5 Halloween Displays That Make Us Ask, WTF?
My neighborhood in Brooklyn treats Halloween the way other places do Christmas: They decorate the heck out of their front yards and stoops, lighting up the streets with a pretty/eerie orange and green glow by mid-October. Some go crazy over the top, others have clearly used it as an excuse to get their kids into arts and crafts for an afternoon, and then there’s an annoying third category of people who really half-ass the whole thing with, like, one single bat or a wad of fake cobwebs. Within all three categories, in any neighborhood in the country, there are setups that make us ask, WTF? This is a season that inspires creativity, we get it. It’s just that for some people, a little creativity is a dangerous thing. Here are a few ways Halloween decorations can go so wrong:
1. Zombie Babies
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The point of this holiday, as I see it, is to confront the scary things in life by making fun of them and then getting wasted on sugar. But every October, local news stations across the country comes up with a story about someone’s Halloween display causing neighbors to complain because they’ve “gone too far.” This year’s winner comes from Pittsburgh, where a display that includes baby dolls with bullet holes in their heads is, um, what? There to encourage trick-or-treating? C’mon, dude. It’s a little much. Adult corpses are great. Dead babies, not so much.
2. The World’s Most Incompetent Spiders
This is now the go-to decoration for lazy parents in my ‘hood. As if the scariest thing they can possibly imagine is if the cleaning lady goes on strike and their brownstones get dusty. Spiders are scary, yes. But no self-respecting scary spider is going to vomit neon-green and orange webs all over one tiny segment of fence or a single bush and call it a day. Also, what are these webs made of? It’s probably awful for the landfills.
(Photos: Sabrina Rojas Weiss)
3. Mooning and Flashing Pumpkins
There’s a fine line between “mooning” and looking like you’re ready for a good time from any passerby. The expression on this Jack-o-Lantern’s face pushes him into the latter category.
(Photo: Instagram)
4. Hairy Rats
There’s Halloween parody, and there’s just too darn real. One or two of these guys in your front lawn, and everyone will swap their fears of Ebola for black plague paranoia.
(Photo: Amazon)
5. Sanctimonious Crap
You know what’s a really great way of telling the world you don’t care for Halloween? Not putting up any decorations. Instead, these folks choose to ruin everyone’s good time with a terrible joke. I bet they serve boxes of raisins or toothbrushes to trick-or-treaters, too.
(Photo: Imgur)
