There are plenty of creepy and spooky Halloween decorations around, but some homeowners take their outdoor displays to the next level, with everything from 3D printed skulls to plaster death masks.
For the last four years, Tara Norris has invited visitors to get up close and personal with a collection of ghoulish characters in her front yard at 528 St. Charles St. in Victoria.
The collection includes a group of skeletons, an upside-down vampire, the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who, witches, tombstones, giant spiders and pumpkins with her face — and that of her uncle Bob — moulded onto them.
The retired teacher said every year she gets about 1,000 visitors, including 600 to 800 kids.
Almost all of her displays are unique — she buys masks and then uses her imagination to customize them.
The tombstones are Styrofoam sprayed with paint to look like weathered stone. On Monday, she was busy spraying imitation spiderwebs from a contraption made of a heavy-duty glue gun hooked up to a compressor.
“I got the idea from the movie prop industry,” said Norris of her invention.
She spends three weeks setting up her displays, which begin their lives in a garage in the back of her house.
While most of her characters come from her imagination, the papier mâché moulds for the death masks came from her own face and that of her uncle Bob — who is alive. She even made a copy of her uncle’s mask and mailed it to her mother.
The masks are grafted onto pumpkins, which sit on the steps leading up to the house.
This year, she hopes people who visit will consider donating to help her raise $2,000 for the Victoria Hospice. Donors can give on-site or online at victoriahospice.org.
She said the fundraiser is her way of giving back for the care her late husband received from the hospice before he passed away three years ago.
Not having a yard of his own hasn’t stopped Keith Boschma from staging an elaborate Halloween display for the last 20 years — he simply uses his parents’ home at 4407 Chartwell Dr. in Gordon Head.
His display is dominated by a full-size pirate ship made of pieces of plywood — it used to have sails, but they were removed so the wind didn’t cause them to take flight — and manned by a skeleton crew. Literally.
At night, the cannon on the ship “fires,” accompanied by water explosions.
Every year, he adds or subtracts ghouls and goblins — a flying ghost and a headless horseman didn’t make the, um, cut this year. “People seem to like the simple displays most,” said Boschma.
While all of the skeleton bodies are store-bought, everything from the neck up is unique.
“I went out and bought a 3D printer to print the individual skulls and shrunken heads,” said Boschma. “That gives the display a lot of little subtle things that I created, many through trial and error.”
Using a computer, he makes the display come alive at night with a 12-minute-long light and sound performance that runs on a loop from 7 to 9 p.m., from Oct. 27 until Oct. 31.
After 20 years, he now sees many of the children who have enjoyed the show over the years grown up and bringing their friends.
He gets about 100 visitors a night.
After spending 15 hours a week for three weeks to set up the display, he will start to take it apart on Wednesday, storing the collection in both a 12-by-six-foot lean-to at his townhouse and an eight-by-10-foot storage shed.
