Halloween Trick or Treat Scare Tactics

For those of you that have read some of my other pieces you may have run across my hub outlining Dept 56 Christmas Villages and Decorating for Christmas. In so, you may have recognized that we tend to go just a tad to the extreme for some holidays.

Well, Halloween is no different.

Though I will confide to you that my wife does get just a bit nuttier at the end of October, though the some silliness begins by the second week of college football season. A bit annoying at times when the FSU games are on but thankfully, my wife works every other Saturday so I can watch a few uninterrupted.

Over the years, as with the Christmas Village, the Halloween decorations have morphed into a full-fledged neighborhood event. And not only for the kids in our neighborhood, loud mouths have spread word all over our area, that “those people” are up to it again. We now not only host a few neighborhood children, but entire families from neighboring communities I have never seen before are showing up at the door.

In the past couple of years my candy expenses have quadrupled, and they had cost me a pretty penny before this. But what is worse is there now has been talk of adding a full bar.

That Scares ME!

So with this feeling of impending and petrifying trepidation, combined with the fear of shallow pockets after a huge bar bill, I am going to share a few of the Scare tactics we have used in the past that have given us such a frightening reputation. Perhaps we can do a little reverse “spreading of the wealth” and I can keep some of mine.

And oh by the way I heard the Newly Appointed Halloween Czar has ordered all kids to give up half of their candy to those that were too lazy to trick or treat.

I also decided to write this after my wife just ordered two more fog machines, in addition to the new lightning machine she already bought, and there really is no more room in the sheds for decorations.

Did I happen to mention that I was forced to build two 8 x 10 full height sheds in the back yard to store all the decorations because there was no more space left in the house? I would also like to state at the this juncture, the two aforementioned holidays, Christmas and Halloween are really the only Holidays we decorate for…thank God; the rest of the holidays I try to get my wife to go away. But that isn’t cheap either, but by comparison, it’s a lot less work.

Oh by the way Honey, you can have the bar and I've picked out your Halloween costume for this year.

In a lot of ways I am my own worse enemy, for loving my wife so much. Sometimes I feel like the Mad Scientist that created a monster, attractive as she is, I have the same problem Frankenstein did with the brain.

Its nuts!

Or I am.

I should have stayed very happy with taping up a few paper skeletons, carving a pumkin and passing out the Reese’s cups, but nooooo, what did I do?

Well just passing out candy wasn’t much fun, so I come up with an idea to scare the little Trick or Treat goblins. It’s been an escalating and somewhat expensive “E” ticket ride since then, friggin spider.

Yes it’s the spider’s fault; not mine. You see, someone brought a three foot, black, hairy spider into the house one year and, well, it just looked stupid guarding the candy dish.

Well being me, that spider had to do something other than look stupid, so I went out into my man cave (office) and grabbed a fishing rod with 20 lb test line off the rack and tied the darned spider on. Big bait gets big fish. Well just outside our front porch there just happens to be a low hanging limb about 12 feet above the sidewalk and to the left of the front door, a window. So I routed the fishing line over the tree limb and through the window and cranked the spider up into the branches of tree.

As the little hobgoblins and princesses came to the door to get their treats, I could observe unseen. As they would turn to leave with “thank-you” barely out of their sweet little candy stuffin’ mouths, I released the bail on the rod and dropped that 3 foot spider right in front of them. You should have heard the screams….  That was the beginning.

To start, the basic principle of Halloween Scare Tactics is you cannot do the same gag twice. We confirmed this principle the following year when every little ghoul that came to the door looked up into the tree first, including the adults, proving two things. One the basic rule and number two, what we had done the first year was considerably memorable and perhaps a path to be explored.

However being the smart so and so I am, I had anticipated this and we rigged the spider in the same place but not as high, nor as active, and added a lit purple spider web to attract attention. This year as the little tikes would turn and look up at the spider, waiting for it to drop on them, we hit them with a fog machine that rather noisily releases a large cloud of fog that would immediately envelop them. The screams were even louder as they ran from the door.

One story I must tell you of that year, and that we still laugh about, is the neighbor who brought her 16-month-old child to the door while escorting some other little kids with another Mother. Well we pulled our little gag and this group screamed and literally took off running towards the street. When the fog cleared, there was this adorable little child dressed like a clown sitting in a stroller laughing all by herself on the porch. The baby’s Mother was panting at the end of the driveway.

God I wish I had video; she was so scared she left her child.

Fortunately she still is a friend of ours. But the story kind of circulated and this is where our reputation began.

Before I go further I must advise you that I am trained professional. Not in stage prep of course, but I am trained in construction; which basically means I can figure things out pretty quickly and I have been to a few OSHA courses. I have also been called a devious S. O. B., but that was by readers of my first book, …and a few neighborhood mothers that attached a few other adjectives and some other less than polite monikers.

The story of the mother leaving her child actually got quite a bit of life and we began to overhear the story repeated in places that we frequented and from people we didn’t even know. My fate was sealed when one of my wife’s customers came into her restaurant the next fall and told my wife the story. Foolishly, I think now, my wife advised her customer that we were the culprits and from then on, I was informed, our course was set because the customer was going to bring her kids over this year.

Well with that we had to up the stakes, and I think some of you may know me by now, I did. This year we added two different “attractions” the hanged woman and the swinging chain saw maniac. Our basic tactics however stayed the same, no scaring until after they come to the door and we alternated each stunt periodically so no one knew what to expect, since Trick or Treaters are incredible big mouths.

This year along with some special engineering, a few additional tools and materials were included like some heavy rope, two full-body fall protection harnesses, some actors and two very large trees, which I just happen to have in the front yard.

In addition to the above materials it is helpful for this particular stunt to have a hockey mask, a reliable starting chainsaw (without the chain) and a lightweight, yet gullible teenager.

We dressed this young man up in the hockey mask and black clothing over the body harness. I rigged a heavy ¾” 5000 lb rated swing rope to a very substantial tree limb high in an oak tree allowing enough rope for a full arc swing about 10 feet over the heads of those standing on the front walk. This rope was connected to the harness D-ring. The trusting teenager was then perched about 35 feet up in the tree.

When the Trick or Treaters turned to leave looking for the spider or the fog machine in the bushes they would hear the grinding screech of a chain saw starting up and being revved. For one, an odd sound to hear at night, and not easily located when 35 feet up in a tree.

That is of course, is until the manic yells and jumps out of the tree, swinging towards you wielding a chain saw, and of course just as one catches a glimpse of what’s coming, the fog blast obscures him from view. Ahh great fun! We actually had a few yard decorations and a couple of bushes trampled that year, and I heard, at least one set of adult underwear did not survive the experience.

Safety Tip: A second ½” rope was rigged behind and manned by two other linebacker sized teenagers, as a safety and to haul the maniac back up to the perch. The chain saw was leashed up through a sleeve and attached to the swing rope so it could not fall on anyone if dropped.

Okay, it was an expensive saw and I didn’t want a new toy to get hurt, hell I’d had the teenager for years and I knew in a pinch if something happened I could make another one that looked just like him.

Disclaimer: Please do not try this one unless you are completely trained in rope rigging, harness use, life safety and have some really trusting teenagers. Or you are heavily insured.

Note: The teenager outlived the experience and is now a Drill Sergeant in the US Army

Using the same type materials as above we lynched a real live “dead” woman from a tree limb hanging low over the driveway. Here it is advisable to have a female friend just as gullible as the teenager. Using the same type body harness hidden under torn and tattered clothing she was lashed to the tree limb with her feet about 18 inches above the ground. An actual noose was fashioned into the hanging line placed around her neck. My wife applied the appropriate "dead face" makeup and the friend’s job was to stay absolutely motionless and hang her head a bit to the side.

Given that kids are pretty savvy these days the makeup was applied rather heavily and the location was kept quite dark, with only some blue backlighting, to give the appearance of just a dummy being hanged. That year we had decorated the yard in such a fashion that we controlled the traffic flow from the street to the door and visitors had to pass within a foot or two of the hanging woman. Many visitors as they approached would examine her very closely some even touching but she stayed dead still, literally.

And yep, you guessed it, as they passed on their way out, the dead woman sprang to life and grabbed at them. Blood curdling screams I’m telling you. We actually had a deputy show up after a neighbor, a block over, heard one particularly piercing scream from a teenaged girl and called 911 thinking someone was being attacked. The deputy didn’t really appreciate our sense of haunting. We didn’t receive a citation, but the next year I introduced a 600-watt per channel sound system to drown out the screaming.

One particularly funny story created by the Hanging Woman was with a cocky 15-year old boy who knew it all. Knowing us, and our propensity for pranks he came up to her sure something was going to happen or she was going to do something, but nothing did. She just looked so real. He kept inspecting, using his flashlight, pushing and prodding her, causing her to swing. She told us later as he was probing she even tightened all her muscles to simulate rigor mortis. He even reached for her breast trying to force her to move and when she didn’t he turned and announced to his friends, “she’s a fake.”

Which was true, she wasn’t really dead.

After receiving the candy from the door, they just had to return to her, laughing and joking, still sure she was just a crafty decoration. Until she thrust her hands to his shoulders, in a tortured twisting motion, screeching like a banshee, reaching for his throat. He dropped his flashlight and ran faster than I’d ever seen this kid move before. From what we heard he didn’t stop running until he was home. I believe this story, because his father came down about a ½ hour later to see the “Hanging Crazy Lady” and told us. The boy came back the two days later to retrieve his flashlight.

Serious disclaimer: Please do not attempt either of the stunts above unless you have been completely trained in the use and application of rigging equipment and full body support harnesses. If the above usage is not completely controlled and applied in an exacting manner severe injury or worse can occur.

As I mentioned above after our visit from the Sheriff’s Office we added a sound system to the festivities. Some of you may know that I periodically provide musical performances and karaoke shows, well to do that I have a kick-ass Yamaha sound system.

So starting this particular year I set up the “Talking House.” I hid large 15” Yamaha BR15 speakers behind false decorative walls and set the amplifier with the rest of the equipment on a desk inside. I went out and got some really cool Halloween sound effect CDs and blasted the front yard, as well as the rest of the neighborhood, with spooky sounds.

When I first turned the system on I set the volume to level four and went outside to hear how it sounded. When I got out there, neighbors from six houses away were coming outside to see where all the creepy noise was coming from. They looked down the street and saw me standing out in the front, shrugged their shoulders and went back inside. I guess muttering to themselves, “Oh its them.”

We had obtained quite the reputation by now, and perhaps not always in the best connotation, but they adapted to it since it was only one night of the year. Of course the wife comes yelling at me to turn it down, which I did, until some other neighbors called and asked to have it turned back up, they couldn’t hear it. Shut the wife right up, so I turned it up to five. I’m told the sound can be heard at the convenience store across the highway outside the development.

Yeah the Sheriffs’ came back. Fortunately not by complaint, just curiosity, they were having coffee at the store and tracked me down. No great feat considering the source, I’m pretty sure once they entered the neighborhood they knew exactly where to go.

So with sound system in place, I break out the cordless microphones. Now with the house completely dark with the exception of Jack-O-Lanterns and some purple bat lights the house began to try enticing children up the walk. Dressed in dark clothing I was wandering around outside near the street watching for any approaching Trick or Treaters.

As they got within 50 to 100 feet of the property, "the house" began to coax them into coming to the door.

In differing voices, changing with each phrase I would say things like,

Ohhh, here comes a princess.

Yes I see her, I like princesses, they have really warm blood.

Oh she has a pirate with her,

Oh yes, do you think we can put him on the rack,

I love little children, don’t you?

Yeah I do, but I can usually only eat half of one.

For each approaching group the banter would change depending upon their costumes, age, the size of the group. All while the CD’s were playing scary sounds, and creepy music, like ‘Tubular Bells” (from the Exorcist) or theme music from “The Nightmare on Elm Street.” And since I have multiple microphones more than one person could talk, that’s where the older teenagers come in.

As Trick or Treaters would come to the door, they were all waiting for what came next and something usually did, it changes each year but now the gag was accompanied by the appropriate and well-amplified shriek or moan.

All the while we never let them see where we were. We didn’t even serve the candy, the front door was left ajar and the voices coaxed each visitor in, more than couple had to be really convinced since no one answered the door. A single table with a smoking cauldron and the candy bowl was set in the middle of an empty, but decorated room, so these little Trick or Treaters never saw anyone, only the disembodied voices talking to them.

We had a few greedy kids that tried to grab handfuls of candy, but they were quickly dealt with, when the house screamed at them, scared them near to death. Sometimes I was out in the street acting like responsible parent, while the teenagers were in the bushes or inside, but always someone was close enough to hear them talk, and observe every move and the house haunts could respond accordingly.

The best part was goofing on the parents, who typically would just stand in the street and watch the kids approach the house. The house would tease them about being afraid, or comment on their clothes or shoes. Ask them if they wanted a drink, or if they had fed their kids or critique a hair-doo or how well their front lawn was manicured. Something like:

That kid looks a little skinny

I wonder why his mother doesn’t feed him,

She probably to busy teasing that hair,

Yeah but that’s okay, makes the bones easy to use as toothpicks

One little girl about eight that had been coming to the house every year since she was very small, actually stopped in the middle of the front yard and engaged the house in conversation asking, “What are you going to do to me this year?”

She wouldn’t move from her spot continually asking the house what is was going to do, until my wife finally went out to talk to her, and the little girl pleaded, “Don’t let them do anything to me again.”

Apparently the scare tactics in past years were at least in her view from the previous year anyway, traumatic. And with a wave off we didn’t spring the trap, we did show her the stunt, which that year was an 11-foot tall ghoul floating down out of the tree towards her.

Have I mentioned in this article or any others, that my wife is nuts? Well if I haven’t I am officially doing so now. Though I must say, this must not be much of a secret because the people that make and market Halloween themed decorations must know her since they now open a Halloween Store in the mall within a mile of the house. Now this store is only in existence for about 30 days, which is just long enough for my wife to buy up all the stock. Then they disappear like a ghost only to reappear the following year. And the bastards always have new stuff, I know because a large chunk of their wares are in my shed.

My wife’s “greatest” conquest from these yearly forays to this point was an 11-foot tall ghoul priced at $199.00, to which my wife takes tremendous pride for her restraint in waiting until Halloween morning to purchase it for “just half price.” Though, as I’m sure you can guess, that wasn’t her only purchase. When she came home that morning I unloaded another four hours worth of work.

Tip: I will say that she does now have these places figured out, you can browse early just don’t buy until late, very late. Apparently they hate taking stock back to the warehouse, and most of their wares have a higher mark up than jewelry, so by day 29 they are ready to deal.

As I’m unloading this ghoul out of the SUV, it just keeps coming and coming, and I’m thinking to myself, “does she know we only have eight foot ceilings? Well silly me, you are supposed to ignore the tag that states “for indoor use.”

Well you can’t just have an 11-foot ghoul just hanging in the yard; it would be like the spider, stupid, it has to do something. So we employ the trees again. I sent my wife to home depot for a small pulley and while she was gone I installed a zip line from about forty feet up in the tree to the limb hanging over the front walk creating an extreme downward angle of about 6o degrees. Now this ghoul is not only tall, but it is pretty heavy, and the arms and wings are about 5 feet wide, so the zip line has to be installed extremely taught, to prevent sag and promote smooth, but rather fast travel.

I attached the pulley to the line, then the ghoul to the pulley; I then added a second control line to hoist the ghoul up high into the tree and, at night, like the maniac, pretty much out of sight. Then as the kids would turn to leave the ghoul would come racing down out of the darkness, with flashing red LED eyes glaring, right at them. Scared the-you-know-what out of them.

There must be something to the eyes in this thing because quite a few kids just stood frozen like a deer in the headlights. We got another mother this year, she didn’t leave her kid, but she beat her kid to street by a good ten seconds. We had to say good-bye to another Styrofoam gravestone and a ground mounted floodlight; they were stampeded beyond repair.  

Tip: For this type of stunt use either thin steel cable (without coating) or at least a #12 solid wire for the zip line. The wire is easier to tighten, if you use the cable employ a turnbuckle for tightening. For the hoist line use a strong binding or builders’ twine this should be strong enough to pull the figure up but light enough to not impede travel. The gag works best when the downward flight is very fast.

These are but just a few of the Halloween scare tricks and tactics that we employ each year in what has now become an expected and ever changing event. This year’s theme I have just been informed is going to be a haunted pirate graveyard, so I have to stop writing and start planning how to pull off my wife’s craziness.

I think she may have watched the “Pirates of the Caribbean” one too many times, she is now off the Halloween store again… searching for dead pirates.

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For your convenience and curiosity, below the “comments” section I have added some links to the types of equipment, devices and props I use for the stunts and gags described above.