2026 Haunt Character #2: Dr. Frankenstein

Dr. Frankenstein was not the easiest character for us to make. Our first version was without the wig and he looked like the Six Flags amusement park mascot "Mr. Six". We ordered the current wig based on an image of Peter Cushing playing Dr. Frankenstein. It unfortunately does not contain as much gray as advertised (suppose to be a 25% gray mix), but it will have to do. His pose and appearance reminds us a bit of the keyboardist from the German industrial metal band Rammstein. We were going to use long black rubber industrial gloves on this mannequin but felt that the hands blended in too much with the black rubber apron and got lost. This character will be standing over a sheet covered cadaver strapped to an autopsy table. Another change we had to make to the PVC pipe mannequin was to forgo the Spider Hill Prop Works spider joint shoulders. The shoulders originally looked too square/boxy, so we secured two 45 degree angle PVC 1" pipe connectors together for each shoulder for a more natural rounded shoulder appearance.

2026 Haunt Character #1: The Graverobber

As we move things from this year's yard haunt from our garage into our basement, we also start working on next year's haunt characters as the PVC pipe mannequins get freed up. Meet the first character for our 2026 Frankenstein's Bride themed yard haunt: The Graverobber. The plastic prop spade we purchased was far too short for him to be leaning on, but we were able to swap in a custom length of 3/4" PVC pipe. The spade just needs to be spray painted next summer. We're going for a more realistic look for our 2026 haunt theme. Really happy with how this one turned out. He will be standing in the graveyard behind a recently dug up wooden casket (our 2009 built wood coffin prop).

Pumpkin Portraits 2025

Local Area Haunts 2025 Part 6

Edgar Allen Poe Speakeasy Part II

We attended the Edgar Allen Speakeasy Part II last night, this time hosted at the Historic German House in Rochester, NY's South Wedge neighborhood. We attended Part I at the Little Theater in Rochester's East End neighborhood last year. It was another phantasmic show. We were delighted to hear they will be returning again in the future with Part III. There are multiple tour dates across the country. Check the Fever event website for it appearing at a city near you or at the show's website.

Our Halloween 2026 Yard Haunt Theme

Halloween 2025 Postmortem

Despite Mother Nature throwing everything she had at us tonight (the weather got worse after the sun set), we still got ~75 trick-or-treaters. Not our lowest count, but this was the second lowest count after 16 Halloweens at this house (2020 was the lowest count of 53 due to the pandemic). We had several props knocked over and damaged by the wind and had to pivot and use LED faux outdoor rated pillar candles in our jack-o'-lanterns due to the strong winds and driving rain. The faux 3" outdoor pillar candles actually looked better than real candles in the pumpkins (see photos below), so we're thinking that's going to be the norm for our haunts. We're going to have to retire some prop staples and reengineer some things for future haunts as a "lessons learned" from the past couple days of horrible weather.