The wind blows shadowy images of tree limbs and their leaves on the wall in the faint fall moonlight during the haunting season. I scurry to work in darkness. When light arrives Halloween images appear around me. Scenarios celebrate the season. Most are gruesome while others truly terrify. I’m left to wait for darkness so I’m less afraid of what I can’t see.

Toddler Fear

You can’t help but get a creepy vibe from a doll-like creature posing as a toddler on a front porch. I was wary of getting close. The limbs hanging from ropes out of frame added to my fear. Toddlers are already menacing. What are they saying? What do they want? Usually I can run away but in this case I merely increase my pace and keep moving looking long enough to get one picture.

In my low light mornings, I huff and puff as I walk to work. This comical ghost received a makeover from a fixed lens camera phone that made the image actually ghostly. The mouth is less smile, more ghoulish slash. This inflatable benefits from photographic imperfections that creates an image with a frightening lack of eyes. Blow ups never fail to entertain but they aren’t as threatening as they wish they were.

Webs of Fright

Webbing is decorative. I’ll give it that but is it ever realistic? It may not matter how many plastic spiders you put in it. This web impressed me because it stretched the length of a long row of tall bushes. I wouldn’t have expected this kind of effort.

Get closer and this mammoth spider may elicit a fearful scream. That’s what she was hired to do. One does need to be grateful that a habitat for real spiders can’t be created from synthetic webs

Another example feels more like worms nesting and attacking trees. This is more frightening from a homeowner’s perspective. Perhaps most frightening of all, in the foreground there are potholes on an unfinished street. These are the true nightmare terrors of homeownership: Worms attack as potholes breed.

Hangin’ With Halloween

I can’t resist enjoying visions of hanging ghosts despite how redundant they seem. These spirits are already dead. I get that the purpose of their suspended animation is decoration. Ghosts are a cog in the Halloween machinery and it would be a grimmer experience without them.

Colorful witch hats hanging in a tree caught my eye and my imagination as soon as I noticed them weeks ago. Blinking lights surround purple and orange–a color too close to traffic cones, in a unique display which leaves me to wonder where the witches are but the mystery is part of how this hanging stuff from a tree display goes to the next level.

Toxic Treat

It’s a gruesome sight. I catch it every year and it keeps getting creepier by the minute–that’s every minute I spend time thinking about it. What’s in the barrel? My first thought was nuclear sludge. I spent more time considering. A body being dissolved in acid? Do you see where this is going? That’s just one element of this scene. There’s a body wrapped in duct tape and thick black plastic and a sinister portrait while some mutant attempts to photo bomb my efforts to take a picture.

When Sculpture Haunts

I noticed this decoration and was intrigued that it was on the property of a church. Kind of a knobby kneed fellow who is sporting some nice rain boots. His head is pumpkin orange but it’s not a pumpkin. The skull and bones on the can he holds fits the season. But the board he holds carries no Jesusween proclamation like I was expecting.

Some effort was made to create a scary sculpture around our house and it’s frightening because it’s so weird.

Meanwhile, I continue to wonder about the sign that’s blank. There’s something wrong with this unless he’s actually holding a paddle. What do you expect from Halloween sculptures? Most days you have to enjoy any and all forms of seasonal decor and the unsung efforts that go into producing them. That’s the real spirit of this season.

See another Halloween post: https://portlandorbit.com/2020/10/28/rattling-around-in-their-bones-yet-another-halloween-spooktacular/

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