Six years they’ve been doing this for.
“It’s the one day a year that I can scare children and get away with it,” Anita Watts told MyPGNow as she stood outside of her Virk Place residence, still piecing together the finishing touches on this year’s haunted display.
For Watts and Rod Cryderman, they put the price tag of their Halloween setup over $10,000.
The couple has so much going on in their display that they took the week off of work.
“Some pieces are a thousand or two (thousand) dollars in cost,” Watts told MyPGNow.
Daytime just doesn’t do it justice, but 5885 Virk Place looks to be the place to be for trick-or-treaters tonight.#CityofPG #Halloween #trickortreat pic.twitter.com/MvjIZqFFGB
— Ethan Ready ?️ (@EthanReady) October 31, 2019
The house is showcasing everything from bats to skeletons, tombstones to archways. And yes, a few jumpscares once the Halloween darkness gets cast across the neighbourhood. Many of the items have been handmade as well, adding to the sentimental value of their entire setup.
When it came to the inspiration behind starting the magnitude of their hollow’s night decorating, Watts said it came by way of the smaller scale of things.
“I was in Michael’s one day, and I saw a little figurine, and I took a picture and sent it to Rod and said we have to build this. that’s what led to the magnitude of it all.”
From there, it exploded. Cryderman admits to looking back at photos from that first year and chuckling at how much things have come, feeling a constant temptation to improve their haunted house year after year.
“Once you do it once, you have to improve on it every year. Get it a little bit better, a little bit scarier, bigger, and faster… make it flashy.”
As for the trick-or-treaters, Watts warned that they can be expecting a lot of moving parts, and maybe… a bit of a thrill.
Whether or not they have enough candy for the night… that’s another story.