is an animatronic zombie bursting out of seemingly solid ground, there is still a part of you that knew that could happen. The ultimate Halloween scare, in my mind, is one that leaves the victim assured that they will not be scared, and comfortable in the situation that they are in, and then scares them with something so realistic that they think it must be real. The greatest way to achieve this is to have a human being, not a bowl on a suspiciously large table with a whirring motor underneath, greet them at the door, complement their outfit, hold out a candy bowl, tell them each to only take a couple, and then grab their hand from inside the bowl when they dig deep to find the last lollipop.

Disclaimer/inspiration; the idea for this project is mine, and I printed and assembled all the parts. I would however, like to give credit to two sources that made this project possible:

1. The idea of a handheld bowl hand prank is a unique and different approach that I took, but I got the the idea of a candy bowl hand prank from: https://youtu.be/3pbm7HCxdqA.
2. I got the original model for the hand here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4964808. The reason that I used mimi_3d’s model instead of my own is just ease and realism. For this project to work, the fake hand has to be as realistic as possible.

Advantages of my design over the table one:

1. It does not require you to crouch under a table
2. it want be easily put on and off
3. if you have a 3D printer, assembly should be extremely easy
4. the insurance of seeing a hand holding the bowl, albeit a fake one, gives the victim that extra bit of insurance to put the scare over the top
5. it is small and easy to store

Needed Materials:

1. 3D printer
2. Super Glue
3. Either:
4. Gloves
5. this is to cover the 3d print, and it is probably the safest option. You could even tie it into your costume ie butler or doctor
6. Paint
7. This is to make the 3d printed hand look realistic, especially if you printed it in a different color than your skin tone

Optional Materials: (these could enhance the effect)

1. Zombie hand glove
2. Fake blood

Download the files attached to this step. For the best finish, I suggest printing the hand palm down with supports. The bowl does not need supports. I printed them both with 15 percent infill and around .3mm layers, but it doesn’t really matter for these. You can modify the files if you want to decorate the bowl or such. The third file is not needed, and will be talked about in a later step. Scroll down to know whether you should print it along with the others.

Once you have both pieces printed, put the glove over the hand model (or paint it). I would suggest adding superglue to the inside of the glove to make sure it doesn’t slip or come off.

Superglue the hand to the bowl, making sure you have the positions right! Then attach a glove (or fake zombie hand if you want to go the extra mile) to the hole in the bowl. Make sure it covers as much of the space as possible, otherwise candy could fall out! If the superglue is not enough, I would suggest taping the outside.

Put your hand into the glove. Then, flatten it as seen in the picture. The joints of your fingers, if you spread your hand out, should push on the bowl, and that tension should keep the bowl from falling. Make sure you wear a sweatshirt or baggy long sleeve shirt to cover the connection up! Then, have somebody help you add the candy while you focus on keeping the bowl balanced.

*if your hand is too small to make it work, consider attachment at the wrist through a band or a reprint in a slightly smaller size for ALL parts! Including the hand! You shouldn’t have to do this however, as my hands are not particularly large.

When someone comes to take candy, there are two options you can choose:

1. The Mess! This is ideal for people who love cleaning, but it does provide quite a scare! When the victim comes to take the candy, launch your hand upwards with all the force you have, exploding the candy everywhere.
2. The Grab! This makes less of a mess radius, and while it doesn’t have the same shock factor, it can be extremely scary if done correctly. This method is ideal for people who choose to use the organizer, and probably the better option for the zombie hand too. In this option, you wait until they have their hand as close to the bowl as possible, then, you reach out with your hand and grab onto theirs before they have a change to put it away! The reason that you don’t want to move fast is because in the confusion of the candy explosion, they probably won’t realize that your grabbing onto them with a second hand, and that your first one is still attached to the bowl. This method is ideal for those deep-digging trick-or-treaters!

Disclaimer: You dont have to choose one! Try it out with family members, friends, or even real trick-or-treaters, and see what works best, you could even try combining the two options or making your own!

Did your scare not go as planned? Do you have that one family member who has never uttered a cry of fear in their life? Do you just want to go that extra mile? Do you hate having to clean up? This is the step for you.

1. The Organizer
2. This is a 3d printable part (though it could be improvised with cardboard and card stock) that reduces the mess of the scare. By glueing candy to the outside of this piece, the bowl will appear full, but after you burst your hand out, there will only be one thing to pick up. While it might not provide the same fear factor, if you time it right and grab the victim’s hand, it would certainly do the trick. You also do not need a glove in the bowl for this, as no candy is going to spill out.
3. The Zombie
4. By attaching a zombie hand to the inside instead of a glove, you can provide a bigger scare, especially if you grab their hand! It’s like a zombie escaping from their grave… of a tiny candy bowl!
5. The Blood
6. I would only recommend doing this to people you know! By coating your glove in fake blood, enough so that if will seep onto the person who’s hand you grab, you can make this work. It works with any glove, though a surgical glove will probably work the best as it does not absorb the liquid. If you want The Organizer method, but think it needs some extra scare, this will work! Because the organizer method doesn’t require a glove, you can directly coat your hand in fake blood, and when you grab their arm... If you have some makeup skills as well, you could even decorate your arm to look critically injured or decaying and zombie-like!