Allan Arsenault loves to scare children.
And he's got a new surprise for them this year, he says, proudly: two homemade life-sized coffins that will spring open, lights flashing, when approached, ready to unleash the costumed beasts within. "It will scare the crap out of the kids," he chuckles.
"Eee ha ha ha ha ha!" adds a witch's head.
Arsenault, a 47-year-old heavy equipment operator in Grandin, clearly loves Halloween. He's had his house decked out for weeks in preparation for the holiday, cloaking the whole front with black and filling the yard with skeletons, graves, lights and heads on stakes.
Most of the decorations are hand-made, he says. His daughter works at a hairdresser's, for example, and brings home mannequin heads he covers with blood and spikes. You can buy a cardboard guillotine for $150, or you can build a motorized one like he did and trick it out with gory heads. "Might as well build your own instead."
Horror homes
The Arsenault home at 51 Goodridge Dr. is one of many places set to become horror-fests this weekend for Halloween.
Another is 8 Dillon Pl., owned by the Hoffman family. Their front yard is now a graveyard, complete with homemade coffins, skeletons, mummies and spiders.
It took them about a week to set up, says Jared Hoffman, and all the local kids helped out. "Everyone has a lot of fun doing it." This is his fifth year doing the display in St. Albert, and he promises some fresh new horrors for anyone who visits this Oct. 31.
One home that's still perfectly normal is 64 Embassy Pl. That'll change this Sunday, says owner Ingrid Carli, when she and her family will spend about eight hours setting up their macabre menagerie of witches, zombies, devils and well-dressed skeletons. "We get out as soon as the sun goes up."
All three families are collecting donations for the food bank this year. They don't work together, but do share a passion for Halloween.
Arsenault says he started decorating his home about six years ago when his kids got too old for trick-or-treating. He and his family now delight in spooking visitors every Halloween, and often get requests to ambush young kids. "A lot of kids walk down the street and won't even come here," he laughs.
Carli says her family has always loved Halloween, and have put on their Home Haunt event for seven years in St. Albert. The display features many life-sized dioramas of horror scenes, such as a barber beheading a customer, a bloody butcher selling human heads and eyes, and a real hearse with a giant skull on it. A few feature real people in costume to spook visitors when they suddenly spring to life.
They built most of the displays themselves, Carli says, and add a new one each year. Anything they don't make (such as the hearse) they buy online.
She's keeping the family's newest scene under wraps for now, as well as which ones will feature real people. "Everyone likes to have that little bit of suspense." That suspense was enough to draw about 2,500 visitors to their home last year.
Halloween is all about getting out and seeing the costumes and homes, Hoffman says, and he hopes his efforts will help bring some of that spirit back. "You're not going to see this stuff in a mall or an apartment building."
For Arsenault, it's all about the scares. "And I get to eat any leftover treats," he adds.
