The best advice about Halloween decorations, from experts
Ready to take Halloween to the next level? We have advice – and photos – from extreme decorators
Getting trick-or-treating is no longer a problem. Rose says her spooky adornments have given neighbors something to bond over: “We’re a very tight-knit community that’s just getting together now for Halloween.” Indeed, the social benefits of this All Hallows fun are certainly one of the Reasons Americans are expected to spend more than $3 billion on decorating this year, according to the National Retail Federation.
If you’re ready to freak out (but also please) your neighbors, follow this spooky advice from Halloween superfans.
Professional haunted attractions often take you through a series of vignettes – for example, an alien encounter followed by a spooky circus leading to an undead Viking feast. While you can certainly take a similar approach at home, many lovers recommend choosing a theme.
Colleen Delawder, who has lived and decorated the Historic Herndon Halloween House in Herndon, Virginia since 2005, says that themes make decorating both easier and more fun. Preparing your own house for the big day usually begins on Labor Day.
This year, her motif is based on the film “The Nightmare Before Christmas”.“ which means she can use her Christmas decorations too. Previous Halloweens have featured clowns and haunted pirates (which is why it still includes a pirate ship: “We’ve got it, so why not use it?”).
Delawder also suggests incorporating your hobbies, which can save money. For example, if you like kayaking, turn off your kayak and throw in some skeletons.
Rose also changes her theme annually and generally takes between 1 and 3 months to put everything together (although her longest setup took over a year). This year, she took inspiration from the late Polish artist Zdzisław Beksiński, whose surrealist works often depicted his nightmares (who says Halloween can’t be snooty?). “We want [people] feel like you’ve either entered another world or are seeing the portal to another world,” says Rose.
Paul Brubacher, director of operations at Markoff’s Haunted Forest, an annual attraction in Dickerson, Md., says his team’s ideas usually come from “things of our own that scare us and make us tremble.” Inspiration often comes unexpectedly, too, like when I’m shopping at Home Depot: “I’m looking at something in the plumbing department and I’m like, ‘Oh wow, that looks like an interesting faucet. I could probably use some paint… maybe put some latex on it and I could make an alien feeding tube out of it.’ ”
Don’t traumatize the neighbors
While commercial attractions like Markoff’s are designed to scare you silly, you probably want to avoid serious horror at home, especially if you have younger children around.
To please rather than traumatize, Brubacher suggests focusing on atmosphere rather than blood and guts. “There’s scary, and then there’s just gross, right? When I look at a pile of dismembered bodies, I’m not scared, I’m disgusted.” He recommends smoke machines and eerie lighting to solve puzzles, no blood required.
However, if you’ve decided to use dismembered body parts, there are ways to playfully include them, Delawder says. A recurring feature at her Historic Herndon Halloween House is a haunted grill that has artificial parts above the flame. “But it’s not disgusting in any way. It just looks fun and whimsical,” she says.
In fact, realistic gore and guts were considered a no-go across the board. Those were realistic references, too: the experienced decorators we spoke to cautioned against showing anything too contemporary. “We don’t touch on topics that might be sensitive to other people or potentially disrespectful of someone’s belief systems,” says Rose.
Get amazing deals on supplies
As with most holiday items, the best time to shop for Halloween decorations is right after the unholy day when you can find items on sale. But that’s not the only strategy for finding bargains.
Nature can be a great (and free) resource: “The more organic elements you can bring in, the more compelling your atmosphere will be,” says Rose, who collects branches, sticks, and leaves for her graveyard and other macabre exhibits. “Nothing says autumn and Halloween like the crunching of the leaves beneath your feet.”
Halloween is also a recycling opportunity. Francisco Santos, operations manager of The Horrorland, a haunted Miami attraction, finds props at flea markets and scours curbs in the evenings when residents display unwanted furniture and other items for pickup around town. “We found a really nice old vintage table that we turned into a rotting table with someone eating someone else,” he says.
When renovating his bathroom, Richmond’s Thomas Hall – who has been making intricate jack-o-lantern displays for 16 years – saved the old toilet. He kept it for the following Halloween when he staged one of his pumpkins puking into it.
Maybe you’re not ready to become the toughest Halloween house on the block (there’s always next year). But there are small steps you can take to add some extra pizzazz to your usual decor.
- Start with these store-bought skeletons – don’t they look a bit sterile for human remains? Brubacher recommends coating them with liquid latex for texture, followed by a coat of wood stain to age them. (Or you could just roll them around in the dirt.)
- Resist carving your pumpkins until a few days before Halloween to avoid rot. Then consider swapping out the orange plastic carving knife for a drywall knife instead. According to Lou Cantolupo, a major pumpkin sculptor in Washington, DC, drywall knives are sharper and result in more precise designs. He also hires a range of power tools, but these might be a bit advanced for an amateur.
- Think of other senses. Finally, think of your decorations as more than just something to look at. “What do you smell? What do you taste?” says Rose. “If you think about those things when you create your favorite spot, it becomes an amazing experience.” She adds a seasonal scent to her smoke machine – like the smell of a campfire: “We just really want it to be like sensory overload. “