The "Official" 2023 Yard Haunt Photos

We got the "official" 2023 Halloween yard haunt photos up on Flickr, but keep following our Instagram for more photos from this year haunt to drop over the upcoming days/weeks.

Haunted Eve's 2023 Haunted Bayou Yard Haunt In 36 Seconds

This year we took over 500 photos that will take a lot of sorting before getting a photo album up on Flickr. Last year we totally forgot to take a video of our yard haunt and didn't realize it on Halloween night until after we started taking things down. But this year we remembered to take some videos. Here's our 2023 Yard Haunt in a nutshell! The Benny Hill Show theme music not included. 

Best Halloween Yard Haunt Ever

We had 119 trick-or-treaters tonight, a new record with this being our 14th Halloween at this house. And that's despite it being only 37 degrees out with sporadic showers this evening. We got more compliments than ever. The Smell Of Fear Candle Co. custom poured "Bananas Foster" scented candles in our jack-o-lanterns were also a huge success. People said they could smell the candles from the bottom of our driveway (which is roughly 60 feet from the house). Interestingly, most trick-or-treaters thought our theme was "Coraline" and not "Voodoo" or "Haunted Bayou", but we love the works of Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Good Omens), so we'll take it! We have 500+ photos to sort through, so it's going to take a bit before we get them posted on Flickr, but they are coming. Keep checking our Instagram as well for some of this year's haunt photos. This was our best Halloween yard haunt ever!

Haunt Setup Progress

Weather is currently damp and in the 40s but we're still plugging away at the haunt set up for Halloween. Pulled these two zombie props out of the basement. We don't think they have been used since our 2012 yard haunt. We also had to get creative with our potted faux cattail props. On Friday the cattails would not stay upright out by our two swamp zombie skeletons due to the wind, so we tucked them into our juniper shrubs along our walkway.

Yard Haunt Phase 1 Lighting Tests

Did a few quick lighting tests last night while the weather was still pleasant (it's wet, windy, and much cooler today, and will get colder as Halloween approaches). There's still more lighting pieces/effects (like our fog machine) to be put into play comes Halloween. Things we can't be tripping over while we're placing the mannequins or draining the batteries on prematurely. Going to still play around with the LED ripple effect light color scheme before Halloween night because the blue/green effect actually appeared like visuals from Lovecraft's story "The Color Out of Space". Neat effect, but not what we're trying to achieve, but it does grab one's attention from afar. Granted some of the rainbow color effect may be due to the orange leaves on the October Glory maple tree which most of the leaves came down from overnight due to the change in weather.

Yard Haunt Setup Phase 1

A Week Until Showtime

Only a week until All Hallows' Eve! Making a few final preparations before we start doing preliminary haunt setup on Friday/Saturday, pumpkin carving Sunday, prop placement, lighting tests, and final looks on Monday/Tuesday. And of course the weather looks fantastic for this week (70s and dry) and then not so great for this weekend and next week, but we plan exactly for such things. Everything placed beyond our front porch can get rained/snowed on. We'll hopefully have the yard haunt photos up soon after Halloween.

Voodoo Dollies

Some of the old thrift/antique store dolls Mrs. Haunted Eve collected and painted for this year's haunt.

And The Answer Is "Nope!"

After experimenting with reactive green acrylic paint on two test subjects we've decided to leave our two swamp zombie skeleton props "as is" for the haunt. With the big night only 10 days away, we don't have time to walk back any bad choices. The reactive green paint, while under natural light didn't look horrible, under blue and purple LED lights glowed very unnaturally and produced the very "toxic waste zombie" effect we so desperately wanted to avoid. It would detract from the overall look of the haunt we're trying to achieve. 

So "Nope!"

Hillbilly Zombies

The Baron's Dress Rehearsal

Happy with how Baron Samedi is looking. We bought that black duster coat off of eBay back in 2018 along with a brown one, but ended up only using the brown duster on a mannequin that year.

Zombie Mythology

Baron Samedi Mythology

2023 Haunted Bayou Yard Haunt Characters

The 2023 Haunted Bayou Halloween yard haunt cast of characters are gathering! From left to right: Oungan (Voodoo Priest), Baron Samedi (Voodoo Loa), Pumpkin Monster Groundbreaker, Rougarou (Cajun Werewolf), Swamp Witch.

2023 Baron Samedi Prop

Our Baron Samedi mannequin prop design for this year's "Haunted Bayou" theme was quite an organic process. We purchased the "Diane of the Dead" zombie doll at a local arts festival last fall. We just couldn't resist buying her because the paint and detail work were phenomenal, but we also had no clue how exactly the doll could be used in this year's haunt. She was too tall to go on our porch bookcase prop. But we still had the small wooden coffin prop that Mr. Haunted Eve built in 2009 to go out in our graveyard at our prior home for Halloween. She was a tad too short for the coffin, so we made her a "booster" shelf to raise her up enough to be centered in the coffin. But where would the coffin be displayed in the haunt so it made some sort of logical sense? Then the idea came to us that since we already knew we were going to have a life sized Baron Samedi standing mannequin prop in this year's haunt, and Baron Samedi is the Loa of the Dead/Resurrection, it would make sense that "Diane of the Dead" would be in his charge. The small wooden coffin worked perfectly standing up on the mannequin's base stand in front of Baron Samedi. The space under the "booster" shelf also gives us a place to hide our small portable outdoor speaker for playing an ambient backing soundtrack for the haunt on Halloween night (we used to hide the speaker up in the ceiling of our now retired mini-mausoleum). Baron Samedi will get a full dress rehearsal with his attire after he's moved from our basement and into our garage later in October (a black duster coat over a burgundy robe). We really do put a lot of thought and effort into the details in our annual haunt themes!

Wooden Coffin Prop 2009

Voodoo Priest Staff

We had purchased this Doll Head Staff prop from a local Spirit Halloween on sale right after Halloween last year. The problem with the staff was that it's kid's height, but it turns out it's just latex over a hollow PVC pipe. We inserted a painted wooden dowel to make the staff just the right height to work with our Voodoo Priest mannequin for this year's haunt.

Voodoo Themed Yard Haunt 20th Anniversary

20 years ago we did a Voodoo themed yard haunt for Halloween 2003. The haunt theme was inspired by the 1966 Hammer Horror film "The Plague Of Zombies". We're reimagining our 2003 haunt with a Haunted Bayou themed haunt for Halloween 2023. Below are photos from our 2003 haunt along with the movie trailer that inspired it.

Faux Candle Lantern Modification

Back in 2019 we had purchased 3 Victorian style candle lanterns that came with faux battery powered candles for the post props we had built back in 2018 (originally designed for holding corn stalks). The faux candles did their job when it got dark out, but for this year's haunted bayou theme we wanted to go with a classic New Orleans gas lantern effect using our rechargeable outdoor LED flame lights. The faux candles were mounted with 4 tiny screws to the bottoms of the lanterns with a hole on the base of the lantern wide enough in diameter to access the on/off switch and battery compartment on the candles. The LED flame lights have magnetic bottoms and were just wide enough in diameter to cover up the hole, but there wasn't enough metal surface for the LED flame lights to grab firmly onto to prevent shifting around when moving the lantern (not something we would want to have to fight with on Halloween night). The solution came after finding a set of 3 metal pillar candle dishes that were a perfect fit for the lanterns via Amazon for $14. The metal dish bases were small enough in diameter to not cover up the corner drainage hole in the base of the lanterns. A bead of crazy glue around the raised rim of the hole in the base of the candle lantern secured the candle dish in place. We can now use various different types of pillar candles in the lanterns along with the LED flame lights.

Aediucla Prop Painted

Prop is painted. Had forgotten how thick textured DeckOver paint is and had to cut it with the flat exterior paint we used on the bookcase prop last year. Mixing the two paints gave it a nice multi shade look. Next step is antiquing with watered down flat black exterior paint and shop clothes. The antiquing step will really bring out the details and give more depth to the prop. Skull plaques go on last.

Shrunken Head Prop

We've owned this shrunken head prop for 20 years now. It was last used way back in our 2003 voodoo themed haunt as the head of a witch doctor mannequin and since then has been tucked away in a storage tote until now. For this year's Haunted Bayou theme we wanted to display this shrunken head prop in the swamp witch's cupboard, so we needed to construct a small display stand which still needs to be spraypainted. Also felt it appropriate to close out this post with some voodoobilly music from the band Deadbolt.