Otis Schiller bent over the witch and her cauldron, fiddling with a cord. He was trying to make the newest addition to his Halloween display work — never mind that his driveway was already so full of creepy characters he didn’t know where he would put it.
He disconnected and reconnected a few plugs, trying to make sure all of the elements, including a fog machine, oversized green light and electric jack-o’-lantern, came to life. After 15 minutes, he diagnosed the problem.
Schiller’s house is among a handful in Little Rock decorated so elaborately for the spookiest time of year, they slow cars and draw passersby all month.
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Schiller’s display, at the corner of West Markham Street and Sun Valley Road, features more than a dozen characters, including Frankenstein, his skeleton bride and a creepy doll flower girl; a mad scientist with an electric chair; a werewolf and more. The display, which has earned his home the moniker “The Spooky House,” grows every year.
“I see it every day, and to me it’s not good enough,” Schiller said. “But the public likes it.”
Though some characters were bought, Schiller often takes a DIY approach to his decorations, using scraps and yard sale finds to create display elements.
The new witch is made from PVC pipe, a cheap costume and an old mask. Her cauldron is a work of particular finesse — Schiller put a green light inside and attached plexiglass with holes to the cauldron’s top, so when the fog machine is turned on, it fills with “smoke” and a few tendrils drift up, like a boiling pot.
The display is skeleton-themed and homeowner Steve Taylor said TV stations have done broadcasts from the yard in years past.
To one side is a graveyard, where a mourning mother and daughter kneel next to her father’s grave, Taylor said. Next to them is a skeleton digging in the grave of another.
The largest skeleton in the yard stands triumphant in the middle, over a pile of “foes,” as Taylor described them. A smaller skeleton, though, is sneaking up to attack him from behind. Taylor said the little one is defending his wife and daughter, who are nearby walking a skeleton dog and riding a skeleton pony.
Taylor and his wife, Cindy Taylor, figured out how to rig open the mouth of the smaller skeleton trying to stab the largest, so he looks jubilant in his attack. The daughter on the pony holds a tiny skeleton in her lap — a doll perfect for a skeleton toddler.
All this takes about 30 hours to set up over the course of a week, Taylor said, but it’s worth it for the reactions they get. His favorite memory is a 4-year-old who said she loved their yard and had been coming to see it “her whole life.”
“To think we could do something for us that someone in the community will have memories of when they grow up is a privilege,” Taylor said. “It makes all the work worth it to make one little kid happy.”
Downtown at 1010 Scott Street is another expansive display full of all kinds of characters and illuminated at night with red, green and purple lights. Heather DeGraff said she usually does most of her decorating inside, but with a toddler in the house this year, she kept her indoor decorating minimal and focused on outdoors.
DeGraff said when the house is fully decorated inside, it’s not a site for visitors or trick-or-treaters to tour. Aside from an annual Halloween party, it’s all for her to enjoy.
“If we lived out in the country, we’d do this for ourselves,” Taylor said. “We would turn the characters around, though, instead of looking at their backs.”
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Post time: Nov-04-2019