Hung up for Halloween? Here’s Butler County houses to visit for a creepy experience
Creepy monsters and lavish light shows are haunting the Butler area this October as locals dress up their properties in over-the-top Halloween displays to delight passersby.
The well-kept yellow brick home of Scott and Marcia Marshall, on the corner of Mercer and West Brady streets in Butler, has been transformed into a nightmarish landscape inhabited by dozens of ghoulish mannequins, animatronic monsters, animal and bird skeletons and other chilling creatures.
Marcia Marshall said the couple started decorating their small lawn and back deck for Halloween about 10 years ago by placing inflatable ghouls and figurines outside.
The Marshalls eliminated the inflatable characters and added new features every Halloween, but really bumped up their display this year.
The stuff of nightmares in their popular display now includes a 15-foot crow; 15-foot scarecrow with a shriveled pumpkin face; 12-foot skeleton; a talking 8-foot ogre; a headless horseman whose severed head speaks; a life-size grim reaper; a large buck skeleton complete with antlers; a horse skeleton; an 8-foot Frankenstein’s monster with moving hands that emanates haunting quotes from the original movie of the same name; a pavilion containing a party of witches, skeletons, spiders and jack-o’-lanterns that is covered in a light-up spiderweb; creepy giggling twin girls; a rooster and other bird skeletons; a dire wolf; and many other frightening features.
The Marshalls started setting up this year's display at the beginning of September.
“We love the reactions we get,” Marcia said. “I have parents telling me they have to bring their kids every day.”
She said the figures require constant care and maintenance to ensure they are sufficiently scaring passersby during the Halloween season. She pointed to a life-sized witch in her pavilion.
“We have to fix her head,” Marcia said nonchalantly. “It totally turns around and it looks like she’s possessed.”
The Marshalls store some of their creepy creations in their house and others in a garage at a rental property they own.
Marcia said her husband wants to add more features to the display in the future.
“People of all ages have complimented us on it,” she said. “An elderly gentleman driving by stopped and said ‘It’s the best display I’ve ever seen.’”
Just a short drive over the Gen. Richard Butler Bridge reveals a bone-chilling Halloween display in the Meadowood neighborhood, off East McQuistion Road.
Terry Davis said he got his first frightening figure about 28 years ago, placed it on his Oak Ridge Drive property at Halloween and never looked back. He added the first animatronic figure around 25 years ago.
“It just got bigger and bigger every year,” Davis said. “I do it for the trick-or-treaters. They really enjoy it.”
A fog machine, strobe lights and a stereo playing creepy sounds enhance the animatronic Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, zombie, dragon and pair of scarecrows, as well as the plethora of petrifying nonverbal statuary and themed items on his lawn and driveway.
“I know. I'm nuts. But I do it for the kids,” Davis said of his menacing menagerie. “My wife thought I was crazy at first, but guess what? She’s involved now, too.”
Davis also dresses up on trick-or-treat night to playfully scare the children who dare approach his door for a candy bar.
“The kids make me happy, so I'm going to make them happy,” he said.
He begins setting up his display on Oct. 1 and it all comes down immediately after Halloween.
“Then my Christmas stuff goes up,” Davis said.
He stores the Halloween figures and items in his huge display at a storage rental in Butler Township and rents a U-Haul truck to transport them to and from his home.
“The truck is full,” Davis said.
He figures he has spent about $6,000 on his Halloween display and bought some of his figures many years ago at the former Costumes, Etc. on Route 8 in Middlesex Township.
“Those ones would be at least 25 years old,” Davis said.
At least Two Butler Township residents boast light shows to enhance their displays after dark.
Jon Harper's lawn on Evans City Road across from Northwest Elementary School displays what he calls the “pixel forest,” which is comprised of 200 2-foot rebar stakes strung with 1,600 lights.
The posts come alive between 7 and 10:30 p.m., when music playing on a special radio station tuned to the display plays spooky selections that sync up with the blinking, colored lights.
A huge board with 3,500 lights attached to his front porch serves as a screen where videos play to accompany the music. The show appears on a continuous 20-minute loop, seven nights per week during the Halloween season.
“Overall, there are 20,000 lights in the show,” Harper said.
Harper has erected the display — which he built and programmed himself — for the past nine Halloweens.
Cars line up every night along the wide berm in front of his house, which allows motorists to safely pass in the median.
“It’s a lot of work and kind of stressful, but when we hear the kids screaming the songs, it makes it worth it,” Harper said.
“Thriller,” a “KPop Demon Hunters” mashup, “Ghostbusters” and other Halloween-themed tunes are included in the show.
Harper's light show runs from Oct. 1 through the beginning of November, then he sets up a Christmas light show after Thanksgiving.
“We are sad that the Butler Fairgrounds does not have their light display anymore, but we are glad to have a light show to contribute to the community for their holidays,” he said.
He said at least 1,200 cars view the display during the Halloween and Christmas seasons.
Harper maintains the Butler Bright Lights page on Facebook to keep local and regional fans apprised of his homemade, yet professional light shows.
Another local with a flair for the frightening is Patrick McLaughlin, of Sharon Drive in Butler Township.
McLaughlin and his wife, Marcie, received no trick-or-treaters for the first four years they lived at their home, so last year, they set up an archway of moving lights from the road to their front door.
Sure enough, about 100 costumed children showed up requesting goodies be dropped into their pumpkin baskets.
McLaughlin decided to level up this year and set to work building life-sized figures from PVC pipe and chicken wire. He outfits the figures in creepy clothing and a full mask.
Michael Myers, Ghost Face and Jason Vorhees spook onlookers from the McLaughlin front yard alongside a handful of other figures.
A tall Jack Skellington also menaces at the base of a flagpole under moving lights.
Ghost Face is McLaughlin's favorite figure, as a motion sensor causes his head to pivot, and his eyes to turn red starting at 7:30 p.m. each night.
“We want to add more movement and motion to the figures next year,” he said.
The McLaughlins also made tombstones out of foam insulation board by cutting them to size, then painting and engraving them.
“Ghost Face: Always a scream,” and “Michael Myers, 1978 — ? See you Oct. 31st” are the engravings on two of the tombstones. Another pays tribute to the cult horror classic “Night of the Living Dead,” some of which was filmed in Evans City.
McLaughlin summed up the welcoming spirit of those who deck out their properties for Halloween each year.
“Come enjoy it!” he said.
