If you pass by 1414 Lansford Avenue in Dallas’ Oak Cliff neighborhood, you may do a double-take and then pull over for a picture.
That’s exactly the reaction Steven Novak was going for with his elaborate, Halloween-themed yard display featuring a zombie car crash, toxic waste, and robotic ghouls that appear eerily lifelike.
“This popped in my head while I was sleeping,” Novak said, laughing. “Once it makes me start to laugh, that’s when I know I’m onto something!”
Novak spent six months engineering the details, from a flaming crash scene to animatronic zombies. One robot named “Mo” swings from a tree with realistic motion. “Larry” sips glowing green “toxic waste” from a drum, while “Curly” investigates another. “Shemp” lies on the ground near the overturned car, which is rigged with stage lights, a fan and a sock to mimic flames.
“All of this stuff is just heavy lifting,” Novak said. “This guy, I knew he was gonna be the biggest challenge because he’s sophisticated. You don’t really think about it and he doesn’t think about anything ’cause he’s got no head, so I have to make all of his decisions for him ahead of time to stay balanced.”
Each of the robotic zombies has a name, because “it used to be the swinging headless zombie, and I thought, well, that’s a mouthful,” Novak said with a grin.
Despite the hours of work, Novak says he’s not actually a fan of Halloween.
“Oh, I don’t like Halloween at all, but it gives me an excuse to do a bunch of cool stuff outside because I’m an artist,” he said. “So I can do weird stuff and it just blends in with Halloween even though I don’t care about Halloween at all.”
Novak’s display has gone viral on Instagram, with tens of thousands of shares from fans who love the creativity.
“People are looking for some levity, and I think that’s it,” he said. “People are just looking for some joy and some nonsense and some real cartoons.”