How did we all come to be so...special

[colinsuds]

I think a post liek this was created a while back but ther are so many new people (and the fact that i couldnt find it) helped me decide to start this again. This question has been asked to Haunters everywhere and the answers are usually pretty funny.

So as my 200th post (yay) is the simple but amusing question:

HOw did you become so obsessed with halloween?

lol you knew it was goign to be great didnt you :D lol

Anyway here is my answer:

Well it partly is related to the fact the my grandparents house backs onto a graveyard complete with mausolium (i will ad pictures later on when i get home lol im visiting my grandparents right now) Also my grandfathers have always ahd some freaky experiences when they lived down east (nova scotia) and would always share them with me. Also a small love for horror movies and a unusual love for the colours black and orange helped 2 :D. And also fall has always been my fav. season! woot. lol so how did you come to be so ...special?

[TipoDeemin]

There are several factors for me, as well.

Probably the main thing that got me all wrapped up in the season is that my birthday is only 5 days off from Halloween. I'd end up with cakes in the shape of black cats or pumpkins, Halloween specials starting just as I was opening my presents, and parties themselves that occasionally overlapped the holiday.

Add to that an elementary school that dedicated the whole day of Halloween to celebrating the holiday, a librarian that recommended Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, a mother that went all-out with decorations and costumes, and a small farming town where trick or treating meant dressing up, gathering candy, and running into your friends all night, and I think you can kind of understand.

The whole month of October was like one really long party for me when I was little, and as I got older, I didn't want it to change.

That, and I'm kinda weird.

[strange1]

Just lucky I guess.:D

I have always liked that time of the season.
Halloween gives us the chance to let the kid in us come out and play and have fun.

[gmacted]

It all started for me four years ago. I had a halloween cd that I was playing for the TOTs and just as someone rang the doorbell, the cd played "You've entered the wrong door and you're not coming out alive (woman screams)!". When I opened the door, the kids said "that was soooooo cool". That's when it all started. The next year I made a custom cd that I played when the kids rang to doorbell. The next year, I created my first prop. I called it "the crate of terror". Last year, I made a fog chiller with a VEI-950 fogger, made a cemetary out of my front yard, created some skeleton stanchions, and made a FCG that greeted the kids at my front door. Here's a link to my video haunt last year.

2005 Haunt (http://webpages.charter.net/gmaciejewski/Halloween/Halloween%20Video%202005.htm)

I can't wait for this year. I've been planning my props since November 1st.

[Dr Morbius]

This is really gonna show my age, but oh well...

The Disney LP ( that's a "record" for all you whippersnappers..) "Sounds of the Haunted House"..Me and my friends would listen to it, and imagine what kind of house would have such sounds. Then my family took me to Disneyland, and I went into the Haunted Mansion for the first time..been hooked ever since. It also explains my proclivity toward animated props, I guess.

Halloween was celebrated all day at my school too! Costumes were MANDATORY, (hehe) and we all paraded around showing off our creations..we discovered that the costumes we made were WAY better than those plastic pajamas and plastic mask with the srting on the back! (All you older guys know what I'm talking about), There was NO Spirit halloween store or Walmart that carried those great costumes kids can avail themselves to now. If you wanted something cool, you had to make it,(or have your mom make it). Been making cool stuff ever since.

My creations cool'd off a bit, and my haunt displays remained stagnant, untill the Internet came along..Rekindled my love for the Holiday, and the rest is history.

[Forbidden Crypts]

I really don't know. Fall has always been my favorite time of year, and as a kid we always had great Halloween parties at school. My very first LP purchase as a kid was Disney's "Chilling, Thriilling Sounds Of The Haunted House" (http://forbiddencrypts.250free.com/DisneyChillingSounds.html) that I bought at the local Woolworth's. That, and growing up on the old B&W Horror classics on tv every Saturday at 2 pm.

[Frighteners Entertainment]

I really don't know. Fall has always been my favorite time of year, and as a kid we always had great Halloween parties at school. My very first LP purchase as a kid was Disney's "Chilling, Thriilling Sounds Of The Haunted House" (http://forbiddencrypts.250free.com/DisneyChillingSounds.html) that I bought at the local Woolworth's. That, and growing up on the old B&W Horror classics on tv every Saturday at 2 pm.

Gee, that sounds very fimiliar to me. Saturday at 2 pm., Sir Graves Ghastly.
Sure miss that :(

Jeff

[Forbidden Crypts]

No. Unfortunately we didn't get him here in Upstate NY. Our show was called Monster Movie Matinee I think. It had Igor who you saw on camera, and The Count who talked like Bela Lugosi, but all you ever saw on camera was his forearm, and hand with two big black rings on his fore finger and pinky. I've looked all over online for info about that show, but alas with no luck. Sir Graves Ghastly does have a great website someone has made chocked full of info about his show.

[Hella]

How did I become so obsessed with Halloween?

well let's see, I have been fascinated with ghosts and monsters and other things that go bump in the night since I was little. I remember those costumes that we used to make...like Dr Morbius said, those were always better than the store bought ones...lol and the costume parade in front of the whole school, that was a blast! It's too bad they don't do that kind of stuff too much anymore.
I Love to still come up with my own costumes and try to get my kids to do that as well, but dang it they love those store bought things now..lol though as they get older they are getting more creative, I may just have to show my oldest some of the cool FX make up they have to so something for this next year.
what started my whole haunting thing was I remembered there used to be this house that would do creepy things in the yard, they would have their teenagers in the garage with it just craked open and they would touch your ankles as you walked by, that sort of stuff..nothing really fancy though like we all do..lol but I have remembered that house and how much I LOVED going there to see what they would do each year, as I got older and stopped TOTing myself I wanted to do that kind of stuff, alas my parents were real stick in the muds when it came to that..lol so once I was out on my own and had my own kids I wanted a place that my own kids (and those in the neighborhood) would remember as something special for Halloween, but you can only do so much in an apartment (which we lived in for about 10 years), so my displays are just a few years old and growing.
Halloween just has something magickal about it to me, I can't quite describe it.

[strange1]

I'm going to show my age too.

I too grew up with dressing for halloween at school.
We had a school sponsored halloween costume party on halloween night, with a parade and prizes for best costume and most origional costume.
Back then you had to make your own costume or do without, or at least the ones of us that were financially embarassed.

I think some financially better off kids did buy their costumes, but most of us didn't have much money so we made our own.
That was where the fun was, being origional and having something no one else had and being proud of the work you did to make the costume.
Thanks mom.:D

Along with watching old b&w scary movies on saturday night, spook spetacular, chiller theater and a couple more I can't remember at the moment.

Anyone can go out and buy a costume or props, but it takes thought and work to come up with something origional.
Personally, I don't want to be like everyone else, it is way more fun to be origional and creative.

What I really remember is my mom had a talent for taking almost anything and make something out of it.
She could take a piece of discarded junk that was bent, twisted, warped, or broken and make something out of it.

I've seen a lot of outstanding masks and props on the web I would love to have.
But there is nothing like showing a prop you made to people and have them saying my God Bill did you make that, its great I would love to be able to do something like that.

[Zombie-F]

Ever since I was little I have been obsessed with Halloween. I too recall Halloween dress ups for school in the 80's, our elementary school even had pumpkin carving contests and parades as well.

My family wasn't too well off either, so for a few years, all I had was home-made costumes. I did eventually graduate to store-bought stuff, but then in my TOTing twilight years, I switched back to a homemade Dracula costume (aside from the makeup).

I was always fascinated with a yard that my bus drove by (in West Quincy) on the way to middle school that was packed to the property lines with decorations, mostly home-made I might add. I think that yard is what made me decide "I want to do that someday!"

[Bone Dancer]

I too did all the normal stuff as a youngster, parades in school and TOTuntil about 12 or so. That was the end of it until a few years ago when my rpg gaming group decided to have a halloween game and do the costume thing along with it ( I think that people that do rpg's are a little closer to halloween then most normal folks). But last year I decided that I would host the game and show them what a real halloween party was all about. So with tombstones in the yard, skulls on poles with candles along the walkway, a witch turning a skelly on a spit over a fire on the outside and the inside of the house done over in scene setters and spider weds I entered the haunting.
I knew I was hooked when I started planning for next years party the next day. And to be truthful, I was a little suprised to find that there were people like you, and this forum (my first) that were as in to halloween or more so then I had become. With lots of time on my hands, this forum and the people that make it up have been a great insperation to expand my creativity for years to come. (after which I will become the ultimate haunter)

[DeathTouch]

My mom was a hair dresser, so she liked to do all the Halloween make-up. Also all the home made costumes that she made. I think that is what got me interested in Halloween. I still remember when she made me into the werewolf. She had taken fury fabric from some store she bought, and cut the hair off and glued it to my face. Instant werewolf. I guess this is my way to carry on the tradition.

[krough]

The reason I have this "halloween addiction" is because I am possessed by the Devil, and as we all know Halloween is the Devils holiday.

Now DT Don't go thinking just because Im the devil that I should be disqualified from the $20 prop challenge. No where in the rules did it state such a restriction.

[DeathTouch]

You are right krough, it doesn't say that. But it does say that banned members can't enter the contest. Zombie banned the Devil last year because Vlad set fire to the Unpleasant Street chat room. He told Zombie the Devil made him do it so the Devil was banned. Since you are possessed by the Devil, and he is banned, then you can't enter the contest. Sorry.. That means that really good prop of yours can't be in the contest. OH, well. Maybe next year.

[darryl]

I had a Dad that was a great Halloween example. Every year we would cut out black cats, tombstones, etc. out of black and orange paper (I to remember no Wal Marts/Spirit.) We would tape them on the front windows for the ToTers to see. He would also put on this scary mask and a white sheet and hide under the front stairs and scare the crap out of the kids. My neighbor across the street would scare kids also.
Forgot all about Halloween as I got older until I moved out on my own and my 2 roommates and I had a party. Went all out and made a bunch of static props, tombstones etc. I've been doing it every year since. Unfortunitly where I live now we don't get much activity because the local school does a big, ruin Halloween, don't want to offend anyone, don't come scary or you might scare the kids (it's Halloween, Hello?) Fall Festival.
But this year I'm don't think I'm going to have a Halloween party. I'm going to turn the empty lot next to me into a haunted cemetary with a haunted undertakes shack they are going to have to go into to get their candy. Advertise, advertise , advertise!!
Liability and the neighbors be damned. Last year the ladies asked me to take my corpse out of the front yard bacause it scared their kids when they drove by. :mad:

[Dr Morbius]

Man..that sucks! You should've put MORE corpses out..that'll teach em to keep thier big yaps shut!

[strange1]

Take your corpse down because it scared their kids as they drove by?
I was under the impression that people could turn their heads if they saw something they didn't like.
Silly me.

I thought that was what halloween was about, scareing people and giving them a thrill they would remember.
From what I've been reading here, that is what we remember when we grow up, the thrill of being scared.

Kind of sounds like they are really saying,
Your props scare my kids and they will remember it when they grow up and will want to build props themselves and that scares ME.

I've heard people complain about not wanting to scare or upset their children, but then they will rent blood, guts and gore movies for their kids and buy games that the kid can waste people all day long and not think anything about it.

I'm hard headed and beligerant, so I am told and proud of it, if someone tells me to take my props down, then you can bet the next day there will be twice as many props for them to complain about.:D

It takes talent, patience, thought, and imiganition to make some of the props I've seen on this forum and other forums.
While I can't do pretty, I CAN do ugly and that is what I'm going with.:D

[darryl]

I agree 100%. Unfortunitly we live in a small lake community where my wife is fourth generation "laker." And all these women don't work like my wife and they don't have anything better to do than sit around and gossip and stir the you know what. My father-in-law owns his own law firm and my step mother-in-law owns 1/2 of a large real estate company and they live down the street from us. I'm already kinda in bad standing because his daughter fell in love with me and not some doctor or lawyer and I just don't fit in with their crowd(but I am a nice person :D ) I'm sure they would have ended up hearing about it.
Anyway, it was just one prop and it was one of my wife's good freinds who called me crying feeling bad to make the request, :rolleyes: hit a soft spot. We compromised and agreed to keep it down during the day and put it up at night but it was such a pain in the ass that I just left it down until the party.
But next year we will see because it is America darn it and men have died for our freedom so I'm celbrating by turning the empty lot next door into a haunted cemetary!!!! :devil:

[strange1]

People say that I am a nice guy (shows how much they know:D )
But once in a while the devil in me sneaks out to play.

I have run into people who have nothing better to do than find fault with something.
Or something just doesn't suit their way of doing things, therefore it is wrong and they complain.

I feel it is my yard and my life and as long as I don't break any laws then no one has the right to tell me what I can or can't have in the yard.
I'm not talking anything risque' here, I'm talking halloween props.

Maybe because I'm older, but I live to pi$$ off snobs and people who tell me my way of thinking is wrong.

See what happens when you get to the 50 + year mark:D

[darryl]

AMEN!!
My wifes hair dresser is close to that age and she said to have the women call her and she tell them to mind their own business and to f-off.
I quess the older I get I kinda care less what people think also. Put it was just a tough spot with my wifes friend involved. By the way, my wife didn't try to tell me to side with her friend. She thought it was completely retarded and totally riduclous that her friends would over react so much.
I guess I'm just lucky because not to many wifes don't even blink when they walk in the door and find their husbands hanging from the rock climbing wall in their living room from their climbing harness practicing knots. Or find a corpse on the dining room table. :cool:

[claymud]

I guess I'm going to blame Colin here a little, and even though I havn't made any real props (Yet) I'm going to blame my heritage. I'm from Nova Scoita, and this whole Province is haunted (No word of a lie, there's like three forts in the city that have ghosts, almost all the islands in the harbor and of course the Town of Liverpool, from what I know, almost everythings got a ghost to it) So of course I grew up with a healthy love of the unknown with it growing to myths, legands and Cryptozooligy.
As for Halloween its always been a fun day for me. I can rember some of my first halloween memroys. carving pumkin, Dad would always bake the pumkin seeds (I don't really like them but hey...) and of course the first coustume I can rember was dressing up as a nija turtal, I was a little upset about that though because we had to put green face paint on and I got it on my sandwitch.
But Halloween never was a big huge thing for me until Someone said 'Hey Clay, please join up.' and I realized how fun it still was.

[Michigal]

Maybe because I'm older, but I live to pi$$ off snobs and people who tell me my way of thinking is wrong.

See what happens when you get to the 50 + year mark:D

Strange1, I agree totally with you. But then I've felt this way since long before I hit the 50+ mark. :D I have as my nearest neighbor a minister, and if he would have said anything bad, I would have doubled the display. However, he actually commented on how much fun it is.

As for how I became "special," we made a big deal of Halloween when I was growing up. TOTing was an all night thing, fill one pillowcase and grab another to go back out. And of course we had Devils' Night on October 30. You members from Michigan will know what I'm talking about. However, we didn't burn anything, of course, but we did soap windows, ring doorbells, and TP everything. Kind of an advance warning to those thinking about shutting off their lights on the big night. Heehee
Later in life, on the volunteer ambulance crew I was on, we did the same stuff, only just to the local cops, other ambulance members and firefighters. One year we were stopped by a cop in the next town over, we had a van full of toilet paper, and thought we were busted. As we sat there shaking, the cop walked up to the window, turned around for a second, and when he turned back he had a full pig mask on. We all had a laugh and he sent us on our way to continue our TPing.
When I divorced, and moved out here to Maine, I missed that stuff. And with a couple of exceptions, no one really seemed to put up decorations around here. So when we built our house, I started hanging a few ghosts in the trees, then the next year moved it out to the roadside with a couple of gravestones, and started adding monsters and lights and etc. the year after that. It grows every year (I have 400 foot frontage on a main road, so get lots of people stopping). Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of TOTers, I think we had 3 last year.
My current husband encourages this...he used to play a monster at a haunted house when the 911 Comm. Ctr. used to do a yearly thing, his ex-girlfriend was in charge (she's like us). So getting married to me, it was just more of the same for the poor man.
Now the comments I get just egg me on. It's very addictive and rewarding when people bring their kids by during the daytime to show them it's not so scary after all. And actually get the kid to stand still for a picture next to the graveyard or with a monster.
I would have loved to enter the contest this year, as I'm the queen of cheap, but maybe next time. I was finding it difficult to put prices on the stuff I grab from work. ;)

Sue

[Da Weiner]

I am one of those that never stopped trick or treating. I don't remember having any Halloween parades at school or stuff like that though in school but, I just couldn't wait to get out of school that day and go trick or treating. Even when I was a teenager I would take my little brother and still get dressed up and take him around town. Even as as big kid (adult) I still get dressed up on Halloween. I usually take the day before Halloween, Halloween and the following day off from work. My house is usually decorated but on Halloween morning (6 a.m. start) I am setting up my movable props and things I don't want stolen or broken and pulling out all the stops (Mischief Night still goes strong in my hometown) and after that I usually get dressed and start setting up the inside of my house with food and drink. By 3 o'clock in the afternoon the weiners are starting to show up and that's when I have open house for anyone who stops at my house. My usually have 300 TOTs and even the neighbors love to stop and party at my house. After curfew (around 8 p.m.) I am out the door and trick or treating for beers and any alcholic beverage. I go around the neighborhood and then work my way around the bars in town. I usually don't get home until 1 or 2 in the morning. I am sooo glad I never grew up and stopped trick or treating.

[Bodybagging]

Gee, that sounds very fimiliar to me. Saturday at 2 pm., Sir Graves Ghastly.
Sure miss that :(

Jeff
LOL that is exactly what got me hooked into horror/halloween....... Jeff I even got to meet the old fellow, and had all my illusions destroyed upon entering the SET if you will..........

[Frighteners Entertainment]

That's cool and sad at the same time!

[Bodybagging]

Nah not so Sad, Just at that very early age I realized that what often is, is not.

[ghostie]

My memories stem from my moms decorating mostly. My parents have always been fun people. Random international dinner nights with neighbors, walking around the streets on the fourth with tricorner hats, flags and muskets. It just seemed natural to have a blast with Halloween. I guess we just do everything over-the-top. Though some would call it imature or stupid, I say get off your high horse and have some fun. You only live once.

[Slarti]

Halloween was always my favorite holiday since childhood. My family likes horror movies, and the supernatural, so I was exposed to that from early-on. In Kansas City we had Friday Fright Night movies and our local ghost host was Crematia Mortem.

Dennis Kingsolver -- the pro haunter who ran Catacombs in KC and died last year in an accident at his haunt -- lived in my grandparents’ neighborhood, so whenever I visited them I saw the Catacombs hearse toodling around.

My parents had the “Thrillng, Chilling Sounds of the Haunted House” LP and we’d play it out a basement window on Halloween night. My mom was a cosmetologist, and so had a lot of make-up lying around for me to play with. Our school also let you dress up and had a day of activities, and my mom bought me the “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” books. My dad bought me my first latex mask – a werewolf – and jumped out at me from the dark basement as his method of giving me my new toy. I also had a childhood friend whose father rigged a skeleton to play the piano in their foyer every year at Halloween. All of those are some of my fondest childhood memories.

I was kind of a sickly kid, and when my mom wouldn’t let me trick-or-treat I was the one who dressed up to hand out the candy. When I got too old to trick-or-treat I’d stick a few cardboard tombstones in the yard and jump out at kids when they came to the door. Needless to say I kinda got hooked from there. In high school I started making masks, and even sent a picture of myself in one of my masks to “Famous Monsters of Filmland.” A couple years ago I got Forrie to autograph the issue my pic was published in. In college I always decorated the Halloween parties and won the dorm decorating contests. I also got to work at some professional haunts. After college I got really serious, LOL.

[NecroBones]

I've been hooked since about 6th grade (20 years ago). Before that, I already enjoyed it thoroughly, even getting scared to tears at some of the local haunted houses when I was a little kid, and yet not getting turned off to it.

But in 6th grade the turning point was that the 6th grade class in my school would make a haunted house for the 5th graders and younger to go through each year. The following Halloween I created my own haunt, as pathetic as it was. The following spring, I went to Disney World, saw the great haunt there, and it inspired me further. I kept haunting through high school. College and onward unfortunately gave me little opportunity, until the last few years. And now I'm back in the game... yeah baby! :)

[BobC]

I think Halloween has always had a special place in my heart touching but true. Just like TipoDeemin we share the same birthday having a birthday 5 days before Halloween and growing up with my father always building Halloween props all my life must have done it. Not to mention that I have always loved that time of year too. "I still believe my father to be one of if not the original home haunter, atleast in New Jersey" Besides that I grew up watching Horror movies with my father its something that we did together all the time. I have always liked being scared for some reason something about it gives me a rush and now I just like trying to give back to kids on Halloween all the fun and excitment I get out of the holiday. Its something I love to do thats not about money or anything else but making those kids remember my house all their lives. Later all. :jol:

[slightlymad]

Cool. Anybody remeber the creature double feature? The folks never did much for halloween although mom has always put a sheet over the yard light.

What really did me was the ex-wifes family who always had a yard haunt / party. Three years ago it was my turn to start having fun when the kids wanted to treat with other kids. Now they all stay home. My first grandchild is due in a few weeks and her cotume is already being discussed.

[widowsbluff]

For me it is a lot of different things. We dressed up for halloween at school and my mom always made us the greatest costumes,my sis and I always won the best costume contest, the local theater would also have a costume contest, which again we always won! My dad would take us to the spookiest houses to trick or treat. On Saturdays the local TV always showed old monster movies, I rushed home to watch Dark Shadows (RIP Dan Curtis, we will miss you), everyday afterschool. As I got older I helped with a charity haunt in about 10 acres of woods for a local nursing home. When we bought our house we were really disapointed at the small number of TOT's we got, so I decided that if I would build it they would come, and come they have. I am on a mission to bring back Halloween in our neighborhood, to be the spookiest, creepiest, must see house on the west side. It's working and I love it! I hope our house will be the memories of Halloween for the next generation.

[TearyThunder]

I have really enjoyed reaing all the posts in this thread. Thanks for sharing!

For me Halloween has always been a favorite time of year for me. I have always loved autumn with the leaves changing and cool crisp air. Halloween was the icing on the cake for me though. Growing up with parents who are as demented as I am helped quite a bit too. I was watching horror flicks before I was walking. My parents were always game for a good scare also. We would always go TOT'ing and hit the school Halloween festival and local mall festival.

My parents didn't really set up any haunts/displays since we were in a pretty rural area with homes acres apart. That's ok though, I get to do all that now. My dad tinkered with anything he could back in the day. He would come up with a hairbrained idea and make what ever he was envisioning. His imagination has no limit and that rubbed off on me. He still comes up with some off the wall ideas from time to time but he isn't able to build like he used to.

Well there you have it.... My love for the season, and parents are is what helped me on my journey to being obssesed with Halloween.

Teary

[Shadojack]

I've always loved Autumn. I think that adds to the effect of Halloween more than anything. But my mom always had these old cardboard cut out decorations and every Oct my brother and I would put them up.

The neighbors helped by "haunting" our house by making the door open and close with fish line, sneaking around at night, etc. In my little town we would ToT for hours on end, make our own costumes, and have a parade every year. Everyone got into it as a great way to meet your neighbors. Pumpkin carving and painted contest, corning you neighgor at odd hours, it was all fun. The only down fall was when some complete morons would cause some damage just because they could.

But with everyone into the spirit of Halloween and my love for horror movies, it just seemed to fit. :jol:

[MrsMyers666]

Great thread!

It's all my mom's fault and I love her for it. When I was 4 she dressed me up as a ghoul. White sheet cracking makeup that I hated, but I went to school like that and got a ton of attention, everyone loved it. When I was 5 we went to Disney World and saw the Haunted Mansion and I had to go on. I don't remember it much, but I know when I went back at 10 that's all I wanted to do and had to do it twice. One of my very first costumes that I remember though was a clown at age 3, had I been 6 it would have fit the whole me loving Michael Myers and that being a coincidence. Funny thing is the costume was similar to Michaels and I do remember wanting to kill my sister a few times while we were growing up.

[Da Weiner]

You know, I'm reading this thread about everyone's recollection of memories and experiences and I just wonder why everyone doesn't enjoy Halloween like we do.

[TearyThunder]

I guess we are the only ones who had a normal childhood.

[MrsMyers666]

I guess we are the only ones who had a normal childhood.

Very true. We are what is normal.

[Spooklights]

I love Halloween because it has such good memories for me. My birthday is two weeks before Halloween, and my folks always had a Halloween party for my birthday. Forget cake; I had to have a pumpkin pie, done up with a Jack-o-Lantern face. My church always had a Halloween party (the Lutheran church was founded on All Hallows eve; I guess a Halloween party makes sense.) I think Halloween is at the perfect time of year, too. The days are really getting shorter, and it gets dark earlier. Lots more darkness for all those spooks to come out in!
By the way, Dr. Morbius; We had that Disney "Sounds of the Haunted House" album, too. My sister and I wore it out!

[Frighteners Entertainment]

By the way, Dr. Morbius; We had that Disney "Sounds of the Haunted House" album, too. My sister and I wore it out!
I still have 2 copies of this that I get out every couple of years.

[eidolon]

I think I've always been into halloween. It may have started with a fascination with horror books and movies...My sister and I used to watch creature features years ago, they were on friday nights and always a double feature of the classic horror flicks. I loved dressing up on Halloween and when I thought I was too old (whats too old anyways?) I helped my sister and her friends. Now we decorate the house and yard, some say it is too scarey, but too bad, its my house, if you are squimish, go next door....

[lady_bee]

I guess I'm going to blame Colin here a little, and even though I havn't made any real props (Yet) I'm going to blame my heritage. I'm from Nova Scoita, and this whole Province is haunted (No word of a lie, there's like three forts in the city that have ghosts, almost all the islands in the harbor and of course the Town of Liverpool, from what I know, almost everythings got a ghost to it)

This is so true. I grew up in Amherst and there's a book written on a haunted house there. Look for the book titled "The Great Amherst Mystery" or the name Esther Cox. Scary stuff. I think a lot about Nova Scotia is that was where so many people from Europe were settling a couple hundred years ago and so many hard times ensued. If you believe in ghosts these were the perfect conditions to create some.

[faerydreams]

I cant remember a time that I havent like Halloween. Its one of the first memories I had as a kid. We did the same routine every year..................we would go trick or treating, rain/snow, whatever.....and we would always have to hit the witches house. We walked for blocks upon blocks. Then when I got to old to go trick or treating, I would dress up to hand out the candy. When I finally grew up and got married, I started my collection of costumes and decorations. Then I had kids, and I would have to say that they love the holiday just as much as I do. They tend to plan out their costumes Nov 1 for the next halloween. And most of them are made by me. At first they started out cute and now they are getting just as morbid as I am..............and now I tend to look for halloween decorations all year long.........

[.id.]

When I was a kid, I lived outside a small rural town....Not much for TOT'ing. With houses about 1/8 to 1/2 mile apart, my parents would usually have to take us around in the car. It wasn't until I got a house of my own that I really got into haunting.
I think the best part about Halloween is that there aren't any real hangups with it like there are on the other holidays. With Halloween, it's ok to be a little "monster" and go around adking for candy!

[howlin mad jack]

I remember back when I was about four or five years old, and putting on my Halloween costume, and trick or treating with my family, and coming up on the corner house which had been transformed into a mad scientist type of lab. The old man that lived there was very nice on every other day of the year, but on Halloween he became the crazy scary mad doctor. He scared the heck out of me as a kid!! He had an elaborate set up with all kinds of cool gadgets that made all kinds of noise, and hummed or beeped,and all the electrical sounds!! Then when he had all the kids worked up out would pop Frankenstein and chase everyone around!! Then we would line up for candy from his wife who would shoo Frankenstein away with a hanky, and we would all laugh. I remember the set-ups he had, and have always wanted to come up with something like that, but financially speaking I don't think I could afford it. Anyway, that brings me back to my point, who or what inspired you to became a haunter? That old man who I'm sad to say I didn't even know his name, passed away recently, and I wish I had had the opportunity to let him know how he inspired me to keep Halloween in my heart!!

[RoxyBlue]

I married a guy born on Halloween:)

I think there's another thread like this one somewhere around here, too....must...go...look....:D

[pensivepumpkin]

I got to help with Jay-Cees haunt planning as a kid, though my mom wouldn't let me in the haunt itself for fear of nightmares. And my crazy parents helped me make a noose for my life sized doll "Sister Grace" so I could execute her for TOTs. That was fun.

[samhayne]

When i was younger i was too afraid to Tot (shame) so one year on halloween i decided that to scare people was way better then being scare... liked it so much, it's grew to obsession.... That was 30 years ago, now i even call sick to do some halloween stuff.

[goneferal]

We had some crazy neighbors who did a whole yard display with dummies hanging out the windows and a coffin that a guy that would jump out at the TOT's. My sister and I would have my mom drive by that house every weekend in October to see if they had started setting up. About a block away a guy dressed as Frankenstein would creep around his yard. I loved it. I always wanted to haunt my yard as a kid, and now that I have my own yard, I get to satisfy my inner child.

[MapThePlanet]

I have to blame-thank my brother and sister. They were the ones that would take me TOTing as a kid. There were several houses that decorated a LOT and I was always amazed that one week/night of the year these neighbors were completely different than the rest of the year. Then we moved to the country where the nearest neighbors were almost a mile away and Halloween was no more until I went to England. I came home with a whole new set of ideas of haunting and scary stuff! Since being back in the states, Halloween has been my favorite holiday. My old neighbor and I would always compete to see how many TOT's we'd get each year. I must say having a friend that worked for Hostess Bakeries and bring me the almost out of date "Mini Muffins" tipped me over the edge one year, almost 900 that year!

[Evil Bob]

What obsession?

[Dixie]

I'm in the same boat with Roxy, only my birthday is a few days before Halloween, and so every year, that week was just a solid party. My Dad was my main influence, having a small yard haunt at our house, and he would dress up and scare the kids halfway down the street. Then I married another Halloween nut, and my Dad STILL comes over to our yard haunt to dress up and scare the kids. Only now he looks a bit like Keith Richards doing it, LMAO.

So thanks to my Daddy for my love of Halloween.

[Draik41895]

I cant really say one thing that brought me to it. I was always in to creepy stuff, When I was a baby my mom taught me to howl at the moon. When I was little I didnt have an imaginary friend, I had a "Ghost friend". I remember dressing up, as a dinosaur, and a wizard, and loving the costumes. my dad got me a fog machine, and an old skeleton. so many things really

[Spooky1]

I married a guy born on Halloween:)

I think there's another thread like this one somewhere around here, too....must...go...look....:D

I was born on Halloween. :) :zombie:

[scareme]

No one in our neighborhood, when I was growing up, did anything out of the ordinary. Just pumpkins cut out of orange construction paper. And when my kids were little I put up cardboard decorations and carved pumpkins. Then one day I was on the internet and found a site by a guy who haunted his yard. I was in awe. I thought "I can do that." And I was hooked. I haven't seen his site in several years, but I wanted to tell him he got me started.

[kprimm]

I'm not sure if I can really pick one thing either. I have always loved the Fall. I loved going trick or treatin and always loved the monster magazines, costumes and such. I remember looking throught old johnson smith company catalogs and buying the life size frankenstein monster printed on a plastic sheet (kind of the very first scene setters). I also remember buying the old horror record and listening to it in the dark with my brother and cousin. I loved the look of the old Beistle decorations and putting them up every year. I have always loved pumpkins and carving them. I love watching scary movies. I remember when I was very young I was afraid of Haunted Houses but was fascinated by them as well. I would not go in but spent hours wondering what could be inside. I finally got brave one year and went in the local jay-cees haunted house, and I have been hooked on them every since.It is just a magical time for me, there is no time of the year that I am as happy and have so much to look forward to.

[Lunatic]

I don't know exactly how I got the fever but I loved Halloween as a child. I lived in a huge residential development with literally hours of trick or treating with my neighborhood friends. Then as a young adult I had a Pinhead mask sculpted for me with a homemade costume to use in a haunted hay ride. And now I have installed an 80 amp electrical service on the side of my house to power my graveyard.

Yes, it's a sickness that grows. Quit now if you can.:zombie:

[niblique71]

I don't know exactly how I got the fever but I loved Halloween as a child. I lived in a huge residential development with literally hours of trick or treating with my neighborhood friends. Then as a young adult I had a Pinhead mask sculpted for me with a homemade costume to use in a haunted hay ride. And now I have installed an 80 amp electrical service on the side of my house to power my graveyard.

Yes, it's a sickness that grows. Quit now if you can.:zombie:

Yea I know what you mean Lunatic. I cut up and dug out a 30' section of my asphalt driveway to install 40amps AC as well as access for water and AIR to the other side of my driveway, just so the Tot's wouldn't trip over temporary lines. I put another 40amps in the carport.

I told part of my story in a similar thread. but in a Nutshell, I've always loved what our town did for halloween.... We have a small section of town that has a grid like NYC but it's NOT in the center of town. For MANY years there was a block party type atmosphere down there and throughout most of the town. Everyone Decorated more than the average home but nothing obsessive like most of our forum members. Then came 9/11. Instead of having 90% participation that fall... we had only about 10%. In fact MOST Homes were Dark (the universal signal to leave that house alone). I thought to myself, "The've won... for now... but NOT on MY watch". Everyone did need thier time to grieve but I swore that never again would halloween be like that again. My kids were now a little older and didn't need chaparones to ToT, so I started decorating our place with some store bought stuff and Putting my stereo speakers outside with scary music and a fog machine . And as they say in the movie Field of Dreams... "people will come Ray" and they did. So.... Now I had to up the anti for the following year, and that's where the obsession started.... From 10 Tot's a year to over 800. In fact I heard that many people in the neighborhood ran out of candy this past year (and probably blame me LOL).

And what really got me hooked in DEEP was My Axworthy's. I had this Idea of making flying ghosts before I ever heard the word. I began to test some ideas and they started to work. Then I began to do research to see if I could make them better and then I discovered they were already invented and Called Axworthy's. I was stoked that they worked. The kids AND the adults just went nuts over them. Well then there was the Monster list of projects and it was all over from there. Hauntform has just fueled the obsession to an unhealthy level. THANKS everyone :)

[Marrow]

I found FrightCatalog.com when I was 6 :)
And finding Pumpkinrot.com a few years ago.

The internet is a wonderful thing.

[oyayubi]

I was born on October 30th and Halloween has always been a big deal at my house, of course when I was young we'd always put spiderwebs up and mom had a bunch of cutesy stuff. I started going to haunts at a very young age that is when I discovered the darkside of Halloween. I've been obsessed with creepiness ever since.

I like to transport people into another world during the halloween season. It is so much fun.

[debbie5]

A very boring neighborhood. A very fun me.

[Uncle Steed]

We didn't celebrate Halloween for quite a few years...probably age 9-20. My parents came to believe it was a Pagan holiday. They've since changed their minds, but in that time period, every Halloween night, I went to my grandparents' house and watched scary TV shows, helped them pass out candy, and ate pizza. One Halloween night as I was crossing the street, I realized that there was a different feeling in the air; a magical, creepy, real feeling. Since then, every Halloween night hasn't presented that same feeling (some have), but there are always those moments. I ADORE the entire season. My grandparents have passed, but I think of them every October, VERY strongly. :)

[Pumpkin5]

:jol: What a great subject! I was the youngest of five girls and we lived out in the country. (like the closet neighbor was a couple of miles away) When I was little like five or six that was the time that the scare stories went around about razor blades in apples and poisoned treats being given out, and my Mother would not let me and my sister (who is one year older) go trick or treating "in town". My older sister made a "Haunted House" in the utility room for us two girls and it was the neatest thing ever. You know how when you remember back things seem grander than they probably were? Well she had Walt Disney's Chilling Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House LP playing and she was dressed as a witch and she had the whole place decorated up and we had the BEST night ever! I was so lucky to have three older and very creative sisters that always watched out for the two youngest daughters of the family. Then when my sisters married they took us trick or treating to their neighborhood where houses were all decorated and they had yard haunts you could walk through and stuff I had never imagined before. I was hooked! I just remember how great it was wearing my plastic witch mask running from house to house and how thrilled I was to go the houses where the owners were in costumes and you got a little scare and how magical it was.

Now I am that house in my neighborhood that decorates to the hilt and has the scary music and the graveyard and the lifesize props and I have about 500 or more trick or treaters every year. I hope the children that visit me each year now, will, when they grow up remember me with the same fond thoughts and the magical fun that I remember about the people that were generous enough to provide a night of trick or treat fun and magic for me when I was little. Pass it on Haunters, Pass it on!:jol:

[walterb]

I always loved Halloween as a kid. We had a few houses that did backlight walk thrus. Then there was the Tylenol poisoning and Halloween seemed to die. My wife and I starters a mini walk thru because we enjoyed it so much as kids. Then it grew.

[SoCal Scare]

I have also always been a a huge fan of Halloween, there was one house on our block that the teenagers that lived there would dress up and chase the tot's with a chainsaw or jump out and scare the crud out of us, it was GREAT! After I got married I worked at knots berry farm and got to work Haunt a couple of years and was hooked. Started small and have been building a couple of props a year since.

[B Robinson]

Halloween trick or treating in a small town.......going all over town, dragging home a bag(pillow case) full of candy.
Once older, taking my kids out, there not being as much for them to do,as in parties etc.
once they were in High school, do a halloween party/ haunted house, with the alot of the fire depts, and law enforcement agaencies involved, in it, for the whole county. I built the haunted house, from back drops made of would and lg pieces of cardboard, painted with all the lights, and everything else. my kids and their friends as actors. It was a big hit, and I was hooked!
After that stopped......moved to a place where I didn't get trick or treaters, so I had to do something.....I started decorating my front yard...and am now a crazied home haunter........love it!!!

[Uncle Steed]

I love these stories! Kindred spirits!! :)

[HauntedHorror]

I'm not really sure, but I think it started in grade school... I always loved trick-or-treating as a kid and Halloween was always my favorite holiday. I went to a Catholic school but they did a lot of fun stuff for Halloween, including a big party in the church basement complete with a haunted house (a scary one, not a religious one) put on by some of the parents, and sometimes some of the classes would also make their own mini haunted houses or a "dead man's walk"(the game where you stick your hand in different things and they tell you it's brains and etc) and the other classes would get to go through them. Our school building was really old and each classroom had coatrooms, which ran the length of the room on the side by the doors and were very dark so they were perfect to turn into a little 'haunted house.'
The haunted house they did for the party was pretty good, actually. I remember one year when I was 9 or 10 I kept going through it and finally one of the parents suggested I just stick around and help scare people. I jumped out of a coffin for a while but I was dressed as a black cat, so it didn't make sense. Instead I decided to hide behind Death's robes (another parent) in the graveyard area and jump out and hiss at people. It worked really well. Maybe that's when I really got interested in haunted houses. I also love horror movies and the like so Halloween just sort of goes along with that stuff.

[Eternal Unrest]

As far back as I can remember I've been obsessed with Halloween. I've oftern heard my mom tell the story about when I was four years old, and it was time to take the dog for a walk. I threw a fit because in the middle of July I wanted to take the dog for a walk, dressed in my Halloween costume. It hasn't changed much since then I suppose. When we lived in PA as a teenager I always looked foward to the smell of autumn and the taste of apple cider. Eventually in high school, I found a small volunteer group running a haunted hayride at a local park. While other kids in school put their time into looking good, being the best at football, running the fastest at track,or being the super slut of the cheerleading squad, I found my efforts being put 100 percent into helping build this hayride. There were the other kids who just used it as an excuse to go out the nights it was open, dress in black robe and a mask and yell boo at people. But I gave a crap about building the sets, helping with the lighting, etc. During my senior year of high school, my parents moved to North Carolina. I stayed and finished the year off with friends and moved the day after graduation. The summer came and I knew fall was on the horizon, I knew something was missing in my life. I searched the internet for haunted houses in the area to give my services too. I found Spookywoods, which was an hour away from my parents house. I contacted Tony, who runs it and went out to meet him. Long story short, I ended up literally moving there. Not just to the High Point/Greensboro area but to Spookywoods itself. We built props year round, went to Transworld, so on and so forth. Eventually though, I had to move back home as I was still a goofy young 20 something who didn't really know how to take care of themself. A few years later my parents moved yet again, this time to the eastern shore of Maryland. Hastily a year later I followed suit, there was NOTHING there to take up my void in the fall. I lived with my parents for a few years who for some reason never understood or nurtured my obsession with Halloween. Evenutally I moved to Baltimore, with my girlfriend. We lived with a roommate the first year, and threw a wicked halloween party. Then the next year rolled around and we had our first place, in an apartment community in the hood. So decorating was out of the question. That spring we moved to our current location, where the neighborhood has come to call me "The Halloween Guy" because no one goes all out around here. And that's it in a nutshell.....

[howlin mad jack]

Big nutshell...lol!!

[Eternal Unrest]

Yeah that is a pretty big nutshell looking back up at it. ;)

[BallstonManor]

My parents!

Every year, my mom made costumes for my sister and I. Mind you, we're not talking about throwing a bed sheet over our heads and calling us ghosts. She made very, very elaborate costumes.

Second, one year my dad built a dummy that he hung from the house, then rigged with fish line. He'd stand behind the refrigerator in the kitchen, just out of view, and give the fish lines a good tug at exactly the right time to scare the ba-jeepers out of the ToTs. This only happened the one year, and it made such a lasting impact!

[Acid PopTart]

...... Well she had Walt Disney's Chilling Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House LP playing and she was dressed as a witch and she had the whole place decorated up and we had the BEST night ever! I was so lucky to have three older and very creative sisters that always watched out for the two youngest daughters of the family. .....

Awesome! And good to see somewhere else influenced by that Disney record!

Not sure I can pinpoint exactly when, but my very first crush was on the Headless Horseman, use to play the Disney record/storybook thing constantly. My next crush was Darth Vader. I'm not positive if this says much about my Halloween obsession as much as it's opening up a can of worms about my love life. :D

Fantasia was my favourite movie when it came out, I was 6 and transfixed by "Night on Bald Mountain". I would listen to the same Disney Chilling & Thrilling Sounds LP that Pumpkin5 remembers and just always loved dressing up, regardless of it being Halloween or not. I spent afternoons with my grandparents watching reruns of the Addams Family and the Munsters, which I'm sure is what influenced me later in the teenage years as I discovered being goth. ;) Later I became the fashion editor for Gothic Beauty Magazine where Halloween was everyday!

We lived sort of in the country and had a decent walk to the "neighbourhood" to trick or treat in and I remember this epic spiderweb they would put up that went over the entire street. It was a trick of the eye I think (and you know how you remember things as a kid), but you would come up this slight hill and down in the valley there's this huge spiderweb that appeared to block the street and that you would have to climb through it (it actuality as you went down the street you went UNDER the web). I use to think there was going to be a huge ass spider to come for the candy and I would try to sneak around it hoping it would get the slower kids.

I mostly remember carving pumpkins and getting dressed up for Halloween. I know we decorated but I wasn't around for other ToTs, I was either with my best mate for ToT or I took my little brother as I got older and delighted heavily in dressing him up. Especially the one year he wanted to be a punk rocker (at age 4!) and I didn't know how to do a proper mohawk, so I dumped a jar of vaseline on his head. That was the year my mum cursed Halloween and me. :)

Oops, I've rambled on again! Lovely to hear of everyone's influence though!

[MrGrimm]

I agree, this thread is awesome... So many shared memories and yet again, your stories have awoken long forgotten images from my past.

Thanks :), you all just made my afternoon at work that much more bearable!

[goneferal]

How could I have forgotten to mention the Ghost Walk? We had an outdoor haunt put on by the JC's that began with a hayride and ended that dropped you off at the edge of the woods n the edge of town. They had all sorts of actors and scares. There was even a headless horseman on a real horse that rode through the field around the hayride. It always ended with a chainsaw wielding maniac to scare us back onto the hayride back to the start. I loved the ghost walk. I hear they don't have one anymore, probably a liability thing.

[scareme]

My parents!

Every year, my mom made costumes for my sister and I. Mind you, we're not talking about throwing a bed sheet over our heads and calling us ghosts. She made very, very elaborate costumes.

I used to make the kids cotumes too. And some of them I was quite proud of. Later I met a woman who would take her kids, in costume, to a professional photographer every year. I wish I'd thought to do that. It would have been a great record of their Halloween pasts.

How could I have forgotten to mention the Ghost Walk? We had an outdoor haunt put on by the JC's that began with a hayride and ended that dropped you off at the edge of the woods n the edge of town. They had all sorts of actors and scares. There was even a headless horseman on a real horse that rode through the field around the hayride. It always ended with a chainsaw wielding maniac to scare us back onto the hayride back to the start. I loved the ghost walk. I hear they don't have one anymore, probably a liability mything.

When my son was 6 I put him on a YMCA hayride, and waited, thinking he was having a great time. When they hayride came back he was crying. He thought he would never see me again. He though they would leave all the kids out in the dark fields somewhere, and they'd be lost forever. Like I would let someone do that to him? And the final instult. He held up his tail, (he was a puppy), the kid next tied a knot in his tail for crying. :(

[Jaybo]

My brother was born on Halloween and I was born on Thanksgiving. My two most favorite holidays now! I grew up in a house that sits right next to an abandoned park that is very creepy. One of the members of our local Lions Club had the park built many years ago and donated it to the Club when they passed away on condition that the property remain a park, or be allowed to go back to it's natural state. The Club couldn't afford to take care of the park, so they donated it to the City. Guess what? The City can't afford to maintain the park either, so they just let it go and mow the grass only once a year. Perfect place for a Halloween nut to grow up! It has woods, caves, a creak, old stone bridges, old stone buildings falling apart, just the coolest place ever for a kid to play around!

The park is just barely in the city limits and is located in a secluded area. Over the years lots of rumors and local myths started to develop about the place. Which made a great back drop for any haunt. I found it was very easy to scare kids that spent the night or camped out at my house. I used to read every special effects book I could in order to make better and better costumes. Unfortunately, I was a kid with no means of income in a small town....so I never got to use any of those techniques in the books.

I didn't know their were other people like me until I married another Halloween fanatic (Dixie) and found all these lovely people online. Next thing I know, I'm a kid again!

[Da Weiner]

You know - I thought I replied to this thread and upon my review - it looks like I didn't - seriously, how can that be. Well, I think my main influence for loving Halloween this much (Da Weiner holds both of her arms very far apart) would be a bunch of things that contribute to my madness. I've always loved TOTing and when I got older, I would take my little brother and the little boy I used to babysit. Even when I got older, I still loved to walk around on Halloween dressed up and when I met my boyfriend now hubby, we would get dressed up and go TOTing for beers and would walk to every bar in town and have a drink or stop by friends' and neighbors' houses. Horror movies also played a major part in my love for Halloween. The King Street theater would have the creature feature matinee shows on Saturday afternoon which me and/or my friends would go to. I am also at my happiest when the caramel apples start showing up.

[SterchCinemas]

My Mom. She inspired me. She was her happiest around October. She always went all out and shared her traditional television specials. I kinda felt as though i wanted to feel how she felt and pass on her traditions.

[Holcomb Haunter]

I've been fascinated by strange and supernatural for as long as I can remember! I loved the Munsters, Addams Family and Bewitched as a kid. My absolute favorite feeling is crunching fallen leaves under my feet.I love the time of year, brisk damp air, cloudy skies, magnifiscent colors golds, oranges, browns and reds. mums in bloom. The local farmers pumpkin patch is 200 yrds from my backyard, acres upon acres of pumpkins all shapes and sizes.-----deep breathe-----aaaah. in 2009 we put together a small cemetary in the front yard and we were hooked! in Sept. 2010 one of our 6 year old twins was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes :( sooooo no more TOT for him....
thus the Birth of Haremza's Halloween Haunt-in Holcomb! The season is our inspiration he is our motivation.

[hedg12]

My love of the season goes back about as far as I can remember. When I was a kid the small town I grew up in really did Halloween (and Christmas) right. The businesses on Main street would decorate the store fronts, & several of the business owners / operators would dress in costume. The grade school had a costume contest every year & the whole school would parade up & down Main street collecting candy from the businesses before going back to the school for a big party (at least it seemed big to my 5th grade eyes.) The town was small enough that you could cover most of it Trick or Treating in a couple of hours if you were energetic, but you'd still end up worrying that your candy bag would tear from the weight. My parents weren't big on giving my siblings & I candy, so I really looked forward to the "haul".
My haunting gene was pretty much dormant until my first trip to Disney World / Universal Studios in 1994 (or was it 95?) when I was completely blown away by the special effects & animatronics. Being the incurable tinkerer that I am I had to try my hand at (poorly) duplicating some of them, & Halloween was the perfect outlet for it. It's all been down hill ever since...

[goneferal]

My Mom. She inspired me. She was her happiest around October. She always went all out and shared her traditional television specials. I kinda felt as though i wanted to feel how she felt and pass on her traditions.

Did anyone find this strange?

[Acid PopTart]

How could I have forgotten to mention the Ghost Walk? We had an outdoor haunt put on by the JC's that began with a hayride and ended that dropped you off at the edge of the woods n the edge of town. They had all sorts of actors and scares. There was even a headless horseman on a real horse that rode through the field around the hayride. It always ended with a chainsaw wielding maniac to scare us back onto the hayride back to the start. I loved the ghost walk. I hear they don't have one anymore, probably a liability thing.

That sounds pretty cool! At our historical museum they have a replica 1880's village that covers I'm guessing about 10 acres total with traditional businesses of the time from the Town Hall to the hotel to the coffin/furniture maker. Every Hallow's Eve they do a traditional Halloween celebration with typical games of the time, an actual wake and funeral and they end it all with a live telling of Sleepy Hollow that has the Headless Horseman ride over the bridge and throw a pumpkin. Sometimes they have an Ichabod Crane. We've been going for 8 or 9 years now, we ended up getting married there as well it was just such a special place.


When my son was 6 I put him on a YMCA hayride, and waited, thinking he was having a great time. When they hayride came back he was crying. He thought he would never see me again. He though they would leave all the kids out in the dark fields somewhere, and they'd be lost forever. Like I would let someone do that to him? And the final instult. He held up his tail, (he was a puppy), the kid next tied a knot in his tail for crying. :(

:( Kids can be out right mean.... I'm sure your son is much older now, tell him I wasn't socialized much as a kid living out in the country and my forms of entertainment were questionable at best. Apparently I had a .... biting problem. I would bite any kid that got too close to me.... except the other misfit kids. I would have bitten the kid that tied his puppy dog tail in a knot, totally.

My brother was born on Halloween and I was born on Thanksgiving. My two most favorite holidays now! I grew up in a house that sits right next to an abandoned park that is very creepy. One of the members of our local Lions Club had the park built many years ago and donated it to the Club when they passed away on condition that the property remain a park, or be allowed to go back to it's natural state. The Club couldn't afford to take care of the park, so they donated it to the City. Guess what? The City can't afford to maintain the park either, so they just let it go and mow the grass only once a year. Perfect place for a Halloween nut to grow up! It has woods, caves, a creak, old stone bridges, old stone buildings falling apart, just the coolest place ever for a kid to play around!

.......

I didn't know their were other people like me until I married another Halloween fanatic (Dixie) and found all these lovely people online. Next thing I know, I'm a kid again!

How very cool!!! I LOVE abandoned places from parks to churches to warehouses, whatever. I'm obsessed with desolate locations and find beauty in the decay. How cool to grow up next to something like that!

So glad you met Dixie.... I do wonder how the Halloween nuts get along with the non nuts in a marriage situation. My husband doesn't appear to be in it as much as me, but that's because he insists I have all the ideas and he's there for the muscle and to help however. But thank goodness we have the same all out views of Halloween and well, being goth/punk, pretty much we decorate inside like this year round! When people are buying stuff for their haunt, we're buying year round decor. ;)

[MotelSixx]

The creepy white house I had to pass every day walking to school was the start. Then having explicit access to a very famous local legend at a young age. Combined with my driven and excessive personality, The obsession was born. I start my setup each Aug 29th. I evolved the entire block to not only decorate now, but now there are 3 other houses that start putting up Halloween stuff in early September.

Welcome to EERIE

[fick209]

This is a cool thread and I really enjoyed reading about everybody's influences. I absolutely loved everything about Halloween as a kid, but once I was told I was too old to go toting anymore, the thrill went away. Then came the year 2004 when my younger brother lived with me for a bit. It was all his idea to quick make a coffin and a few tombstones. I've been totally hooked ever since, and this forum has certainly helped this small addiction I now have :)

[SterchCinemas]

Did anyone find this strange?

Um. Not to soin quaint and anxious, but how is that strange? :voorhees:

[howlin mad jack]

Doesn't sound strange to me, I watched all the halloween specials as a kid with my family as well, and I love them all!! I think it's cool you have a connection with your mom on the best holiday of the year!!

[SterchCinemas]

Doesn't sound strange to me, I watched all the halloween specials as a kid with my family as well, and I love them all!! I think it's cool you have a connection with your mom on the best holiday of the year!!

:D Thank Ya Kind Sir!

[matrixmom]

I used to have great Halloween parties with my friends when I was young at my house, then we would go trick-or-treating and people had all kinds of haunts, booby traps in trees (when you would walk under it on the sidewalk it would pop out at you) etc. Our neighborhood would also have scavenger hunts on halloween too. It was a blast and that's why I love the holiday so much.:cool:

[austenandrews]

My mother is a packrat. She always kept every holiday decoration she ever got. So Halloween always involved pulling out many boxes of random stuff and sticking it all over the house. Tons of construction-paper bats and skeletons and jack-o-lanterns, spider webs, a stuffed mummy costume, endless glow-in-the-dark trinkets, on and on. After I went to college Halloween became a party season, as usual, with costumes being the big appeal. When we finally had kids, though, I wanted to recreate the fun atmosphere of my childhood. These days my mother flies down to my house to help me out. :)

[kiki]

I grew up in a house that was very active.. many of my friends would not come over and fewer would stay the night.. I grew used to the things that went on in my home and somehow just came to have a bit of an obsession for dead things, horror movies and Halloween, etc. We had a huge basement with dirt floor and pretty much all the time i had some kind of scary set up in it.. I always thought Halloween was my night of glory.. I could release the beast on the world so to speak..many thought it was a phase.. ya... well a phase that has lasted over 35 yrs

[Sloatsburgh]

Halloween was always something nice, I always remembered that "one house" that was really nothing more than a strobe.

When I moved into my first house, I did some decorations and then I met pratically all of my neighbors (not the very close ones). I realized that Halloween is the one Holiday that you meet your neighbors. Christmas lights are pretty, but there is no interaction. Halloween you meet your neighbors and their children that you watch grow up (somewhat).

Halloween is my gift to the neighborhood and I try to talk to many of the adults while their kids do the walk.


Halloween in America is like Christmas in some small towns in Old Europe where the town would go knocking on everyones door for a drink.

[Hellspawn]

Its my Mothers fault, ever since I was a toddler I was exposed to Horror movies (you know, the really good, wholesome 80's slasher flicks lol) she had a group of friends who wanted to take their children through a haunted house that was age appropriate, so my mother started what we called a "spook alley", back then, if you wanted props, you made them yourself, we couldn't just run down to walgreens and get a spider, if we wanted a giant spider, we had to build it.

one of my best memories is my mother wanting a skull.. she hand carved a skull out of a foam wig head, it was awesome.

as this group of children grew older, so did the "spook alley" at the summit, we were all about 14 years old and my Mother was hell bent on making everyone mess their pants in one fashion or another.

the haunt grew from its infancy as a hallway with a bathroom and two bedrooms we would tour (including a handbuilt from scratch witch in the entry room) all the way to our backyard (we lived on a 2 acre heavily wooded lot) and full basement, we had live actors that knew how to act, chainsaws, strobes you name it.

we reserved time slots for families to come through and at the time, beat the pants off any "pro pay haunt" in the area, the most we EVER asked is for cans of food for the food bank

on top of that, Halloween is just awesome... do I really need to say more?

:)

[OtisDriftwood]

I love this time of the year. I just walked outside, and it's 60 degrees, and there are leaves all over the ground. I could literally smell the leaves!

I grew up watching scary movies like Halloween, and Friday the 13th. It was in a neighborhood where mom, and dad gave us a pillow case, and said "Just be back by 10:00". We were in one of the those areas that had a few neighborhoods that were dropped in the middle of farmland, and every house gave out candy. :jol: One house had a lady that would sit in her front yard with nothing but a coffin with a few candles on it. She used to claim she was a real witch. She would give us a bag with pennies in it, and swear she could tell us when we would die. I never had the guts to ask her. We would go from subdivision to subdivision and you always had to walk through the woods or a farm field. It was definitely spooky!

Now my brother in law and i are trying to keep that goin' by making our little haunt someplace that the kids will remember when they are our age. Kind of a Halloween "pay it forward" thing. :p It's nothing too special yet, but we get better every year.

[Manon]

1. Autumn is my favorite season. I should have been born in Vermont rather than Los Angeles.

2. I love the dark side. Always have. I am a good person and I believe that we are essentially good, but I think the dark side has always been a bit exciting for me.

3. I have had far too many near death experiences. I have a memento mori tattoo and I always remember to live, for death is just around the corner. Hallowe'en is a bit like the celebration of that for me.

4. It totally appeals to my creative side. My career is very cerebral. I don't have much creativity and with Hallowe'en I get to bring out all of my tools and toys, paints and glues and have a blast!

[jaege]

For me it was model building mixed with "b" horror movies. My Mom bought my brother and I several of the Aurora glow in the dark monster models, since we liked watching those old movies. My hideous interest spread from there.

[mustbehardtospel]

It has been nice to read through everyone's memories of Halloween.

Probably my oldest sister and some of my cousins are most responsible for my love of Hallowe'en (and dark things, in general). One of my favorite games when I was four and five was Which Witch. I would sit and play that, either with my sisters or by myself, for hours. Some of my older cousins would play what they called Green Ghost (not the board game, but basically a spooky version of hide-and-seek mixed a bit with Marco Polo). Basically one person would put a green blanket over them like a ghost and we would all run around in the dark upstairs at my grandma's house, trying to hide from the ghost. Around the same time, a couple of neighbor kids maybe a year or two older than me did a haunted house in their play house (Wendy house), where one of them was a vampire in a coffin. My oldest sister and mom frequently helped me put together costumes, whether for Halloween or just for fun. There was also a good stash of costumes in the attic that both fascinated and terrified me. We also watched tons of old movies, including old horror movies. When I was in high school, I regularly made haunted houses for my kid sister to distract us on rainy days. I guess for me, Hallowe'en is an excuse to do what I basically used to do all year anyway. (The past few years, I have actually been thinking of doing some sort of haunted Winter's Solstice party and maybe something during the Summer, too. My wife just shakes her head and thinks I am nuts.)

My favorite Hallowe'ens growing up were in elementary school. Holiday specials were big on television at that time and there were plenty of weird Halloween-themed programs on. On top of that, the development I lived in at the time was big into trick or treating and we would go out for a few hours. One year it was ridiculously foggy. That was the year, someone done up as a headless lumberjack sat on their driveway in a lawn chair with the bowl of candy, their stereo playing Toccata and Fugue and Night on Bald Mountain in the garage. While I was terrified, it also sticks out in my mind 35 years later as exactly the sort of childhood memories I wish I had more of.

I have since moved back to the same neighborhood. Now hardly anyone goes door-to-door and almost no one puts out jack-o-lanterns. I decided this year to build a cemetery in my yard for Hallowe'en. If I build it, will they come?

[Joiseygal]

I grew up watching movies like Motel Hell, Mothers Day, Prom Night, Halloween, Friday the 13th and was totally obsessed with the make up. I thought it was so cool how they could make someones head get cut off and make it look so real. I guess that is why I like to gravitate towards the gory side of props. I also remember going to a home haunt in Kenilworth, NJ that I enjoyed so much that I knew that I wanted to eventually have my own haunt. Parades were my outlet for creating costumes, but I would say I really started going crazy decorating for Halloween four years ago in 2008. I am so happy that Halloween is my outlet for being creative not only for expressing it though my props, but also meeting so many nice people.

[QueenRuby2002]

Probably for me it was the lack of celbrateing in my house. My mom was anti halloween growing up so much so that she would take me to the churches harvest festaviel so I wouldn't be temempted by the evil holiday of halloween. Now Christmas was a hugh thing in our house and after my grandmother got sick I ended up doing all the decorating at age 11. So the first year in my own place I did the oppasit and decorated for Halloween and not for christmas at all. I caught hell from my mom.

Thankfully she has calmed down and even come around. She ended up at Hauntcon with me this year and I think that was the last straw. on the way back home we passed a junk shop that had a bunch of baby stuff for sale in the window and she wanted to see how much the stuff was. I said she was not getting another grandkid from me and she said no you can use it in your haunt. *Falls over* Top it off now my dad wants to turn our old washing maschin into a prop and was trying to figure out how to make the door open and closed. Yes the madness is spreading!

[CoolDJTV]

my great youthful memory's of Halloween

[Joiseygal]

Probably for me it was the lack of celbrateing in my house. My mom was anti halloween growing up so much so that she would take me to the churches harvest festaviel so I wouldn't be temempted by the evil holiday of halloween. Now Christmas was a hugh thing in our house and after my grandmother got sick I ended up doing all the decorating at age 11. So the first year in my own place I did the oppasit and decorated for Halloween and not for christmas at all. I caught hell from my mom.

Thankfully she has calmed down and even come around. She ended up at Hauntcon with me this year and I think that was the last straw. on the way back home we passed a junk shop that had a bunch of baby stuff for sale in the window and she wanted to see how much the stuff was. I said she was not getting another grandkid from me and she said no you can use it in your haunt. *Falls over* Top it off now my dad wants to turn our old washing maschin into a prop and was trying to figure out how to make the door open and closed. Yes the madness is spreading!

That is an awesome story! Love it!

[Blackrose1978]

I was born on Halloween so It has been an obsession all my life. As I have gotten older my obsession has moved from just costumes, pumpkin carving and trick or treating to Prop building and the dream of owning a full fledged haunted house one of these days.

[Pumpkin5]

For me it was model building mixed with "b" horror movies. My Mom bought my brother and I several of the Aurora glow in the dark monster models, since we liked watching those old movies. My hideous interest spread from there.

:jol: Oh my gosh! This is like walking down memory lane! I had Dr. Frankenstien and the Wolfman models and my ultimate favorite was cutting the lights off in my bedroom and watching the models glow...., but my true obsession grew from Halloween memories as a child (a devil, a witch) and the models, and my Mother who told her five daughters that she was a witch that flew on Halloween night. We believed her then...and 8 years later after her early death...we still believe....

[Uncle Steed]

That is awesome! :)

[Uncle Steed]

We didn't celebrate Halloween for many years (religious beliefs that my parents have since changed on), so on Halloween night I would walk across the street to my grandparents' house and watch "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and other spooky TV programming with them, and we would eat pizza and count the trick or treaters.

One year, I was running back to my house when something about the night made me stop for a moment and take a look around. The way the wind was blowing, the sounds of the season, the smells of autumn...at that moment it seemed to be the least manufactured holiday, because nature almost dictates the flow of it all. I got chills, felt giddy, and have been hooked on Halloween ever since.

Like QueenRuby, my parents are now extremely supportive of our haunt. My mom buys me props and my dad dresses up and acts in the haunt. It's great.

[wandererrob]

I blame my parents.

One year, in an unusual bout of creativity, my parents painted up some cardboard gravestones and a toepincher coffin (also out of cardboard!). My mom would put them out, fire up the Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House (The 1979 version, which always got comments. We still have that record!) and hand out candy.

Some years she'd dress up, some years not. One year she bought a full head skull mask, made a black robe with hood and went out to the neighbors houses. They had no idea it was her! I still have that mask BTW and wore it just this past season. It's pushing 30 years old and it's still good!

Eventually they stopped putting stuff out. I don't know why.

As I got older and stopped trick or treating, I started putting them out again. Then I bought a fog machine and started making pink foam gravestones. I thought I was being so clever! Who knew that 20 years later I'd find a whole community of similarly creative Halloween nuts?! Eventually my brother got in on the act too and we'd take turns dressing up and scaring people. Good times were had for a few years.

Things didn't really run off the rails until we bought our own home 5 years ago. Once it occurred to me that I had my own house and yard, I went to my parents' house and liberated my old Halloween gear. Seeing as I didn't have nearly enough to fill the space, I started building foam stones anew.

And within a month, back in 2007, I discovered my friend of several years, Geoff, was also a Halloween nut. He told me about a Halloween site he ran with his friend Steve called the Garage of Evil. Perhaps you've heard of them? :D I was brought into the fold and soon discovered the rest of you all.

And so now I build nearly year round, help run the GoE where I can and help man the booth at MHC and generally let Halloween take over my life. :jol:


Oh, and I've recently found and adopted my mom's old cardboard gravestones in the attic. I'm going to add them to my haunt as a little tribute to her and her inspiration. They're goofy and I have no idea how I'll work them in just yet, but they will be there. Thanks Mom, for unwittingly sending me down this crazy path.

[Headless]

I have no idea why I love Halloween so much. Especially given it isn't celebrated so much here in Australia. I think I love the creative opportunities and the fact that your imagination is the limit. And the bad me just loves scaring the you know what out of my friends - in a nice way of course.... LOL

[scareme]

It is great reading everyone's stories. I did the normal tot routine growing up, and decorated for the holiday when the kids were little. I began to notice when I would stick a few decorations outside, people would really compliment them. The more I put out, the more the tots and their parents liked it. So I went to the internet and searched for ideas, which led me here, to Hauntforum, and in turn led to Halloween overload. So it's all Hauntforum's fault. :D

[Uncle Steed]

Love it. Great stuff, all!!

[EverydayisHalloween311]

My obsession started when my dad would build moving props on fishing string to scare trick or treaters he even made a coffin that he later turned into a cool soap box car me and my brother pushed around. My family always decorated. I loved my school Halloween parties. I also remember watching masks for sale and Halloween specials with my mom on QVC, yes those Halloween home shopping shows lol!! And roseannes Halloween specials,God I loved those,still do. That and ghosts,paranormal has always been interesting to me. I also loved watching Nick's are you afraid of the dark with my mom and brothere and sister it was a weekly thing. Now home hauntings my thing I want Halloween to b just as special to my kids as it was to me. And I'M only 30

[mendar]

My first Haunt was when I was serving in the USAF in Italy on a NATO installation in1979. My boss's wife became president of the PTSA and he asked for volunteers. We had a giant budget of $50.00, and a coffin. Previous years someone would be int the coffin and as kids came onto the school stage, they would pop out and chase the TOTs off the stage. I should note here that the school was the only Halloween event in the area as Italians did not celebrate Halloween.

Armed with our ginormous budget, we created a 6 foot spider and 4 foot hand from cardboard and papermache, giant mushrooms to hide the spider, guillotine from and old french door, witch and caldron, even R2D2 from a trashcan and day-glow Play-doh. It was such great fun for all my friends and myself, we did the next 3 years until we each had to leave for other parts of the world. I have been hooked every since and now that I am retired I can work on a more permanent setup.

[Pumpkin5]

I still have 2 copies of this that I get out every couple of years.

:jol: I am not sure what happened to the one my parents had, but I bought a copy a couple of years ago from Ebay even though I don't have an LP player. I just had to have one!

[Deadlands]

I was fortunate enough to grow up in military base housing, and part of the requirement to live in the houses (and not the apartments) was that you had to have at least three kids. So every house had at least 3 kids, multiplied by about 1000 houses, adding in the kids who lived off-base who came in just to trick or treat... we had a packed house come Halloween. So I have very fond memories of an almost movielike traditional Halloween.

When I was about 7, my older brother started doing a small garage haunt with his friend. It became wildly popular. That was my first haunted house experience, and even though I was terrified, I was hooked.

We moved when I was 9 (my dad retired), and I tried to do a walkthrough with some new friends. No one came, so we abandoned ship and went trick or treating. Tried again at 12, but we couldn't make the pulley system to lift guests over the fence to exit work. (I know... WTH?! :googly:)

After that, I dove head first into filmmaking. There I found a love for producing effects on the cheap. I still had my love for all things horror. But it wasn't until after college that I got enlisted to help act at a friends haunted house. It was terribly themed. Mostly plywood walls and plastic sheeting with some good props here and there. I decided it needed my film experience.

So I was hooked. We've improved the set quality every year since, I've become the go-to actor for everything, and I've even been able to take my experiences in vert ramp skateboarding to haunting by becoming a slider.

Now I annoy the hell out of my wife by thinking about Halloween 10 months out of the year. Anything more, and I think she'd divorce me. :D