So one member of FOCM, Jack Minster, a member in good standing shared with me the fun he has at Halloween in his home town. Here is what he shared with me:

I know all the kids in my neighborhood.  However, strangers from other areas bring their kids to my neighborhood on a mission to collect as much candy as they can.  I am not kidding.  It’s a racket for these people.  So I make these little grubbers earn it.  I lure them in with real pumpkin jack-o-lanterns I carved, and interesting “scary” decorations.  But then I activate a remote control device and a very disturbing very loud animatronic ghoul pops up out of the liriope leaves (from laying to standing).  It’s shrieking with eyes blinking.  Kids scream staring at it.  But the noise from this sets off a sound-activated giant animatronic spider which leaps out immediately after, directly behind them making loud “scree” noises.  By now the kids are totally freaked.  Then by the door, rising up out of the ground come more, sound-activated even scarier ghouls saying “Welcome to our graveyard, join us…”

Groups of kids run away screaming, they just bolt, whole herds of them running back down my lawn lacking the courage to follow through and knock.  Last year a group of tween girls made it through the gauntlet of horror, knocked, and I overheard one say, “I will have nightmares from this for the rest of my life.”