Steven Novak has gone viral for his eerie Halloween displays in Oak Cliff.

Provided by Steven Novak

The King of Halloween is back and bigger than ever. Oak Cliff’s Steven Novak has gone viral many times for his eye-catching Halloween decorations. This year, taking a sharp turn from his usual gore, he opted for an uncanny haunt that has already attracted international attention.

Pivoting from his notorious blood-and-guts displays, Novak has instead transformed his front yard into a surreal scene: 40 mannequins in hospital gowns (one of which he’s animated to oscillate), seemingly transfixed by a 90K-lumen light and an ambient soundtrack with a low-level hum he created himself. 

“I wanted to take a break [from] ‘How much more blood can I do?’ If I kept going down that road, I’d be chasing the dragon, so I had to step back and do something different,” Novak, a locksmith by trade, explains. “The visual just popped in there. I didn’t know there would be hospital gowns at first; I just knew it would be a crazy-bright light surrounded by people. It’s going to cast shadows, and it’s just going to look pretty. Plus, a sound like something is breaking in physics, like it’s a portal or something.” 

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Because Novak maps everything out via photogrammetry before he begins, he scanned his house and originally planned to have 60 mannequins in his awestruck horde. Only to discover (at $100 a pop), 40 figures were about all his budget allowed. 

Planning a display takes massive efforts, and starts with an elaborate mock-up.

“I just bought ‘em all from Amazon,” he says. “I tried to find vintage ones but ran out of time, and I had to bite the bullet because they have to be identical. I had this fantasy that I’d find an abandoned department store like Neiman Marcus, but even those have mixed mannequins; they might be white in the women’s section, and the men’s might be grey.” 

Dressing his figures in blue hospital gowns, Novak’s crowning touch was giving them bracelets with his exes’ names.

“Jennifer, Dusty, Jessica, those are all my ex-girlfriends’ names. The problem is I couldn’t buy more mannequins to fill this up,” he laughs. “It’s like a memorial, but I’m old, and this is like one a year, so it’s not that big of a deal. I’m a gentleman.”

Rest assured, his current girlfriend, Rose Cobey, is not referenced. However, she did influence him to pivot from his original idea to crash a helicopter in their front yard. 

“I wanted a crashed helicopter, but Rose skydives, so she jumps out of helicopters and stuff,” he says. “She doesn’t want to walk past dead people hanging out of a helicopter with spinning rotors. It’s a bummer because it would be the greatest photo op ever because you could jump in the pilot seat and be like ‘URGH!’”

Novak has conceptualized a backstory for his display.

The comparatively minimalist display he went with instead has proved more popular than he could have imagined. Lines down the block began forming the first weekend in October, and Novak finds himself standing outside greeting visitors until midnight. 

“There’s something different about this, there’s something newer,” he says. “It’s visceral, and it’s almost putting them in a trance. People are facing it and become part of the horde. I’ve had people stay out here longer than in past years because it’s hypnotizing.”

Novak has named the display “The Rapture,” and its unnerving qualities are sucking viewers in. Although Novak has fleshed out the backstory to include his role as a doctor “with a terrible bedside manner” who uses a machine that freezes patients, bystanders have drawn parallels to everything from the film “I Am Legend” to the weeping angels of “Dr. Who” as potential sources of inspiration. 

Having typically spent $6,000 on his displays per year (this one came in at a cool $4,000), Novak already has his heart set on what he’s doing for 2027. He’s halfway through building a “Ghostbusters”-style laser-shooting gallery featuring proton packs. Players will aim at an animatronic Zuul and two Terror Dogs perched on Novak’s roof. When two cross streams, the entire display shuts down. At a buck-a-pop to play, it should also help fund his annual displays, a generous gift to the people of Dallas. 

“Even though it’s derivative, I love ‘Ghostbusters’ so much,” Novak says. “I already started making the Terror Dogs, and I’ve been working on figuring out how to do animatronics. I made the metal frame, and I have to learn how to do fiberglass sculpture — he’ll move back and forth, and breathe, and roar at you. I was getting so close. I ran out of time this year, so maybe next year.” 

To join the uncanny Halloween hordes, find Novak’s display at 1414 Lansford Ave. through November, or follow him on TikTok or Instagram.