This was something my dad used to do when I was a kid. Next year when the kids will remember the person in the scarecrow, it will actually be stuffed, and I’ll be hiding somewhere else!
View from a little further away, my husband was hiding behind the screen door controlling a spider that dropped from above 😈
[Image description: nighttime view of the front door of a house decorated for Halloween. A scarecrow sits on the porch with a large spider hanging above. In the foreground is a dark hooded mannequin, with swirling fog.]
When I was a teenager, I took my dad’s old Vietnam helmet liner, a sheet, and a bag of rocks for ballast, and made a ghost out of it. Then I strung a piece of clothesline from the top of the porch across the driveway, and up into a tall tree, at maybe a 30 degree angle down from the tree. Hung the ghost from a pulley on the clothesline, and had another length of line loose attached to it.
I just stood in the crook of this cottonwood tree waiting for kids to come. They’d get their candy, and I’d let the ghost go. So much screaming. Reel it back up and wait for the next group of kids. The only part of it that came anywhere near touching anyone was the sheet hanging down, everything else was always much much higher than head height even for an adult.
My wife opened the door to hand out candy wearing a plague doctor mask. The kids weren’t scared unfortunately, but at least surprised.
Oooh, you can try what I’ve done before. Leave the front door open with the interior dimly lit and her hiding in a dark room beyond. When the kids come, she steps from the darkness into the dim light, and it’s a pretty good effect with a masked costume.
[Image description: a dimly lit red room, with a dark masked figure with horns standing in the doorway beside a table draped in black with a vase of dead flowers. An illusion of hands pressing through the wall is projected onto the wall beside the figure.]
Wow, I respect the effort. The hands on the wall are a nice touch. It looks like you have a great time with these setups. Nice work!
I’ll say, we had a guy do the scarecrow thing in a neighborhood I lived in when I was under 5yo back in the late 80s. 30 years later, the only actual memories I have of trick or treating at that age are the scarecrow guy and some shitty old guy who gave out popcorn balls. I can still picture scarecrow guy’s house and everything about the set up. Point being, congratulations on creating some core memories for a lot of kids!
Not as immersive but we have this little sound activated animatronic monster adjacent to the door, which typically goes off while they’re yelling trick-or-treat. One little girl ran off screaming this year. One girl tried to make friends with the monster, attempting to shake its hand…
Hah! I love how different the reactions are. Some kids seem to have no sense of fear, while I’ve had others straight nope out. This year I had a mom grab her kid under the arms to drag him screaming towards me (but don’t worry, heard him giggling back down the driveway with a “that was scary!”), and another one shouted “now you die!” (using his flashlight as pistol) after I startled him. 😆
If you see my set up from a previous year in my other comment, one of my favorite reactions was a trio of teenage girls where one saw me approach and let out a “FUCK THAT!” and ran, with her friends on her heels. Left me standing there holding the bowl with a faint “wait come back, I’ve got candy…”
Good nerd idea: check the variance of weight, if is bigger than 1.5x, that mean the kid took more that one and activate the eyes lights and scream to the kid.
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