Sleepy Hollow

I had about an acre of land at my last house and Halloween has always been my favorite time of the year, since it was the first time I had enough land to really do Halloween up I jumped on it!

It started out with the life-size fiberglass horse I bought, I repainted him and he "came to life" as the headless horseman's horse,
"Dare Devil".
From there I made the "Headless Horseman" out of old clothes and a foam pumpkin head (I used reflective spray paint inside the eyes of the pumpkin)
I then created "Jason" and "Michael Myers" I bought the jumpsuits and masks then built the bodies out of chicken wire and wood.

After that I built "Johnny Appleseed" wearing a "duster" coat and cowboy hat (his body was made from pvc and sticks)
then "Pumpkinrot", was built, at 10' tall, I used pvc as the base pole and I used black cloth to make his outfit and used a foam pumpkin head that I cut out to look sinister.
From there I created a "Demon Skeleton" from a medical grade skeleton, I used paints to age him and pvc was used to create the shape of the wings and black parachute material was used over the wings which I used a reflective spray paint on.
Of course I built a graveyard, with real metal finials on each post, I created the entrance posts with lanterns and battery operated lights inside and what's a graveyard with out a "Grave Digger"? Yup he was created too!
Last but not least was the "Crypt" which I constructed out of 2" x 4"s and insulation boards, my nephew used a dremel and drilled out the lines that I drew to make it look like real blocks, we painted it and added moss, we constructed it so that it could be disassembled easily and stored flat aside from the roof.   I created a "witch" and a friend of mine made me a motorized cauldron which the witch held onto! They were placed inside the crypt. I created both Johnny Appleseed and the witch's heads out of medical grade skulls.

My nephew made the alien creatures and the guillotine set up. The set up was as follows: On land to the left of the house was pumpkinrot, the crypt and Johnny Appleseed. The headless horseman was at the end of the driveway where the back yard begins. Graveyard was in the middle of the grass infront of the house.
Jason and Michael were to the right of the graveyard. The aliens and guillotine were around the side of the house where the road curves. This house
is on a corner lot with no neighbors behind or beside the house.

What's Halloween night w/out scary music and fog? We used 4 fog machines and I set up my stereo in the garage and put a speaker in each window and it played the theme of "Friday the 13th" and the theme song of "Halloween" on a loop. A friend of mine built about 50 battery operated single light black lights and 50 battery operated white lights so I could have the whole set up shown at night without having to use bright exterior house lights. You can see a good example of how these lights looked in the photo of the headstones. We used large movie set light to feature the headless horseman.
I also had my nephew and his friends wear cloaks w/hoods that went into a point to the ground, standing around the yard as "props" they would move occasionally very slow as to make a person think they were seeing things or they would whisper things to people as they walked by a few times they would reach out and lightly touch an adult as they walked by. It sure was a lot of fun doing this for the few years I lived there.

Needless to say most young kids were too afraid to come up to my door so they stayed by the street with one parent and sent the other parent to the door and there were many nights I looked out the window only to find my neighbors and people driving by standing w/the props having their pictures taken. My house was known as the "scary house" we had people coming from neighboring towns after the first year to see it. We started working every year on it in August and had it all set up on October 1st. During the rest of the year Jason and Michael stood facing out of the sliders in the basement it was funny to see them if you were in the backyard! When I sold the house I sold the horse and donated the rest to another fellow Halloween Fanatic and to the city for their Halloween Display!
Below are photos of each prop! Hope you enjoy!

Headless Horseman

I purchased this green fiberglass horse from EBay, he was originally used on the porch of an Antique store, once I got my hands on him he quickly became "Dare Devil". I painted him black then added a white ghost "marking" on his nose. The headless horseman was at the end of my driveway where the drive and backyard met.

Before how he looked when I purchased him

Here is Dare Devil after (with my dog of course!)

Just after I painted the ghost marking!

Johnny Appleseed's Head in the making

Johnny all done!

PumpkinRot!

Demon Skeleton

Making of the Witches Head

Jason
This photo is the original it was not touched up with any graphic software (notice the ghostly head beside Jason's?) Spooked us out when we saw it, But we loved it!