Halloween Week - Decorating Houses

Decorating houses during holidays is a heavily debated topic. I remember an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air when Will decorated their house with more than the classy white-light approach during the Christmas season, going all out with plastic reindeer, santas, and multi-color lights. This sight was met with anger by the surrounding neighbors because their neighborhood was so "high-class," but of course they eventually embraced it (I think Evander Holyfield made a cameo appearance in that episode...before his ear got Tyson-ed). Anyway, I'm all for the Clark Griswold approach...make your house as cheesy as you want...I love it!

I'm even more for it when it comes to Halloween. There are multiple approaches you can take with Halloween decorations because you have to consider the fact that very young children don't want to take advantage of the fact that they're wearing a diaper when they approach your house. Because of this, many people take the conservative approach, hanging things here and there. Other people become a little more active, covering every square inch of their yard, but still don't make things too scary. And then there's the other people...who don't feel satisfied until someone goes into cardiac arrest when approaching their lawn.

Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about...


*Yawn* Oh is it Halloween? I wasn't sure. Oh ok...I get it...a witch...and a couple pumpkins...cool...I bet you these people hand out mini-size candy. Whose bright idea was it to call the miniature size, "fun size" anyways? What's fun about it?


Yea...you're probably squinting at this one. That's the point. Overstimulation. You approach this house with caution...because God knows what's hiding in that yard. Give this house a standing ovation...for both their exterior decorative skills...and the fact that they use 60% of their house for Halloween decoration storage.


I swear...people have addictions to plug-in blow up holiday decorations. There used to be a time when people would put out one of these things in their yard. Nowadays, with about 500 to choose from, people put out as many as they can. I can't look at one of these things without thinking of the time a guy I went to high school with snuck one of these (a turkey) into his parent's room while they were asleep and plugged it in. To say they were confused would be an extreme understatement. Anyway, it's pretty cheesy to have one of these things in your yard...to have atleast 4 is just fantastic. Where the hell did they get that enormous Hulk?


These people have a front yard...and come Halloween...they're gonna use it. They've used the conservative approach as far as the scariness factor, however, most people probably get dizzy when walking to and from this house.


This one is just one-of-a-kind. They've taken the B-rated old-school horror movie approach with giant creatures. I just saw a portion of a gem called "The Food of the Gods," apparently based on an H.G. Wells novel. The premise was that a substance that animals were eating was making them enormous and of course, dangerous. The best part was that because it was made in 1976, cheesy CGI took a backseat to the use of actual rats...on a scaled-down scene with a house...and the movie just panned between that and the actual house where people were shooting the rats. Classic.

Anyway, the site that I got this picture from gives a little more insight to the mood of this house. That dragon on the right...spews actual fire. So not only has this house achieved a scariness factor...but also a danger factor. A+!