Sunday, June 3, 2018

The Haunter

Another photo from The Haunter's Hallow'd Ground Haunt.

This shot got me thinking about just how odd a Haunter really is.  It's like we're owners of a weird once-a-year carnival that gets quickly assembled and disassembled before the more sentimental family-friendly holidays arrive.  It's a bit uncivilized, really.  We create strange little movie or stage sets featuring old cemeteries with floating ghosts in crypts and rotting bodies rising from their putrid graves.  Stirring witches and hissing fog machines are like living things to us.  A string of tiny orange lights is like magic.  And pumpkins.  Lord, don't get me started.

But seeing a house like this...  like when you spot one in your neighborhood unexpectedly.  Those fake cobwebs on bushes, or creepy things hanging in trees, or a hand or those legs sticking up out of a lawn.  Or those [still] funny witches smashed into the side of a tree or telephone pole - broom and all.  It's just odd.  And awesome.

And I'm glad we're out here doing it year after year.  Imagine if we weren't.

More photos here.

12 comments:

Unknown said...

I have been following the blog for a long time, and today I see my own haunt featured! I’ve shyed away from commenting, but I absolutely love this blog and it keeps the spirit alive for me year round! I was inspired from a young age to start my own yard display. There was one down the road from me, that had a very impressive display for the time (Late 90s) and that display is what made me want to start my own. My little neighborhood had an unusually large amount of yard haunts, and there was even a walk through maze with black tarps and cobwebs. My own haunt started with two homemade foam tombstones, and a skull sitting between them. Every year I have added and added more and more to the display. After seeing haunts featured online and your blog, I started stepping my game up and started making my own props, and adding branches, twigs, moss to give it a more earthy and less store bought feel. My haunt I feel is a unique blend between the highly detailed haunts, and the cheapo store bought haunts. I look at vintage postcards and photos of the past for inspiration these days. But more than anything, I love the joy and wonder that it brings to the kids. I hope that someday, they like me will see what I made and start making their own display, and keeping the spirit alive.

Rot said...

Thanks for commenting!
LOVE your Haunt. Been on your IG many times checking out your pics.
I think it's stellar work. GREAT photos too.

Anonymous said...

If we Haunters weren’t doing what we do, the world would be a dull and boring place.

Just like Mr. Hebert, I started out small. Then I found this blog, and all the info and inspiration that came with it, I’ve make my own props with little store bought stuff.

Love the pic you have with this post.

Sara said...

Weirdos. :D

Rot said...

haha..you KNOW it.

Willow Cove said...

It's fun to hear how others got the haunting bug and how we all inspire each other!
Weirdos finding weirdos...;)

Anonymous said...

Haha! ;)

girl6 said...

i looked up Haunter & this is what i found.

Word Origin and History for haunter
haunt
n.

"place frequently visited," c.1300, also in Middle English, "habit, custom" (early 14c.), from haunt (v.). The meaning "spirit that haunts a place, ghost" is first recorded 1843, originally in stereotypical U.S. black speech.
haunt
v.

early 13c., "to practice habitually, busy oneself with, take part in," from Old French hanter "to frequent, resort to, be familiar with" (12c.), probably from Old Norse heimta "bring home," from Proto-Germanic *haimat-janan, from *haimaz- (see home). Meaning "to frequent (a place)" is c.1300 in English. Use in reference to a spirit returning to the house where it had lived perhaps was in Proto-Germanic, but it was reinforced by Shakespeare's plays, and it is first recorded 1590 in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Related: Haunted; haunting. Middle English hauntingly meant "frequently;" sense of "so as to haunt one's thoughts or memory" is from 1859.


which left me thinking..
Haunters ARE Ghosts...Living Ghosts that come HOME every October.

Rot said...

that's really kinda awesome.

Anonymous said...

Yup. That explains me pretty well.
But I don’t like to be seen or heard.

I’m a shy guy...........

Willow Cove said...

Aw, Girl 6, that is so cool!
It's cool that we are keeping alive a tradition has been around for many sources many years!

girl6 said...

WC..You guys are True Legends!!! Living Folklore. The Reals.. : )

JS..my mom's favourite saying was.."still waters run deep".
you're great. : )