From the baby dolls hanging from a tree to the costumed figures jumping from the shadows, the Halloween House of Peckville is all about family.
The display surrounds the 318 Keystone Ave. home of Rob Booth and Chrissie Conway in the Peckville section of Blakely.
Wednesday will be an unusual day for a haunted attraction. The couple will open the site from 4:30 to 7 a.m., to accommodate their second TV appearance of the month. It will be open again in the evening, from 6:30 to 8:30.
On Thursday, which they call Halloween Eve, it will be open from 6:30 to 9 p.m. On Friday, the animatronics, spooky music and dramatic lighting will be on from 6:30 to 10 p.m.
Scenes from the Halloween House of Peckville. (Courtesy of the Halloween House of Peckville)
They have been welcoming trick-or-treaters since late September.
On Sunday, the lines snaking past a larger-than-life Frankenstein’s monster included dozens of families, including a baby in “The Nightmare Before Christmas” pajamas. Some children were in costume.
The Halloween House is free. “We have five kids between the two of us,” Conway said. “And it was too hard for us to take the kids out to places that were bigger, that charged a lot of money. You know, a family of seven, you just can’t afford to do it. So we wanted to give people in the community a place to go that didn’t cost an arm and a leg, a nice night out for everybody in the family to enjoy.”
Halloween “is the only holiday,” Booth said. “It’s 365, seven days, 24 hours.” It became more important over time.
“Both my parents are passed away,” Booth said. “And I’m going to choke up here a little bit. But Christmas just isn’t the same. And so, I went with Halloween.” His father’s birthday was in October. “So he would always have us decorate our home early, for his birthday, I guess. So that’s how it started.”
His family didn’t have the same knack for Christmas decorations, Booth said. His father overwhelmed an artificial Christmas tree with an overload of tinsel.
Some of the Booth family’s childhood Halloween decorations are part of the Halloween House.
Taylor Prutzman, 9, of Eynon, was one of the visitors Sunday. She likes spooky stuff and asked her mother to take her. The house “is cool,” she said.
Her mother, Nadine, enjoyed doing a scavenger hunt together. “It’s great,” she said.
Visitors can become part of some of the scenes, posing for photos in a Camp Crystal Lake canoe or climbing into a coffin and letting an actor in the beaked mask of a plague doctor costume close the lid.
On Sunday, one group of giggling preteen girls pounded on the coffin lid after their friend crawled inside.
There is a giant witches’ cauldron bubbling with fake steam, two 12-foot-tall skeletons, an Area 51 with a cow being sucked up into a spaceship, a dark angel, clowns, a demonic nun, mummies and a mad scientist section with gruesome child victims. Scenes from movie and TV franchises include “The Nun,” “The Conjuring,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Saw,” “Halloween,” “Beetlejuice,” “Hellraiser,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Tales from the Crypt,” “Dexter” and “The Black Phone.” One of the lighter touches is a skeleton band called the Rolling Bones.
How much does all that cost? “I don’t think we’ve ever sat and thought about how much it cost,” Conway said. They scour Facebook Marketplace, thrift stores and flea markets all year. Friends have contributed items. They usually make one big purchase a year. The biggest expense is the electric bill, and the couple wouldn’t guess how big it might be. The display grows each year.
There are donation boxes. A local business, We Talk Shirty, makes shirts for them to sell. Some of the treats are donated by Quinn’s Market, and Halloween gift certificates for McDonald’s food are supplied by a local location.
Conway, who works in accounts receivable, and Booth, who works in credit card fraud prevention, are busy preparing for the peak of the season. On Friday they will be giving out king-size candy bars and more.
If you go
What: The Halloween House of Peckville, a free outdoor haunted attraction.
When: On Wednesday, there are morning hours to accommodate a television appearance, 4:30 to 7. It reopens Wednesday from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday hours are 6:30 to 9 p.m. The final night is Friday, 6:30 to 10.
Where: 318 Keystone Ave., in the Peckville section of Blakely.
Details: Trick-or-treaters welcome. Visitors can ask for glow sticks to carry as a signal to actors to leave them alone.
Scenes from the Halloween House of Peckville. (Courtesy of the Halloween House of Peckville)
Scenes from the Halloween House of Peckville. (Courtesy of the Halloween House of Peckville)
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Scenes from the Halloween House of Peckville. (Courtesy of the Halloween House of Peckville)