Aurora’s Diana family takes “spooky” seriously, transforming their Carlyle Crescent home each October into a haunted house that never fails to enthrall.
This year, however, as they host a walk-through haunted house for the first time since the start of the global pandemic, homeowners Paul and Su are going all out to create “the greatest show on Earth.”
Scary clowns will be the order of the day when they begin welcoming young ghouls, goblins and their families Oct. 29 to 31 from 6 to 9 p.m., at 40 Carlyle.
“This year we’re excited to bring back our walk-through because we haven’t had one in a few years,” says Su. “Paul has great theme ideas and wanted to do clowns and we thought it would be a good idea to do a circus theme with crazy clowns with a lot of lighting effects because we know the community loves that! It’s really about getting the kids excited and we have kids who drive by every day to check us out and see how far we’ve gotten.”
With the ability to take it off their driveway and rebuild the walk-through that so many trick-or-treaters have come to enjoy, there are more opportunities to expand the thrills and chills.
“The elements like rain aren’t a factor; it created havoc over the last few years trying to get everything working, but now that it is enclosed it’s not bad,” says Paul.
“It’s a lot more fun when we have it as a walk-through,” Su agrees.
The first clown you encounter will be right at the very beginning of the haunted walk-through with a “thrashing clown” in the ticket booth. Don’t worry, there’s no cost for admission, but donations to the Aurora Food Pantry are requested.
Last year, the Diana family was able to deliver nearly two pick-up trucks to the local food pantry and they hope that they’ll be able to surpass that this year.
“For me, the success is always seeing the number of kids who come out over the three days that we do it,” says Su. “We collect food for the Aurora Food Pantry, truckloads every year, so the community is super good at bringing out donations for the Food Pantry. It’s a cause near and dear to my heart. We love doing it and the community needs the Food Pantry.”
Now that they’re in crunch time ahead of Halloween, they’ve got their vision set, and now it’s just a matter of putting on the finishing touches.
“Step right up to the Greatest Show,” says Su. “When you take a look at what we have already started to set up, we’ll also have video of some hopefully creepy clowns walking back and forth, projections which are really a lot of fun. People often ask, ‘How do you do this?’ and I think that will always continue. We even have a surprise coming for the centre ring!”
No word on what the surprise might be, but the one teaser they offered was they’ve dubbed this particular centrepiece “Poor George.”
Brock Weir is a federally funded Local Journalism Initiative reporter at The Auroran
