Kaitlyn has never cared much for Halloween, but she dutifully leads her son – dressed as “the Hulk” this year – from door to door so that he can collect candy and see his friends in their costumes. As they pass by an eerie-looking scarecrow, set out in front of an expensively decorated yard, she decides that she has had enough candy and creepiness for one night and tells the boy that they are going home.

Watching them set off down the street in the direction of their house, the scarecrow steps down onto the sidewalk and begins to follow.

______________________________________

When I was a kid, people decorated for Christmas. You’d usually have a couple of houses in the neighborhood that really went all out, but most of it was pretty modest. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation was funny in part because of how over the top the Griswold family decorations were. What was once insane now seems not far from normal. Almost nobody decorated for Halloween.

Now I have neighbors with fake cemeteries in their front yards, giant inflatable ghosts and spiders in and around their house, and I occasionally run into yards that are just a little bit too realistic with their ghoulish decor.

In the event that you walk past one of those “that’s too realistic” houses while you and your offspring are questing for candy, keep your head on a swivel.